Haunted By Election Day? Diwali Offers Hope for Christians
Having Faith in a Season of Fear
By Dr. Ashish Varma, Indian American theologian based in Chicago, IL.
'Twas Halloween and the ghosts were out
And everywhere they'd go, they shout
And though I covered my eyes I knew
They'd go awayBut fear's the only thing I saw
And three days later 'twas clear to all
That nothing is as scary as election dayBut the day after is darker
And darker and darker it goes
Who knows, maybe the plans will change
Who knows, maybe he's not deranged . . .
So begins Norah Jones’s song “My Dear Country.” Non-Norah Jones fans might understandably assume that she recently released this song, exposing her political proclivities, although the proximity of Election Day to Halloween would be askew, for this year, Election Day arrives five days after Halloween, not three. Yet this song appears on her third studio album, released in 2007. Still, the lyrics are oddly applicable, as though the song fell out of a time machine. Or, perhaps, our hyper-awareness of the present leads us in the U.S. toward similar conclusions every 4 years: “…nothing is as scary as election day.”
For the present, I am not interested in the question of whether the 2024 election cycle holds special significance for the future of the American political status quo. For now, I’m more interested in the social geography of the election and the possibility the Indian diaspora might offer for it. My choice in leading this essay with Norah Jones is two-fold:
First, and more obviously, election day is scary, especially in a two-party landscape. In a binary situation, it is easy—dare I say, inevitable—that the two primary camps situate themselves in opposition to each other, sowing division and even hate. Of course, the opposition remains within a shared imagination of the cultural, social, and political moment. That is, both sides of the upcoming election claim to be fighting for “democracy,” “economy,” “God’s ways of goodness,” and the global supremacy of the “American idea.” Red and blue represent competing visions that stand in opposition within this social landscape. For the losing side, then, the “day after is darker.”
Second, I chose Norah Jones because of who she is and what she represents. There is more to Norah than meets the presumptive eye. Regardless of the degree to which she embraces the label, Norah is Indian American, which makes her acquaintance with the U.S. political system and Election Day one of adoption, at least on her father’s side.1 Election Day for Norah and many Asian Americans sits in a history of long passage, not meant for us until relatively recently in the development of “America.” South Asians have notably risen to prominence in the latest political cycle, having had two candidates vying for the Republican presidential ticket (Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy) and, of course, having the Democratic nominee, current vice-president Kamala Harris. A mere 100 years ago, south Asians sought to “prove” that they were “white” before the judicial system to receive the rights of American citizens; today, we seek the highest office in the land.
More to the second reason, though, like Norah, most of us slide under the radar. While my skin color and name keep me from “blending in” the way Norah might, I understand the pull that used to drive my attempts to seem like a “normal” American (read, “white” American). I still see the impulse in many Indian Americans who spent years avoiding my classes merely because they did not want to be the Indian who took the courses of the Indian professor. I know this both because I recognized the impulse and because some of them would later admit it. Personally, when I was a college student, I avoided the Indian student fellowship because of the same desire to blend in with “normal” Americans.
The impulse is even greater among Indian American Christians. There is a sense, for better or for worse, that Jesus welcomes all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, and gender. Of course, the sense is right at its best. The gravitas of Jesus was precisely such that people who do not otherwise belong together were and are joined together in his presence and body: Jews and Greek, rich and poor, Sadducees and lepers, and today, white, black, and brown. But practically, in its imperfection, such meshing is precisely the problem, for despite our well-meaning in labeling the “white, black, and brown” and the “Indian, the American, and the Indian American,” our Christian identities tend to presume a sense of normalcy that is more culturally (and racially) shaped than it is Jesus-shaped. Specifically, American Christian identity tends to be shaped by the sense of normalcy of a racial group—that is, “white” Christianity—that passes its issues, beliefs, and policies along as though they were the fullest and only really Christian way of navigating society. In other words, our perception of horrors and the “dark” day after Election Day tend to reflect the impulses of a specific cultural and racial view of the event, which begs the question of whether arrival on a presidential ticket means Asian Americans have “arrived” or have instead dissolved their distinctiveness, successfully “blending in.”
For instance, as we look at Election Day, we already know that the overwhelming majority of self-identified Christians will vote for one particular party. Many have been given to believe that one party rightly deserves the Christian vote because it is the protector of our Christian values. Yet the truth of such congruence is far from obvious, as historians have labored to show us.2 My point is not to wade into those political waters and polarities; instead, I seek to remove the easy, cultural lens that obscures Indian American identities (and all AAPI peoples) in the name of normalcy.
Being a Christian is complex, as we see in the entire New Testament, where the overwhelming recurring question is whether Gentiles have to become Jewish to follow Jesus. The answer is an unequivocal No. The same remains true today: Asian American Christians do not have to become generically American (conservative or liberal) to follow Jesus, never mind to participate in the adopted rights of citizenship, including the ones tied to Election Day.
