A slightly more bizarre episode from his student days may also come back to haunt him. In 1994, Jindal published an article in a Catholic periodical in which he described a friend’s possession by malevolent supernatural forces. He speculated that this was caused by ‘pagan influences’ and because the friend’s mother had, in his words, “worshipped and offered a sacrifice at a pagan altar in the Far East.”

Politically, Jindal has distanced himself from any vestige of an Indian or Indian-American agenda. He voted in favour of the Hyde Act in 2006, along with 83 per cent of the House of Representatives. But more tellingly, he seems not to have joined 176 of his colleagues in the mostly-symbolic Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans. Over two years after he first entered Congress, Jindal was not listed among its members.

Regardless of McCain’s decision, Jindal will likely be a contender for US president in the future, and his achievements will be closely followed in India. But as he takes larger strides in the American political sphere, perhaps Indian opinion of him will be coloured as much by what he stands for as by his skin tone.

The writer researches US foreign policy towards South Asia in Washington DC