By Partha Chakraborty-
Kamala Harris sewed up her candidacy within hours of Joe Biden bowing out, hats off to her for ruthless efficiency. She carries the demographics, embodies a bottled-up anger aimed at Dobbs, and she rescued the Democratic Party from “The Old Man & The Deep Freeze.” She faces an undisciplined, incoherent, and self-indulgent opponent in former President Donald Trump, who recoiled to his base in choosing JD Vance as his running mate. It is very possible Harris would expand her appeal with the right VP nominee, increasing her chance at the hustings. Very likely a Brown Kamala (means lotus in Sanskrit) is about to sprout in the White House.
Madam President has a ring to it. As an Indian American it fills my heart with joy to say that the first one to the name may very well be one.
From what I observe, she will also add a sizzle in the pan. I adore the company of strong Indian women – my wife, my sister, my mom, and many others. Each of them has an ambition of her own, each has worked, or will surely work, every single day of her working life, each is forthcoming with her displeasure if there is a cause without anybody around feeling offended. Each is quick to take charge as the opportunity arises, tender and loving when in need.
I could go on, but the women I have been fortunate enough to surround myself with are the antithesis of the docile, fragile, and vulnerable housewife walking two steps behind image many have of South Asian women. There are thousands like them, even if, statistically, India remains a patriarchal society for the most part. Ms. Harris is not the only one on the US national platform, Nikki Haley is surely a force to reckon with, and I understand Usha Vance is one too, within her scope.
If anybody fears Indian-origin women charging ahead, breaking, and making things as they go, I suggest they better get used to it.
But I am scared of one aspect of Ms. Harris behind the Resolute Desk.
A New York Times article in 2021 found that from 2016 to 2020, “80 percent of the American-financed development projects in Central America were entrusted to American contractors, according to data provided by U.S.A.I.D.” The article claims that “development experts who have worked with or for the contractors said the companies could easily take about 50 percent of the aid money they receive and direct it toward overhead — including generous salaries for executives — and company profits. An American contractor for the “Nexos Locales” project of The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) presented an app to Guatemalan coffee growers promising a future where they are “a part of modern agriculture.” Most did not have smartphones, nor did they have money to pay for data. This is just one small example.
These projects were standard bearers of the approach taken by the Biden-Harris administration when dealing with the crisis on the southern border. “Injustice is a root cause of migration,” Ms. Harris said as she was put in charge of the Administration’s plan to commit $4 billion to make Central America more “tolerable” for the poor, in the hope that they do not attempt to embark on a journey north. Joe Biden as Vice President had previously committed hundreds of millions of dollars to implementing the same philosophy. History would label them as utter failures.
I have been on the other side of the huddle. I grew up in a two-room structure with no sewage and no running water, a sole hand-cranked ‘tubewell” shared between five families was the sole source of water for all purposes. My dad was involved with the labor unions all his life, and we were surrounded by workers from the railways, jute mills, power plants, small workshops and the like. Our hardscrabble existence presumably was not much better than the farmers of Guatemala, though in an urban setting in a different country.
I have seen scores of “experts,” “volunteers,” or simply “well-wishers,” from – take your pick – The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, the US Agency for International Development, the “Foundations,” descend on factory workers around my family, in comfort and style that I absolutely loathed. Invariably they would leave us bewildered and even more humiliated. The country as a whole fared not much better; mercurial diktats shortchanged, and disincentivized, our efforts in dealing with problems in a proactive and engaged manner. Fortunately, reality in India is much different today.
Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris dealt with the Central American roots of migrants on the southern border with what I would call – derisively and deliberately – a Savior mindset. They were playing the handmaiden of a mindset where results do not matter, rationality be damned, data do not count if they contradict the groupthink. All it matters is the glow that befalls the virtuous. We have seen these minds at work at US college campuses recently. I have seen them decades back, and still seethe in disgust. [Full Disclosure: As an entrepreneur, I am fully invested in bringing market-based solutions for clean drinking water and sewage, among others, to the bottom of the pyramid in India, and elsewhere, under terms that make it a win-win for all.]
I see a Harris Presidency beholden to perversions of the progressive cabal, her tenure dictated by the denizens of the Faculty Clubs from the “studies,” and their minions and proteges. I call them the “Arts Quad Mafia,” and they rule the Democratic Party intelligentsia. If history is any guide, Kamala Harris will bring the same cohort, and the same mindset, to the White House, especially now.
And that will be a problem, both for her legacy and the country.