Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy took the stage for his “You’ve Been Brainwashed Tour” for Turning Point USA at Penn State’s Spark building on Thursday, October 17. After calling off his presidential bid earlier this year, the Indian-origin American entrepreneur has taken charge as an advisor in conservative circles.
Ramaswamy addressed hundreds in the crowd, opening up about his background, college experience, and eventual debut as a politician. The discussion led to a question-and-answer segment, as the Republican leader encouraged students to vote and stand up to censorship, as highlighted by Pennsylvania State University’s digital campus newspaper, The Collegian.
The Q&A session particularly saw a man stepping out to question the Republican politician’s Hindu faith and how it fits into the US. The event attendee accused Ramaswamy of drawing comparisons between Hindu gods and Jesus Christ. He held him accountable for not publicly declaring his Hindu identity throughout the lecture until other men asked him about his faith. He also asserted that Ramaswamy’s omission would have led the majority of people present in the room to think that he was talking about “the only true God, Jesus Christ.”
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He further pushed the American politician to clarify his religious stance and which God he was alluding to in his address, but he didn’t do so without possibly offending the Republican leader in the room. Nevertheless, Ramaswamy kept his cool and offered the eventgoer the room to speak at length as he continued to batter him with accusations.
Vivek Ramaswamy butts heads with an audience member at the Penn State University Turning Point USA event
“I’ve got a couple of observations that I want to make, and then I was wondering if you would respond to them,” the person began. “So, the first one is that throughout the course of the lecture, you talked an awful lot about God and faith. And there were some men that came up here and they asked you about your Hindu religion. But my suspicion is if they didn’t mention that, you would have omitted who that God was throughout the course of the entire lecture. And most of the people in this room here would leave thinking you were talking about the only true God, Jesus Christ,” the student asked the Republican leader.
He continued, “God has a name and Hinduism is a wicked, pagan religion, and it’s completely incompatible with America. Everyone in this entire room is a Christian, they believe in Jesus Christ. You’ve attempted to create this parallel however tenuously between Christian moral principles and these Hindu values. You look in sacred scripture and you see that all the gods of the Gentiles are devilous and there’s only one name under heaven that can give you salvation.” Midway through his message, some other people in the audience presumably reacted strongly to the student’s claims. Ramaswamy merely put on a faint smile on his face and urged others not to interrupt him and “let him speak.”
Ultimately, the student concluded, “So, my big question is, and you’ve talked about being forthright and transparent, my suspicion is that you would have omitted who that God was when you were speaking here tonight had you not explicitly been asked about Hinduism. So my challenge to you going forward would be to say who this God is?”
Ramaswamy then picked up his mic again and began, “It’s okay. I’ve had a lot of harsh challenges than this one, so don’t pat yourself on the back too hard there. Don’t want you to sprain your back with that one.” The audience quickly broke into applause. “I don’t want you to go with a back sprained,” the former presidential candidate quipped.
His actual answer started thereafter, as he dismissed the student’s suspicion. “You run for US President at the age of 37. As somebody who’s been in business, who’s actually…easiest thing to call myself, some Vic Ramsey and pretend to be a Christian, got other people on that debate stage last time who shortened their names and called themselves to be a Christian, too. I man up and tell you who I am, and believe me, your suspicion is off base. Listen to any number of the campaign speeches I gave over thousands of them over the course of the last year. So, we can take the disingenuous accusation off the table, but level with what I do think is an interesting coming,” Ramaswamy said.
As he went on, he referenced the third US President Thomas Jefferson, who “was considered a Deist, subscribing to the liberal religious strand of Deism that values reason over revelation and rejects traditional Christian doctrines, including the Virgin Birth, original sin and the resurrection of Jesus,” according to PBS.org.
