At the start of this week, President-elect Donald Trump announced Indian-origin attorney Harmeet K Dhillon as the pick for lead civil rights lawyer in his administration.
Like with a few other similar appointments by Trump recently, the news was received to social media applause and cheers by Indians, especially the Sikh community, that Dhillon is a practicing member of.
Announcing her appointment on the platform Truth Social, Trump said that Dhillon defended Americans’ civil liberties by “taking on Big Tech for censoring free speech.”
He added, “In her new role at the DOJ (Department of Justice) Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights, and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws Fairly and Firmly.”
Trump also acknowledged that Dhillon, “is a respected member of the Sikh religious community.”
Not the one to mince words
The new-found interest in Dhillon paints her as a legal eagle, a Trump loyalist and someone who has not minced words while criticizing PM Modi, President Joe Biden, or shied away from her support for farmers protests or her take on the Indian government’s handling of the farmers’ protest. However, Trump’s choice to entrust the justice department’s civil rights division with her is largely said to be based on two factors; Dhillon’s loyalty for him and her past body of work.
“She has represented Christians who were prevented from praying together during COVID and sued corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers,” he further added while announcing her appointment.
Born in Chandigarh, Dhillon, 55, moved to the US along with her parents at the age of two. She has sued University of California, Berkeley in the past for preventing a right-wing activist from speaking there. Another case represented by her happened to be that of a Google employee who was fired for writing a memo criticising the company’s diversity programme.
Been a victim of racial targeting
Dhillon, a practising Sikh, faced hateful comments and racial targeting from the far-right wing over her religion and for reciting Ardas (a Sikh prayer) at the Republican National Convention in 2024. The convention was also attended by Trump just a few days after the assassination attempt against him.
Some far-right figures called Dhillon’s rendering of the prayer “as blasphemous” while others questioned her praying to a “foreign God.” Before making her name in the MAGA circles, Dhillon gained public attention for writing legal memos defending Sikhs who wore turbans from racial profiling and faced discrimination after the 9/11 attacks.
A woman like any other
Behind the campaigning, lawsuits and civil rights activism, Dhillon’s social media feed seems no different from that of a regular Asian woman leading the family, dogs and picket fence life.
Largely active on social media, Dhillon goes by the username of Punjaban (the one who belongs to Punjab) on both X and Instagram. Her posts are in stark contrast to the boardroom life she leads bringing down corporations with her lawsuits across the nation.
An avid lover of knitting, her posts often talk about her knitting endeavours for friends, a baby blanket for a newcomer in a friend’s family, hats she makes for the loved ones, while talking of the yarn, patterns and colours like an adept knitter. Moving on, there’s a generous mention and updates about her love for flowers, freshly plucked from the garden, especially dahlias, masala tea simmering in the kitchen, two dogs in the house.
Dhillon lost her father Dr Tejpal S Dhillon, an orthopaedic surgeon, earlier this year. Dhillon’s first marriage was under an arranged set-up to Indian-born Sikh and a doctor Kanwarjit Singh. However, her marriage turned abusive, with reports of Dhillon even facing physical assault and abuse at the hands of her husband. At the age of 21, Dhillon walked away from the marriage despite cultural taboos associated with divorce in her community.
Eight years later, Dhillon married Sarvjit Singh Randhawa in 2011, with whom she led a happy, married life for 16 years till fate had other plans and Randhawa passed away this year after battling Parkinson’s and cancer. Dhillon is the fourth Indian-American to be nominated in Trump’s cabinet, after Dr Jay Bhattacharya (National Institutes of Health), Vivek Ramaswa, my (Department of Government Efficiency), Kashyap Patel (Director of FBI).
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