Nikki Haley

Washington, Sept. 13: Reshma Saujani faces big obstacles in her race for Congress. She’s a novice trying to unseat veteran New York Representative Carolyn Maloney in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

She is a former hedge-fund lawyer running for office in a year President Obama and other Democrats have vilified Wall Street.

She also is trying to become the first Indian-American woman in Congress.

Saujani is one of a record six Indian-American candidates running for the US House of Representatives this year. A seventh Indian-American, Nikki Haley, who was born Nimrata Randhawa, is the Republican nominee for South Carolina governor.

Kamala Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and a black father, is a candidate for state attorney-general in California. All but Haley are Democrats.

“As America becomes more multi-ethnic, we are bound to see more candidates of diverse ethnicity,” says David Wasserman, an analyst for the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

The uptick illustrates a political coming-of-age for Indian Americans, who make up less than 1 per cent of the US population but are among the most affluent and well-educated immigrant groups in the US.

Nearly 38 per cent of Indian Americans held advanced degrees in 2008 compared with 10.2 per cent of the US population in general, according to the most recent US Census Bureau figures.

“This is a community that has done financially and professionally well and has the resources to serve as a springboard for these candidates,” says Udai Tambar, an Indian-American political organiser who helped found the New York chapter of South Asians for Obama.

Saujani says the election of Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and white mother, also gave hope to other children of immigrants that political breakthroughs were possible. “I think that Obama demonstrated that even if you have a funny name, you can run,” she says.

As she campaigns in a district that takes in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and parts of Queens, Saujani touts her history as the daughter of Indian parents who fled Uganda in 1972 to escape Idi Amin’s repression of foreigners. No one has looked askance at her bid for elective office in a city where “everybody is the daughter or son of an immigrant”, says Saujani, 34.

Maloney, first elected to the seat in 1992, on Friday received the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton. The race has been closely watched, in part, because Saujani has raised nearly $1.4 million, a considerable amount for a first-time challenger. Maloney has taken in more, nearly $2.8 million.

In other contests, charges of racism have intruded. In Wichita, where Democratic state Representative Raj Goyle is running for an open US House seat, controversy erupted last month after Republican rival Mike Pompeo’s campaign posted a link on its Twitter feed and Facebook page to a blog that called Goyle a “turban topper” and Obama an “evil Muslim communist”.

The link was removed, and Pompeo apologised, saying it does not reflect his views.

Other Indian-American candidates for the US House: Manan Trivedi, who is challenging Representative Jim Gerlach; Ami Bera, who is opposing Representative Dan Lungren; Surya Yalamanchili, running against Representative Jean Schmidt; and Ravi Sangisetty, seeking an open seat in Louisiana.

Only two Indian Americans have been elected to Congress. California’s Dalip Singh Saud, a Democrat and naturalised American citizen, served in the House from 1957 to 1963. Republican Bobby Jindal was elected to a House seat from Louisiana in 2004.

The growth in candidates this fall doesn’t necessarily mean that the US House will be home to a record number of Indian Americans, says Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist at the University of California-Riverside and an expert on immigrant politics. “I don’t expect that most of them will win, and it has nothing to do with the fact that they are Indian Americans,” he says.