JD Vance's Remark On Hindu Wife Sparks Row. What She Once Said About Faith

JD Vance's remarks have sparked a debate online, with many calling his remarks "hypocritical", pointing out that Usha has always said that she has no intention of converting.

31 Oct 2025, 13:54 · NDTV

US Vice President JD Vance recently said that he hoped his wife, Usha, a Hindu, would someday embrace Christianity like him. He also mentioned that they have decided to raise their children Christian. His remarks have sparked a debate online, with many calling his remarks "hypocritical", pointing out that Usha has always said that she has no intention of converting.

JD Vance was speaking at a rally of the Turning Point movement in Oxford, Mississippi, when a woman of Indian-origin asked him about his family's inter-religious dynamics. Turning Point was founded by Charlie Kirk, a conservative Christian activist who was assassinated last month.

"I will say now in front of 10,000 of my closest friends, do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by Church?" he said. "Yeah, I honestly do wish that, because I believe in the Christian gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way".

JD Vance's controversial remarks, however, came with a postscript: "But if she doesn't, then God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn't cause a problem for me".

However, that hasn't proved strong enough to stand against the floodgate of criticism on social media, with several highlighting Usha Vance's take on religion and faith during past interviews.

Responding to the criticism, JD Vance posted on X today, "What a disgusting comment, and it's hardly been the only one along these lines... She is not a Christian and has no plans to convert, but like many people in an interfaith marriage--or any interfaith relationship--I hope she may one day see things as I do."

"Regardless, I'll continue to love and support her and talk to her about faith and life and everything else, because she's my wife," he said.

"Not Intending To Convert"

In June, Usha Vance opened up on raising three children - Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel - in an interfaith household while ensuring they have a choice.

"So what we've ended up doing is we send our kids to Catholic school, and we have given them each the choice, right? They can choose whether they want to be baptised Catholic and then go through the whole step-by-step process with their classes in school," she said while speaking on conservative commentator Meghan McCain's "Citizen McCain" podcast.

She also spoke about her husband's journey to Catholicism while asserting that she has no intention to convert.

"At the time when I met JD, he wasn't Catholic, and he converted later, and when he converted, we had a lot of conversations about that because it was actually after we had our first child, maybe it was after Vivek was born too," she said. "When you convert to Catholicism, it comes with several important obligations, like raising your child in the faith and all that."

"We had to have a lot of real conversations about how do you do that, when I'm not Catholic, and I'm not intending to convert or anything like that," she said.

Usha Vance also said that their children know that she is not a Catholic and that they have "plenty of access to the Hindu tradition from books that we give them". She also mentioned their April trip to India and the religious elements of the visit.

Interfaith Wedding And Children's Love For Hindu Epics

During an exclusive interview with NDTV during her India visit, Usha Vance spoke about her children's interest in the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.

"My children are very interested in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and stories like that, so they have lots of questions about that. They are always looking for references everywhere they go, and we have been really lucky to see a puppet show at the Prime Minister's residence. And we have seen paintings and all sorts of things, and they would know exactly what it means just by seeing it on site," she had said.

She also spoke about her interfaith wedding to JD Vance in US' Kentucky in 2014. She said it was important for her to include traditional Hindu rites in the ceremony to acknowledge her parents and ancestors, who were from Andhra Pradesh.

In his bestselling 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, JD Vance recounted how Usha, with her "skill and precision," helped him convert to Catholicism.

JD Vance wasn't born a Catholic but was baptised into the church in 2019.

In his recent remark, Vance said that when he met Usha at Yale University, he was an "agnostic or atheist" and, he said, "that's what I think she would have considered herself as well".

His remarks were not taken well by many, with Indian-American commentator Deep Barot highlighting that Usha Vance can not be "agnostic" as she admitted to having been raised in the Hindu tradition many times. "They even had a Vedic Hindu wedding, and one of his kids' names is Vivek".

Kanwal Sibal, former Foreign Secretary of India, also slammed Vance's remarks. "He calls her agnostic. Afraid to admit her Hindu origin. Where has all this talk of religious freedom gone? They have this Congressionally mandated US Commission on International Religious Freedom. Charity should begin at home," he posted on X.

Earlier, Usha Vance said that her grandmother was a devout Hindu. "She, you know, she prays every day, she does the temple regularly, she'll do her own pujas, and so they access it that way," she said.

In a June 2024 interview with Fox News, Usha Vance said that she believes that her parents' Hindu faith is "one of the things that made them such good parents".

She has been supportive of her husband's journey to Catholicism. In the same interview, she said, "I knew that JD was searching for something. This just felt right for him."

Religion And Politics In Trump's America

The recent statement of Vance, who in past defended his wife when she was questioned for her ethnicity or faith, is being seen as how religion and politics are seen in Donald Trump's America.

The event he was speaking at was to honour Kirk, an electrifying presence on the US right, with a huge young following that helped Trump win the election last November.

Kirk used his audiences on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to build support for anti-immigration policies, outspoken Christianity and gun ownership, and to spread carefully edited clips of his interactions during debates at his many college events.

The Republican vice president was especially close to Kirk. The two began a friendship nearly a decade ago, and Kirk advocated for Vance to be Republican Donald Trump's choice for vice president last year.

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