The student interrupted Ramaswamy half-way, saying that he never “volunteered” the information about his Hindu religion, rather it had to be “pried out” of him. The Republican politician declared that a “false” accusation. He continued, “So watch about the last presidential campaign of last year. And you apparently have had your head stuck in the sand where it need not belong. Now, what I think we need more of in our American politics is less of questioning the motivations of what somebody is and get to the content of where there’s an actual difference of opinion. So the question of whether or not somebody of a non-Christian faith can embody and lead the United States of America at a meaningful level is an open question. Thomas Jefferson is on the other side of the question from you. Thomas Jefferson was not a traditional Christian. Do you know what the Jefferson Bible is?”
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In his response, the student called Jefferson “an enemy of Christianity.” Ramaswamy instantly butted in and replied, “So, this is where we disagree.” The two butted for a while again, leading Ramaswamy to his next statement, “If you believe that Thomas Jefferson as a Deist would’ve been unqualified to be US president, then I guess you and I see the future of the United States of America differently. It so happens that he was the person who signed this document called the Declaration of Independence, which is the greatest mission statement known to a country in the history of mankind, without which the United States of America would not exist. He was the third US president who signed the Lewis and Clark Expedition, without which we literally wouldn’t have the United States of America, so if you view him as some kind of deviant who should’ve never been in the US presidency that’s a permissible point of view. It’s just not one that I don’t share. And my view is very similar to that of Thomas Jefferson is that it’s the commitment to the constitution that matters whether or not you’ll lead the country. The beauty of our nation is that we’re able to have different points of view and earnestly engage in an open exchange.”
Vivek Ramaswamy’s previous responses when confronted about his faith in the US
Contrary to the student’s claims at the Penn State event this week, Ramaswamy has actually been outspokenly proud about his Hindu faith. In September 2023, Ramaswamy was again confronted about his religion in New Hampshire, as reported by NBC News. His answer reiterated the significance of religious liberty in the US. “I’m Hindu, and I’m proud of that. I stand for that without apology. I think I’m going to be able to be more ardent as a defender of religious liberty,” he said.
Later, during The Family Leader Forum event, the then-first-time candidate again said, “My faith is what gives me my freedom… my faith is what led me to this presidential campaign actually.”
He added, “I am a Hindu. I believe that God is true. God has sent us here for a purpose. It is our duty to realise the purpose of God. It is our moral duty. The core of our religion is that God resides in all of us.”
“Those are God’s instruments that work through us in different ways, but we are still equal because God resides in each of us. That’s the core of my faith.”
In December 2023, Ramaswamy’s faith was scrutinised again at the CNN Townhall. An audience member questioned him, “What do you say to those who say to you that you cannot be our president because your religion is not what our founding fathers based our country on.”
At one point in his address, the then-presidential candidate noted, “Would I be the best president to spread Christianity through this country, no I would not be the perfect choice for that.”
Instead, he highlighted, “My job will be to make faith, patriotism cool in this country.”
Reactions to Vivek Ramaswamy being questioned at the October 2024 Penn State event
The Indian side of X/Twitter was especially shaken by the student’s accusations against the Republican leader and his description of Hinduism as a “wicked, pagan religion.”
A user tweeted about how India was often dragged as a country defined by communal violence even though people would never vehemently take aim at political leaders belonging to religious minority communities and their faiths in such a way. “No one in India has ever said “Your religion is wicked…” to Christian Sonia Gandhi or Muslim Owaisi to their face. Yet, India is communal & US is secular, they wrote on X.
Meanwhile, some people praised Ramaswamy for handling the question “elegantly.” On the flip side, a chunk of X users cross-questioned the admin who posted about the Indian picture, saying that bigots in the country had their own ways of enacting violence.
Yet a few others directly commented under Ramaswamy’s post about how he “replied with a generic statement” instead of addressing the question at hand. “He asked you why you keep concealing your true religion to trick stupid republicans who just accept whatever slop candidate they push on us. You replied with a generic statement about the founding fathers (who would be disgusted if they knew someone like you ran for president). The “teaching moment” is that the guy asking the question is right, and you’re just an interloper who doesn’t understand our religion or foundational history. The GOP sucks,” a user wrote.
