I saw today that while most news media has ignored Ranjit “Ricky” Gill’s full name in reference to him, the News India Times used his full name in their story talking about how he was the third Indian-American to get an invite to address the Republican party’s national convention.
This comes a week after I received comments against my suggestion he uses his full name—my response is still, use your name, be proud of your heritage and where you come from, and to stop pandering for votes.
With that said, I checked in with a site I enjoy reading which is the American Turban which offers a nice discussion about the Sikh American experience; they have a story about Mr. Gill heading to Florida for the convention. As my friend Rupinder Mohan Singh states beautifully, it will be interesting to see which “underrepresented” communities Gill will speak about at the Convention.
The American Turban also have an interesting photograph posted via the NRIPress.com website which offers more information that somewhat disturbing.
Here is the picture, notice they have misspelled Ricky and called him”Ricki”.
Looking on the NRI Press website further, there are some pretty concerning questions that need to be addressed.
The site states Mr. Gill is proud of his “Indian Heritage”, but recent events as stated by Rupinder Mohan Singh suggest otherwise and that he is hiding his Indian Heritage for votes. I am sure Mr. Gill is proud, the point is he is hiding it. Ultimately, it appears he changes his stripes depending on the audience he’s soliciting money from.
While I understand going out of District for fundraising is becoming a normal thing, but this event with Dalip Singh Sethi was in Riverside, CA. It states Mr. Sethi has been the sole turbaned dealer for General Motors in the entire United States. Mr. Sethi gives one-tenth of his income each year to enhancing the well being of his community. In 2001, he started Riverside-based “Perfect Attendance Program” awards twenty scholarships, a dozen brand-new Chevrolet cars, and twenty cutting-edge computers to local schools every year.
Much like Mr. Gill taking money from Southern California interests on the peripheral canal, I’d like to know who he is planning to represent since the 11th District is up in Northern California—not Riverside. What quid pro quo is suggested there?
He also says on the website, “Congress and the federal government can help ensure that investment in agriculture increases and that our agriculture products find markets overseas.”·
That is either corporate welfare or “picking winners and losers” which is a term they liked to throw at Solyndra and Jerry McNerney. More hypocrisy by Ranjit Gill!
Finally, it states that he said that he is proud to be an Indian origin. NRI have great family values, believe in hard working and in education. He always respect and have been indispensable in his journey.
See above, this appears not to be the case depending on his audience.
As more of this Ranjit “Ricky” Gill web continues to come undone, I don’t like what I see from this kid as he is playing to his audience and not being consistent with his message.
5 comments
Luuuuuuuccy!
Hello America, meet the real Ranjit Gill. This is a touchy topic to so many, but thank you for bringing it out to the open to ask some real questions while leaving your assumptions at the door. I would hope Mr. Gill or his team offer some sort of explanation about the consistent Southern California fundraising efforts.
Burk, I don’t agree with you alot, but the more you bring Ricky Gill up the more I am fearful he doesn’t have Northern California’s best interest at heart. I think you make a good point over the last few articles that it doesn’t matter if he is indian, what religion one is, its their actions that matter and his actions have been nothing short of “oppertunistic” depending on his audience.
I am forced to throw support at McNerney and I hate it. Gill must go down.
Incidentally, Ricky Gill – whose parents are Sikhs, and I assume he is as well – has held fundraisers to solicit donations from Sikh communities across southern and northern California. He was in southern California within the last couple of weeks, at a fundraiser involving southern California Sikh houses of worship (called Gurdwaras) and was in the Bay area only a few days ago. For those unaware, Sikhs are a faith group that originated in South Asia and is the fifth largest in the world. The district Gill wishes to represent is home to the oldest Gurdwara in the United States, established in Stockton, California a century ago.
The issue I have highlighted in my posts is that despite collecting these donations from Sikhs across the state of California, and despite his family background, and despite the fact that his constituency is home to a large Sikh population, I cannot find a public statement from Ricky Gill anywhere in which he uses the word “Sikh” in reference to himself or his background. Yet, he holds these fundraisers to solicit donations from California’s Sikhs (and perhaps even outside of California) who are hoping that he will be a voice for this visible minority.
If you search Ricky Gill’s Facebook page or his campaign website, you will not find (or easily find) any photos of Gill with Sikhs, even from one of these fundraisers. On his website, photos of him with members of other communities are ubiquitous. We only see photos of him at Sikh/Indian fundraisers in Indian American media (such as the one in NRIPress which you included above).
Even Mitt Romney has openly acknowledged his Mormon faith, so I do not understand why Gill doesn’t do the same in regard to his Sikh faith, assuming that Gill does self-identify as a Sikh (since he has not openly, even this is a matter of question). I can only theorize using two explanations about what is going on here, since Gill himself has thus far ignored requests to explain:
(a) Gill is trying to hide being a Sikh to the general public because he fears this will hurt his chances at being elected, which basically indicates that Gill is unable to stand as a voice for the Sikh community, or
(b) he is mum on the issue because legitimately does not intend to be a voice for Sikhs or support his community, and is only using them as a source of campaign cash.
He is not even granting the Sikh community the dignity of a public explanation, let alone open acknowledgement. Either way, he is discriminating against his own people when he treats them differently than other communities.
Based on the above, Gill’s motives in relation to his community and campaign are questionable.
Well, you always have Willard Mitt Romney to vote for.
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