Second Lady Usha Vance listens during the St. Patrick's Day breakfast in Washington, U.S., March 17, 2026. Roberto Schmidt/Pool via REUTERS
An anti-woke WSJ columnist is taking issue with President Donald Trump’s vice president, JD Vance's demeaning attacks on his own wife Usha Vance and roughly a billion other Hindus all over the world.
“Vice President JD Vance caused an uproar this past fall when he expressed his wish that his wife, Usha, a practicing Hindu, would one day follow his spiritual path,” Avatans Kumar, president and trustee of the nonprofit INDICA, wrote Thursday. “Many in the billion-strong global Hindu community were outraged at his declared hope that Mrs. Vance would convert to Catholicism.”
Kumar is still stinging months later, however, complaining that while the so-called religious freedom movement advocates for proselytizing religions like Catholicism and evangelical Christianity, it seems to deprioritize faiths that do not focus on converts.
“The root of this general dismissal of nonproselytizing religions is the dominance of Christianity and Islam,” Kumar explained. “The former is known for promoting evangelism, as seen in Jesus’ directive in Mark 16:15: ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.’ Islam emphasizes dawah, instructing Muslims to invite people to Islam. Muslims ruled large parts of India from the early 13th to the 19th century, and during this era Muslim preachers and Sufi mystics actively proselytized for Islam. The pattern of seeking converts is manifested in the missionary work of both Christianity and Islam.”
He added, “As these forms of faith came down to the present day, they tended to ignore the strain of religions that are mostly nonproselytizing—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto and tribal indigenous traditions. In these nonproselytizing religions, actively seeking new converts serves no theological purpose.”
From there Kumar asserted that Americans who wish to promote religious freedom should not zero in on the conversion-focused faiths to the neglect of others. Not only did this leave certain individuals feeling excluded, but it reeks of the West’s imperialist past.
“Colonialism is closely linked to religious conversion, as British missionaries sought to convert Hindus,” Kumar wrote. “Many British Christians believed their religion was more advanced and enlightened than those of the people they ruled, motivating their missionary activities.”
Kumar’s advocacy of Hindu representation arguably conflicts with his previous opposition to what he described in India Currents as “wokeism.” In his 2024 editorial, he argued that supposed “woke” culture contributed to President Donald Trump’s reelection that year.
“The Democrats, the U.S. legacy media, and wokeism have become synonymous with each other over the past few years,” Kumar wrote. “When the 2024 US election results came out, they all ended up on the losing side, individually and collectively. The thrashing was so comprehensive that it left the Democrats and their surrogates in US media, as well as the out-of-touch Hollywood celebrities, in a state of shock.”
Like Kumar, the Second Lady has publicly associated with right-leaning views. As The Verge’s Gaby Del Valle reported in April, Vance’s recent podcast “Storytime with the Second Lady” seemed to subtly reaffirm conservative gender roles.
“She’s … the latest conservative spouse to pivot to content creation,” Del Valle wrote. “It’s a new front of the ongoing culture wars: Instead of trying to win back supposedly liberal institutions, the right is hell-bent on creating its own. And if these institutions reinforce conservative gender norms, that’s all the better.”