The United States of America is a country where there are no Americans. This paradox dissolves in the face of the reality that the few original Americans who exist live in reservations. The people who call themselves Americans and are recognized as Americans are descendants of immigrants from Europe who since the time of the Mayflower have come to settle in the US. There is another very large group of Americans who are descendants of a group of people who were forcibly brought from Africa to the US. Over the years, there has been a movement of people from Latin America and Asia into the US. At the root of this movement of people to the US is the undoubted economic prosperity of the US, and the image of the US as the land of opportunities. These people have settled and made the US their home and, with a few exceptions, have accepted American culture and civilization. The election of Bobby Jindal as governor of Louisiana is proof of this integration and also of the view that the US is a land where opportunities are open and plentiful. Mr Jindal’s parents are of Indian origin who went to the US. He himself, a convert to Roman Catholicism is all American, and one of the success stories of the US. He went to Brown, an Ivy League university and won the Rhodes scholarship to New College, Oxford. More than India, it is the US that should be proud of Mr Jindal’s rise and success.

Mr Jindal is perhaps the first immigrant Indian to have made good in US politics. This is all the more remarkable since Louisiana is not only one of the poorest states in the US, but also notorious for its racism. Mr Jindal’s win is based on his promise to reduce poverty and to introduce a modicum of efficiency in the administration. The world’s oldest constitutional democracy was haunted for a long time by institutionalised racial discrimination that prevailed in many states. But such hindrances to democracy are a thing of the past. A ‘brown’ man like Mr Jindal can now be a successful Republican, a party known for its social conservatism, and also win elections in a backward state with a relatively recent history of racism. The world’s largest democracy may have a few lessons to learn from the oldest one. In India, political leaders from less-privileged background, like Mayavati, win on the votes of their own caste, rather than as representatives of an open society.