What drives Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal? By all accounts it’s his Christian faith, his wife Supriya and their three children, and the calling of God for him to serve in the public realm.
BATON ROUGE – What drives Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal? By all accounts it’s his Christian faith, his wife Supriya and their three children, and the calling of God for him to serve in the public realm.
Born six months after his parents immigrated to Louisiana, he converted from his parent’s Hindu faith as a college student after a Southern Baptist friend “intent on converting the world, first introduced me to Christianity by telling me ‘you and your parents are going to hell,’” Jindal wrote in a 1993 article in America magazine, a Catholic publication.
“I was hardly convinced,” Jindal wrote, but he began to examine Hinduism and its teachings. “I began reading the Bible to disprove the Christian faith I was learning both to admire and despise. … I saw myself in many of the parables and felt as if the Bible had been written especially for me. … I realized that if the Gospel stories were true, if Christ really was the Son of God, it was arrogant of me to reject Him and question the gift of salvation. … It was Truth and Love that finally forced me to accept Jesus as Lord.”
Love for family also drives Jindal. One of the things that drew him even closer to his wife Supriya was the assistance he gave her in the birth – on the bathroom floor of their Kenner home – of their third child.
“It was the most amazing moment of our 10 years of marriage, when I was able to hand her our son,” Gov. Jindal said in a recent article in the Times Picayune newspaper of New Orleans. “We had to have confidence and trust in each other. It was a miraculous moment.”
Two years previously, Supriya and Bobby Jindal had together dealt with their first son’s medical issue: He was born with a hole in his heart (since repaired with surgery.) That too, strengthened them individually and as a couple.
The trauma they’ve gone through with their children has made the Jindals vitally aware of how precious their children are to them, and of their needs in the future.
“I always tell Bobby that we have to get this right,” Supriya Jindal said in the Times Picayune article written by Elizabeth Mullener. “Our kids are only going to be young once. When they grow up, if there aren’t opportunities for them here in Louisiana, they’re going to leave.”
Wanting to make a better future for the world also drives Governor Jindal. The Baton Rouge native graduated from high school when he was 16, from Brown University in 1991 with honors and a double major in biology and public policy, and from Oxford University in 1994 as a Rhodes Scholar.
He became a consultant for McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm advising the nation’s leading companies, while praying about his future. Plan A had been medical school, but after he became a Christian, his mind had turned toward systemic solutions that would result in improved care for all people, rather than caring for individuals one by one, which he would have done as a physician.
His first foray into public life came when then-Gov. Mike Foster appointed 24-year-old Jindal to rescue the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals from bankruptcy. There, he turned a $400 million deficit into three years of surpluses totaling $220 million, according to the governor’s website, www.gov.state.la.us.
In 1998, Jindal was appointed executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, whose recommendations continue to be the driving force behind much of the ongoing debate on how to strengthen and improve Medicare, the website continues. He returned to Louisiana state government in 1999, when he became president of the University of Louisiana System – the 16th largest higher education system in the country which oversees the education of around 80,000 students a year.
In March 2001, Jindal was nominated by President George W. Bush, and later unanimously confirmed by a bipartisan vote of the U.S. Senate, as the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that position, he served as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
He resigned from that post in 2003 and returned to Louisiana after in prayer he learned God wanted him to run for governor. A Democrat won instead, in the state with strong Democratic roots, but in 2004 he won a seat in the U.S. Congress, representing Louisiana’s first district, and was reelected in 2006.
“He wants to create a state w here his family and other families – the generations to come – will be able to thrive; he has said that over and over,” said Elna Patel Dease, a family friend and member of First Baptist Covington. “Currently, there’s a lot of reasons to leave and not enough to stay in Louisiana, Bobby says. In order for the next generations to thrive, the flavor of the state’s economy, politics and the overall security of living here needs to be changed, he says.”
Many Southern Baptist pastors across the state commend Jindal’s pro-life, pro-family conservatism.
“I have a deep respect for our new Governor Bobby Jindal because I’ve never seen him waver concerning his Christian testimony or convictions,” said Dennis Watson, pastor of Celebration Metairie. “He has pledged to me and to other pastors that he will maintain his faithfulness to God and to godliness as he leads our state, and that he will be open and receptive to the counsel of trusted godly men and women. My hope is in the Lord rather than in any man, but I do believe that if we Christians will really pray and intercede for him and our state that the Lord is going to utilize Governor Jindal in the coming days as a leader in bringing spiritual economic, moral and spiritual transformation to the state of Louisiana.”
Gil Arthur, pastor of East Leesville Baptist in Leesville, agreed.
“I supported Bobby Jindal from the beginning and developed a good relationship with him and his team,” the pastor said. “I’ve supported Bobby because I agree with his social and economic policies and with his commitment to reform our government economically and ethically.”
His involvement in politics was minimal before he met Jindal, said Arthur, who also is a National Guard chaplain at Fort Polk.
“I’ve been involved from the sidelines,” Arthur said. “But now I will get involved as much as I can for the kind of government I envision with Bobby Jindal – without compromising the main thing, which is the proclamation of the gospel.”