This means that Asian Americans should not be easy to categorize as “red” or “blue,” and Asian American Christians should be able to imagine an Election Day without merely falling in line with a generic statistic about political parties and religious communities. Perhaps, if we brought our distinctiveness to the arena, we might be able to look at Election Day as a different kind of choice to present different kinds of candidates that reflect more than a certain cultural binary. Rather than be shaped by political parties, Asian Americans could resist assimilation and, instead, pressure the parties to morph.
This close to Election Day, options are limited, but possibilities are abundant for future cycles. And, perhaps, the current cycle already presents alternatives to a cultural binary. While the case could be made that some or many Indian Americans in the 2024 election cycle blended in too smoothly with prevailing party ideals, one or more of the candidates certainly offered glimpses of being meaningfully shaped by other imaginations.
One example might lie hidden amid the amusing irony that Norah Jones places Election Day so closely upon the heels of Halloween. As she rightly muses, the cultural practice of Halloween trades on fear and whimsey, interwoven in the name of commerce. After all, in its current form, the goal is wealth for the managers of the costume, makeup, decorations, and candy industries. Halloween itself offers little fright, except for the few who visit a haunted house, or for those who peer behind the curtain of the whimsey and find the economic and ecological exploitation at work in the industries that profit from Halloween. The added irony for Christians ought to be the faded mirror that reflects All Saints Eve to our commercial selves in the form of Halloween, such that many forget just how devotional Halloween has been and could be. The faint reflection of All Saints Eve might present a liturgy of hope outside of fear that could resituate Election Day as something less powerful in our imagination of God’s creation.
For the people of India, far from either Halloween or a hallowed Election Day ensconced on the “first Tuesday after the first Monday of November in even-numbered years,” a different important day lands between Halloween and Election Day: Diwali.
U.S. elections certainly affect India and other countries in the global theater, but in India, Diwali looms over any thought of U.S. Election Day. As I’ve reflected in previous years, Diwali functions differently in the immigrant consciousness. As the festival commemorates the victory of light over darkness, it potentially presents a unique witness for Indian American Christians.3 Between the horror manufactured by the commercial and the horror five days after, we have the cosmic hope of Jesus Christ, offering an alternative ordering of creation.
With the fading of All Saints Eve into the sphere of commerce, Indian Christians can renew a view of the season that does not grant it ultimate power on the day after, for though, perhaps, “the day after is darker / and darker and darker it goes,” between Halloween and Election Day, we can point to a light that casts out the darkness. After all, “God is light” in whom “there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Indeed, because of the work of God in Jesus the Messiah, “the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8).
Election Day does not need to be a day of despair, regardless of the outcome, so long as Christians can see the fullness of the Diwali message manifest in Jesus as the impetus to walk in the light, which is to say the way of love. Contrary to the divisive message of Election Day, which can only bring division as it sows hate, between Halloween and Election Day, Diwali presents Indian American Christians with the opportunity to model what is often missing in American confession of Jesus: the love of Jesus. The apostle John reminds us that “whoever claims to live in [Jesus] must live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6). Subsequently, that very life of love replicated in Jesus’s followers is the life that lives in the light of Jesus, overcoming the darkness (1 John 2:9-10).
It can be easy to see the call to Diwali and away from Election Day as a call away from civic life, including voting. Neither is at all my charge. Nor do I call for voters to write “Jesus” into their ballots. For my part, I certainly have my political proclivities and prefer one major candidate over the other, but my preference is not the point. Rather, the call is to move away from a system that has captured much of the American church into a false political piety.
If the church can too easily be identified with a single party, then the church has probably allowed itself to become a tool of division and hatred, in which case, indeed, “nothing is as scary as election day,” for “the day after is [in fact] darker.”
The proximity to All Saints Eve should offer the American church a corrective. Unfortunately, for much of the American church, the reduction to Halloween has meant a struggle between consumerist dynamics and reductive fear of witches—for both of these poles, “fear’s the only thing I saw.” However, the hidden holiday and the possibilities created by South Asian immigration offer another way, nestled between the other two. I hope that the hope of the light of Jesus that swallows up all darkness, can help us conclude with Norah,
I love the things that you've given me
And most of all that I am free
To have a song that I can sing
On election day.
Dr. Ashish Varma is an Indian American theologian based in Chicago, IL. His dissertation work explored theological grounding for virtue ethics. In recent years, his research has sat at the intersection of theological engagement with race and ecology, writing and speaking on both. Additionally, he edited and contributed to A Praying People, a collection of essays on prayer (Wipf & Stock, 2023).
Norah’s birth name, Geethali Norah Jones Shankar, reflects her paternal heritage—the daughter of Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar. I don’t pretend to know how significant Norah’s Indian heritage is to her. On her podcast Norah Jones Is Playing Along, she sits down with her sister, Anoushka Shankar, and offers a glimpse of their beautiful relationship with each other and their father, Ravi (episode from April 2023). The sisters have also collaborated musically a handful of times. Clearly, her Indian heritage means something to her, but the extent of this is beyond my knowledge and outside the scope of this essay.
For one sketch of the deeply and specifically cultural and racial dynamics that have shaped conservative American Christian identity for the last 45 years, see Randall Balmer, “The Real Origins of the Religious Right,” Politico (May 2014). https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/.
See also my further theological reflections upon Diwali:
