Top 9 Indians Who Have Served As Political Leaders Around The World

Top 9 Indians Who Have Served As Political Leaders Around The World

Top 9 Indians Who Have Served As Political Leaders Around The World

Rishi Sunak and Kamala Harris’s success stories are not unique; rather, they are an example of the widespread political success that people of Indian descent have achieved in the West, rising to positions of power and commanding such influence in politics that every major party seeks them out. These two appointments had a lot of symbolic meaning.

Harris was the first woman, a person of color, and a person of Indian heritage to hold the office of vice president for the country. Sunak has Indian ancestry and is a devout Hindu. He is president of the country where his fellow country people were originally colonized as part of a racist “civilising mission”  or can referred as “the white man’s burden.”

There is a long list of presidents of state and governments in more than twenty sovereign nations that are either wholly or primarily of Indian ancestry. Many Indians have gained top leadership positions in the administrations of big countries like the US, Canada, and others.

Examples include Leo Varadkar, the former first Prime Minister of Ireland of Indian heritage, and Kamala Devi Harris, the current vice president of the US. More than 3 crore NRIs and OCIs reside abroad, and 200+ people of Indian heritage already hold positions of leadership significance in 15 other countries, according to a report from the Ministry of External Affairs.

Some of the well-known names on the list are listed below:

1. Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak made history on Diwali when King Charles III named him the nation’s first Prime Minister of Indian heritage after he was unanimously elected as the new leader of the ruling Conservative Party. The 42-year-old former Chancellor of the Exchequer is a devout Hindu and the country’s youngest prime minister in 210 years. He is also the nation’s first Hindu prime minister of Indian descent. Sunak has been a member of the Richmond (Yorks) Conservative Party since 2015.

In 2001, Sunak attended Winchester College and enrolled in  Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program at Lincoln College in Oxford. As a Fulbright Scholar, Mr. Prime minister (42 years old) completed his MBA at Stanford University in 2006. In the financial services of Goldman Sachs, Sunak served from 2001 to 2004 as an Analyst. In 2006, he joined with the hedge fund management firm as a partner for the Children’s Investment Fund Management. In addition, Sunak held a directorship at Catamaran Ventures, the investment law firm run by his father. Later that week, Sunak announced his bid for the position of prime minister after taking the first two rounds of the Conservative party contest.

 

2. Kamala Harris

 

The 49th vice president of the United States (2021-), Kamala Harris, whose full name is Kamala Devi Harris, was born in Oakland, California, in 1964. She worked in the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden. She was the first woman and African American to hold the role. She formerly served as the attorney general of California and in the US. Senate.

Her mother was a cancer researcher and her mother’s father, a Jamaican professor who taught at Stanford University, was the daughter of an Indian ambassador. Maya, her younger sister, went on to campaign for public policy. Kamala received a B.A. in political science and economics from Howard University before graduating with a law degree (1989) from Hastings College.

Harris became the second Black woman and the first Indian American senator when she got elected on

January 2017. She started working on multiple projects, including the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Judiciary Committee. Her prosecutorial approach gained her fame across the nation when interrogating witnesses in front 

of the committee, which garnered criticism—and occasionally interruptions—from Republican senators. 

She received a lot of attention in June due to her innate curiosity in the political arena of U.S. Shortly after this

Shortly after, Harris declared her intention to run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. She earned recognition when, during a primary discussion, she got into a heated argument with fellow candidate Joe Biden. She was seen as one of the front runners from the beginning. She officially left the Senate on January 18. 

Two days later, in front of a sizable security contingent, Harris took the oath of office as vice president.

3. Mohamed Irfaan

 

On August 2, 2020, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali took the oath of office as Guyana’s ninth executive president. 

Dr. Ali is one of his parents’ two sons, who are also teachers. He was born on April 25, 1980, in Leonora, West 

Coast Demarara, to Muslim Indo-Guyanese parents. His early schooling was finished at St. Stanislaus College

after beginning at Leonora Nursery and Primary Schools and continuing at Cornelia Ida Primary School.

Dr. Ali holds a doctorate in urban and regional planning from the University of the West Indies, a master’s degree inin manpower planning, an LLM in international commercial law from the University of Salford, a post-graduate certificate in finance from Anglia Ruskin University, and a bachelor’s degree in business management with honors from the University of Sunderland. Additionally, he belonged to the Project Management Professional PMP organization and the Canadian Institute of Management until 2017.

 

He formerly held the positions of Senior Planner at the State Planning Secretariat and Project Manager for the Project Implementation Unit of the Caribbean Development Bank in the Ministry of Finance. In 2006, he was elected to Guyana’s National Assembly, after which he was given the portfolios of Minister of Housing and Water and Minister of Tourism, Industry, and Commerce. During his tenure at the Ministry of Housing, he carried out the largest endowment drive in the nation’s history, which was supported by a vast lot distribution to residents of all socioeconomic classes and geographic areas.

 

4. Pravind Jugnauth

 

Mauritius’ Prime Minister is Pravind Jugnauth. Jugnauth has held numerous cabinet positions throughout  their more than a 30-year political career. A member of the Militant Socialist Movement Party since the 1990s  Jugnauth has led the MSM party since April 2003.

