Ro Khanna Biography

Ro Khanna was born Rohit Khanna, on September 13, 1976, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US. His was a middle-class Indian Punjabi Hindu family.

Khanna’s parents had moved to the US from India in the 1970s. His father was a chemical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), who had later studied at the University of Michigan, while his mother taught in a school as a substitute teacher.

Khanna’s interest in politics was motivated by his grandfather Amarnath Vidyalankar’s active participation in Mahatma Gandhi’s independence movement in India. Khanna’s grandfather had also worked with Lala Lajpat Rai and had been jailed for a while for supporting human rights.

Khanna initially studied at the Council Rock High School North in Newtown, Bucks County, from where he graduated in 1994. In 1998, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics (honors) from the University of Chicago. At the university, he was part of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity.

In 2001, he obtained a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. Following this, he worked as a clerk for federal appeals judge Morris Sheppard Arnold in Little Rock, Arkansas. He also made a name for himself as an intellectual property lawyer.

While at the University of Chicago, Ro Khanna supported Barack Obama's first campaign for the Illinois Senate in 1996. In 2009, President Obama named Khanna the Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Commerce. In his capacity, Khanna organized clean technology trade missions and expanded the Green Embassy program, which lets clean technology firms in the US showcase their products in US embassies abroad.

Khanna has also been part of the White House Business Council, where he worked with both the business and labor segments to create manufacturing jobs in the US. Governor Jerry Brown named Khanna to the California Workforce Development Board in 2012. There, Khanna chaired the Advanced Manufacturing Committee.

Khanna was also part of the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (2006-2013) and offered pro bono legal help to the Mississippi Center for Justice, working on contractor fraud cases on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Before serving the Congress as an elected candidate, Khanna had worked as a lecturer of economics at Stanford University (2012-2016) and as an adjunct professor at Santa Clara Law School. Khanna also taught courses in American jurisprudence at the San Francisco State University.

Ro Khanna was elected to the US Congress in 2016 and took over as a Member of the US House of Representatives from California's 17th district on January 3, 2017. In his capacity, Khanna has been a progressive voice in the House and has made all efforts to bring back manufacturing and technology leadership of the US.

He has worked to improve the quality of life of the American working class and to help the US become a global leader on issues such as human rights, climate, and diplomacy. In his fourth term now, he has been part of the House Armed Services Committee (and the Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems). He had co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.

He has also been part of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party. He has served on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, too, where he previously served as the chairperson of the Environmental Subcommittee.

Khanna is also known for his efforts to bring in legislation to invest in science and technology, create technology jobs, and re-energize the US manufacturing and production sectors. He authored the Endless Frontier Act, which formed the basis of the CHIPS and Science Act, later signed into law by President Joe Biden.

While chairing the House Oversight and Reform Environmental Subcommittee, Khanna gathered the CEOs of six leading fossil fuel companies to testify before Congress about climate disinformation, for the first time. Khanna has organized hearings to look into the health hazards associated with leaded aviation fuel, to bring in improved wildfire preparation measures, and to protect the US food supply from climate change. He also made sure to include major climate provisions during the finalization of the Inflation Reduction Act.

He wishes to work on a foreign policy of military restraint and diplomacy. He believes the US should spend less on war overseas and more on issues and policies at home, such as Medicare for All, childcare, and free public and vocational education.

Ro Khanna supports the labor movement and has supported policies such as the PRO Act to make sure people with jobs need not rely on food stamps and other welfare provisions such as housing vouchers. Khanna wants to bring in a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and supports setting term limits for Supreme Court Justices.

Some of the major legislations and policies Khanna has worked on are the Veteran Apprenticeship and Labor Opportunity Reform (VALOR) Act, the Integrated Digital Experience (IDEA) Act, the Endless Frontier Act, the Yemen War Powers Resolution, the Grow American Incomes Now (GAIN) Act, the Stop Cheaters Act, the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (BEZOS) Act, the Internet Bill of Rights, the Essential Workers Bill of Rights, State Based Universal Healthcare, the 21st Century Jobs Bill, and the Police Exercising Absolute Care with Everyone (PEACE) Act.

Ro Khanna married Ritu Khanna (née Ahuja) on August 29, 2015, in Ohio. They apparently had a traditional Indian wedding at Severance Hall.

Ritu is an Indian-American and the daughter of industrialist Monte Ahuja, who established the automotive transmission parts supply company Transtar in Solon, Ohio, in 1975. Ritu is a Columbia University alumna and has previously worked with the Italian jewelry brand Bulgari.

Khanna apparently first met his wife in 2007 in New York City, where Ritu lived back then. They had a long-distance on-again/off-again relationship till Khanna proposed to her in 2014, after losing that year’s congressional election.

Khanna and his wife have two children: their son Soren, born in July 2017, and their daughter, Zara, born in late 2018. The family stays in Fremont, California, Silicon Valley

Khanna calls himself a Gandhian. In his leisure time, he likes traveling and watching movies. He is also an ardent fan of the NBA basketball team Golden State Warriors. Khanna has penned two books, namely, Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America’s Future (2012) and Dignity in a Digital Age (2022).