Appointed the head of US national intelligence services, four-time Congresswoman Samoan American Tulsi Gabbard had embraced Hinduism in her teens and draws inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita, placing her hand on which she has always taken oath of office
The first Indian origin US Second Lady Usha will be accompanying her husband Vice President JD Vance
Two high profile ladies associated with the Donald Trump Administration 2.0, one an embraced Hindu and the other of Indian origin, are on their way to India. Head of Department of National Intelligence (DNI), which oversees all US national intelligence agencies like CIA and NSA, Tulsi Gabbard will be visiting New Delhi next week, followed by US Second Lady Usha, accompanying her husband Vice President JD Vance, later in the month.
Though her parents named her Tulsi, after the basil plant revered by Hindus, and all her four siblings too have Hindu names, 43-year-old Tulsi Gabbard, a military veteran and four times Congresswoman in the US, does not trace her roots to India.
She will be in New Delhi as part of a three-nation tour of the Indo-Pacific which will take her to Japan, Thailand and finally India. Sharing this information in a post on X, Gabbard said “Building strong relationships, understanding, and open lines of communication are vital to achieving President Trump’s objectives of peace, freedom and prosperity.”
The US national intelligence chief, along with top intelligence and security officials from around the world, is expected to participate in a security conclave initiated by India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on the margins of the Raisina Dialogue, the country’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-economics.
The security conclave is expected to focus on long-standing concerns such as terrorism, trans-national and financial crimes, cyber-security and emerging technologies, as well as the conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia.
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Tulsi Gabbard is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with Indian officials on the sidelines of the gathering.
She will be the first high-ranking White House official to travel to India after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
According to media reports, the US intelligence chief’s visit is expected to be followed by US Vice President JD Vance, accompanied by Second Lady Usha Vance, later in the month, though there has been no official confirmation from the Indian side yet.
If it happens, it will be Vance’s second foreign trip as Vice President after making a sensational debut at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, where he outlined a blunt new US approach towards its European and NATO allies, sending ripples across the world.
During his first tour, he also travelled to France to participate in an AI Action Summit, on the sidelines of which he briefly met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Later Modi departed for the US to meet President Trump for their first bilateral meeting after Trump’s inauguration.
The US President is expected to visit India later this year for the Quad leaders’ summit.
About Usha Vance
The first Indian American Second Lady of the United States, Usha Vance, daughter of Krish Chilukuri and Lakshmi Chilukuri who emigrated from Hyderabad, India to the US in the late 1970s, grew up in a San Diego suburb.
A graduate from Yale Law School, she is a litigator in the San Francisco and Washington DC offices of law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, her practice focusing on complex civil litigation and appeals in a wide variety of sectors, including higher education, local government, entertainment, and technology.
Earlier she also clerked for US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
At law school she studied alongside JD Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy, a challenger to Donald Trump in the presidential primaries of the Republican party who later dropped out of the race and supported Trump.
The Vance couple was married in 2014 in Kentucky and were blessed by a Hindu priest at a separate event.
The Vances are making home with their three children – sons Ewan and Vivek, and the youngest a daughter named Mirabel – in Cincinnati.
Prior to law school, Usha, then Usha Chilukuri, received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale and a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
Before entering law school, she taught American history as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.
Usha proved crucial to JD Vance’s ascent, especially while he was at Yale, and she helped him structure his ideas on the social demise of rural white America. These concepts served as the basis for JD Vance’s autobiography, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which Ron Howard made into a movie in 2020 and propelled him into limelight.
More About Tulsi Gabbard
Born in 1981 in the tiny village of Laloaloa on Tutuila island, American Samoa, the farthest location from US in the South Pacific, halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, Tulsi Gabbard is the daughter of a Catholic and a Hindu convert. Her father Mike Gabbard has both Samoan and European Ancestry and her mother Carol Porter Gabbard was born in Indiana and spent her childhood in Michigan.
Tulsi’s mother Carol was raised in a multi-cultural household and got interested in Hinduism. She converted to Hinduism before Tusli was born. All her five children have Hindu names – Bhakti, Jai, Aryan, Tulsi and Vrindavan.
The family moved to Hawaii when Tulsi was just two years old.
From early age Tulsi was introduced to deep spiritual teachings, especially from the ancient Indian epic Bhagavad Gita which shaped her understanding of the principles of ‘karma’ and duty.
She fully embraced Hinduism as her faith when she was in her teens.
Tulsi, and the Gabbard family have long been connected to the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), a spiritual organisation rooted in the Vaishnav Hindu tradition. When the family moved to Hawaii, they became members of a community of disciples surrounding the SIF founder who further had ties to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
In her early years Tulsi viewed SIF founder Chris Butler, also known as Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa, as her mentor describing him as a spiritual guide akin to a Vaishnav Hindu priest.
Tulsi Gabbard describes herself as a “Vaishnav Hindu” and is a devotee of Lord Krishna.
An Army National Guard veteran, Gabbard was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2012. She is the first Hindu ever elected to Congress; and one of the first two female combat veterans ever to serve in Congress.
In 2013, she was the first Congresswoman to swear in by placing her hand on her personal copy of the Bhagavad Gita, explaining that its teachings have inspired her to strive to be a servant-leader, dedicating her life in the service of others and to her country.
“My Gita has been a tremendous source of inner peace and strength through many tough challenges in life, including being in the midst of death and turmoil while serving our country in the Middle East,” she had said.
Tusli Gabbard has been an integral part of the Hindu community in the US and is a prominent participant in all festivals and religious ceremonies.
