Having seen disparities in Pune, Indian joins US city council as socialist

Kshama Sawant is a 41-year-old economics teacher and immigrant from India who lives in Seattle. She is also now one of the few elected socialists in America, after having been elected to Seattle’s nine-member city council. According to an article which appeared in the New York Times, Sawant does not shy away from the ‘S-word’, even though the tag of socialist isn’t one that the American public readily embraces. [caption id=“attachment_1314167” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kshama Sawant. Image courtesy Reuters[/caption] “Socialism is the path to real democracy, she says. Socialism protects the environment. Socialism is the best hope for young people who have seen their options crushed by the tide of low-wage, futureless jobs in the post-recession economy,” says the article. Sawant’s campaign’s central idea is raising the daily minimum wage of $15. “The daughter of a schoolteacher and a civil engineer, Sawant said she was seared by the disparities between the rich and the poor around Pune, where she grew up. But she was also shocked, and radicalised, she said, by finding sharp income inequality in America when she immigrated here in her 20s,” says the article. “Kshama Sawant’s defeat of incumbent Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin “was a watershed moment for the socialist movement across the country,” said Philip Locker, a national organizer for the Socialist Alternative party and the Sawant campaign’s political director,” in the Seattle Times. Read the full article here.