He promoted hydroponics and other agricultural production techniques while serving as the agriculture minister from 2000 to 2003. He also reforms the sugar industry. When Pravind Kumar Jugnauth was the finance minister He increased the rates at which basic goods and products were subsidized, lowered taxes on several number of goods, and even provided wage compensation for two years. Following Paul Berenger’s resignation in 2014, Jugnauth was requested to lead the opposition by then-President Kailash Purryag.

 

He also held the office of Leader of the Opposition for three months before taking over as Minister of Information Technology. 

 

Pravind Kumar Jugnauth was chosen by his party, the MSM, to preside over the National Assembly in 2017. 

Pravind Kumar Jugnauth has consistently worked to defend the sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, which is in contention between the United Kingdom and Mauritius, ever since he took office in 2019. Jugnauth criticized the United Kingdom and the United States for their hypocrisy after the International Court of Justice in The Hague announced a ruling in favor of the Mauritian government.

 

5.  Indranee Rajah

 

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office is Ms. Indranee Rajah. She serves as the second minister for both 

finance and national development. The 14th Parliament’s Leader of the House is Ms. Rajah. 

Since 2001, she has served as a representative for the Tanjong Pagar Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

Before entering the government, she worked as a senior counsel and attorney in private practice.

She co-chaired Committees on Family Justice, the establishment of the Singapore International Commercial 

The court and the Committee to Strengthen Singapore as an International Centre for Debt Restructuring as part of her legal portfolio from 2012 to 2018.

Additionally, she served as co-chair of the Penal Code Review Committee, whose proposals resulted in significant changes to the Penal Code, including improved protections for women and the weak. Ms. Indranee Rajah serves as the minister in the prime minister’s office. She acts as the second minister for both national development and finance.

Ms. Rajah is the Speaker of the House of the 14th Parliament. She has represented the Tanjong Pagar Group  

She has represented the Tanjong Pagar Group Representation Constituency since 2001. (GRC). She was a senior counsel and attorney in private practice before joining the government.

 

6. Harjit Sajjan

 

Minister Sajjan served in the Vancouver Police Department for 11 years, mostly in South Vancouver. He worked as a detective with the gang crime section till the end of his career. He took part in four operational deployments with the British Columbia Regiment, one to Bosnia and three to Afghanistan. The Right Honorable Harjit S. Sajjan was first chosen to represent Vancouver South in the House of Representatives in 2015. From 2015 to 2021, he was the national defense minister.

When he was five years old, Minister Sajjan and his family left India for Canada. He benefited from South Vancouver’s diverse and culturally rich environment when growing up as a child there. Serving people has been a pillar of Minister Sajjan’s life. He has long been an advocate for adolescent education and mentoring initiatives. He is a former detective with the Vancouver Police Department and a retired lieutenant colonel with the British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught’s Own). With his wife and two kids, Minister Sajjan has resided in Vancouver for quite a long time now.

7. Vivian Balakrishnan

 

Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan. Serving as the Minister-in-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, the Minister of the Environment and Water Resources, and the Minister of Community Development, Youth, and Sports. He has served as Minister of State for National Development, Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Minister-in-Charge of Entrepreneurship, and Second Minister for Information, Communications, and the Arts.
the past. He was also previously Minister-in-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative. He has been a member of parliament since 2001.

 

In 2018, the leaders of the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea met in Singapore for 

historic Singapore Summit. MFA launched its greatest consular operation to repatriate Singaporeans who re stuck abroad during the COVID-19 outbreak. Singapore also serves as co-chair of the COVAX Facility, which promotes vaccine multilateralism and universal access to COVID-19 vaccinations. Between 2011 and 2015, Dr. Balakrishnan served as a ministerial facilitator for numerous rounds of negotiations at the United Nations that resulted in the Paris Agreement on climate change. He introduced the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act in 2014 in an effort to punish infringing domestic and foreign haze-causing organizations.

 

Throughout his political career, Dr. Balakrishnan introduced several important initiatives and concepts. The desalination capacity was hugely widened by him and also the NEWater production at the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. To ensure that everyone has access to a variety of delectable, affordable, and informal food options and thriving opportunities were given to local people, he restarted the construction of new hawker centers in 2011 after a 26-year hiatus.

 

8. Anita Anand

 

Anita Anand served as the Member of Parliament for Oakville in 2019. She has held the position of 

minister of public services and procurement in the past. She was up in a small town in Nova Scotia to Ontario in 1985.

A dedicated leader with a track record of leadership, Minister Anand. She has held positions on the boards of the Oakville Hospital Foundation, the Lighthouse Program for Grieving Children, and Oakville Hydro Electricity Distribution Inc. in her hometown of Oakville. As a scholar, attorney, and researcher, Minister Anand has worked. 

She has experience teaching law, including serving as the J.R. Kimber Chair in Investor Protection and Corporate Governance at the University of Toronto. She held the positions of Associate Dean, Director of Policy and 

Research at the Capital Markets Research Institute, Rotman School of Management, and Member of the 

Governing Board of Massey College. Additionally, she has taught law at Queen’s University, Yale Law School, and Western University.

In addition to often appearing in the media , Minister Anand has conducted an in-depth study on the regulation of financial markets, corporate governance, and shareholder rights.

 

9. Chandrikapersad Santokhi