Sawant Kshama was born to Vasundhara and H. T. Ramanujam in Pune, India in a middle class family of the Brahmin caste. Sawant’s mother is a retired principal and her father, a civil engineer, was killed by a drunk driver when she was 13.[9] Sawant’s observations of poverty in her native country and her unhappiness with the Indian caste system helped shape her political views before her adoption of socialism. Sawant grew up in Mumbai where she later studied computer science and graduated with a B.Sc from the University of Mumbai in 1994. Sawant married her husband Vivek, an engineer at Microsoft, and moved to the United States.[11] After moving to the United States Sawant decided to abandon the computer engineering field. She began to pursue study in economics due to what she described as her own “questions of economic inequality.” She entered the economics program at North Carolina State University where she earned a PhD. Her dissertation was titled Elderly Labor Supply in a Rural, Less Developed Economy. Sawant moved to Seattle in 2006 and, after hearing a speech by a Socialist Alternative organizer, became a socialist. She became a United States citizen in 2010. Sawant and her husband Vivek are separated. gainst incumbent Richard Conlin, making her the first socialist to advance to a general election in Seattle since 1991. In Novemeber 2013, Sawant ran against City Council Member Richard Conlin. Athough Seattle’s elections are officially non partisan, she ran as a member of the Socialist Alternative Party, gathering funds and support from around the US. Conlin. conceded to Sawant after late returns showed him down by 1,640 votes or approximately 1% of the vote.
Sawant describes her self as a Trotskyite. For those not into radical jargon. Leon Trotsky was one of Lenin’s top lieutenants in the establishment of a totalitarian regime. The main goal of Lenin was establishment of a one party, class system to rule over the state and the economy. Lenin and Trotsky claimed to “be the people” meaning that they comprised a self selected oligarchy who knew what was best.
Trotsky got into trouble because he opposed Stalin’s effort to create a cult of personality. He saw the danger of an unaccountable bureaucracy like the cults of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. .
Assuming Ms. Sawant knows what a Trotskyite is , she must be a supporter of one party government. This is not “socialist” as the term is used by Bernie Sanders or by the Social Democratic parties of Europe, it is communist as the term was used by Mao and his followers with the presumed exceptions that unlike Stalin or Mao, Ms. Sawant imagines herself as only one member of the leadership cadre.
My own suspicion is that she is closer to Sarah Plain then she is to Leon Trotsky. Presumptuously, Ms. Sawant has already hired a writer, David Goldstein to author an “autobiography.” She also lives rather well. While claiming to only keep $40,000 a year out of her City Council job, Ms. Sawant uses a hired car to travel in Seattle (avoiding pubic transit) and seems freely able to travel around the US. Perhaps her husband Vivek, while reported to be separated from his wife, still helps her out of his large corporate salary at Microsoft?
Whether she does or does not lose this election, I am pretty certain she is going to run a media savy carer patterned after such noble demagogues as Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Al Sharpton, and Ann Coulter.
Sadly, there is money in radical demagoguery.