By Mayank Chhaya-
In Kamala Harris whose nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate is a near certainty now, the Indian American community with whom she shares heritage partly, has a compelling choice.
Even though Harris, who is 59, has predominantly projected her black identity from her Jamaican father’s side ever since she ran to become California’s first female attorney general 2010 and that too the first Indian American and African American to boot, she has been assertively proud of her Tamilian side as well.
However, her primary identity has been viewed outside the Indian American community as African American. Even among the Indian American community, many did not see as one of their own considering her cultural preoccupations were often aligned with the African American community.
Raised by her late breast cancer researcher mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris after her divorce from her Jamaican American husband, Donald Harris, an economist and professor of economics, Harris wrote in her 2018 memoir “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey” and I quote, “My mother knew very well that she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see me and Maya as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.”
At the same time, Harris also wrote about her mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles as having instilled the two sisters with pride in their South Asian roots. “Our classical Indian names—her full name is Kamala Devi—harked back to our heritage, and we were raised with a strong awareness and appreciation for Indian culture. All of my mother’s words of affection or frustration came out in her mother tongue, which seems fitting to me, since the purity of those emotions is what I associate with my mother most of all.”
Kamala and Maya were raised in a predominantly African American neighborhood in Berkeley, California quite consciously by their mother. It was in keeping with that approach that Harris attended Howard University, the highly respected black college.
For the 4.4 million Indian American community Harris’s rise as the first woman and partly Indian American vice president was historic enough. Now they confront even greater prospects voting for someone who could become America’s first ever woman president, her biracial heritage being intrinsic to it.
The community first saw one of their own make inroads into mainstream politics in 1990 when Democrat Kumar Barve was elected to the Maryland state legislature. He was followed by Swati Dandekar and Satveer Chaudhary, both Democrats who were elected in the 1990s to the Iowa and Minnesota legislatures respectively.
Historically, the Indian American community has tended to vote Democratic but in recent years there has been some shift with many going the Republican and Donald Trump way, especially among those who also gravitate towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party. In fact, many Indian Americans of strongly Hindutva persuasion are quick to point out that not only does Harris consider herself as an African American with Christian values but even as someone who would be “anti-India” when it comes to issues such as Kashmir and Modi’s right-wing politics.
That Trump’s vice-presidential nominee J D Vance is married to Usha Vance née Chilukiuri, of Indian immigrant parents from Andhra Pradesh, is the latest example of growing Indian American presence on the right. Nimrata Nikki Haley, Former South Carolina Governor and US Ambassador to the United Nations, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom unsuccessfully tried to seek the Republican nomination are two prominent names. Before them there was Piyush Bobby Jindal, who became the first Indian American governor in 2007 of Louisiana as a Republican. His presidential ambitions did not go far as withdrew soon after announcing his run in 2015.
Those Indian Americans who do not see Harris as Indian enough in her cultural and religious convictions do not seem to recognize that geostrategic considerations that would drive her as a potential president would have nothing to do with her personal convictions but India’s global ascendancy, particularly in the context of the Indo-Pacific vis-à-vis China.
Notwithstanding the misgivings Kamala Devi Harris has already become a figure of history not for just the Indian American community but America as a whole whether or not she wins the 2024 election, assuming she eventually gets the Democratic nomination. As of writing this Harris had notched up politically decisive endorsements for her candidacy, including important governors. Perhaps the most telling came from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “It is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States,” Pelosi said in a statement, adding, “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for President is official, personal and political.”
Although former President Barack Obama, who has spoken highly of her on occasions, has not yet endorsed her, it may be only a matter of time before he does it.
