Moreover, having converted from Hinduism as a boy, he is Catholic in one of the most Catholic states in the country (nearly a third of the state’s population). This religious affiliation may have helped him seem less ‘foreign’ to many voters. Also as a boy, he anglicised his name, abandoning Piyush for the quintessentially American ‘Bobby.’ And his political and economic conservatism places him squarely within the political mainstream of a state that gave George W. Bush 57 per cent of its vote in the 2004 presidential election.

Jindal fared poorly in the predominantly black precincts of the state. One post-election analysis estimated that he won 63 per cent of the white vote but only about 10 per cent of the black vote. On the other hand, he carried many of the deeply conservative portions of the state that, not long ago, supported the gubernatorial campaign of the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Jindal’s election comes at a time of rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. One contender for the Republican presidential nomination has based his candidacy almost entirely on a ‘get tough’ approach to illegal immigration. More broadly, many Americans worry that the United States is somehow losing its ‘American’ character because of the influx of newcomers, many of them from Latin America. In this context, Jindal’s triumph seems a vote for tolerance and pluralism.

But most probably, his victory represents a vote for competence — in the face of the hapless response by Democratic state and local officials to the devastation from Hurricane Katrina two years ago — and an expression of disgust with Louisiana’s richly deserved reputation for corruption. His impressive resume lent credibility to his claims that he could provide good governance to a state that has known very little of that commodity over the years.

... contd.