Akhilesh Pillalamarri
The politics of the United States have been upended in the past few weeks from the attempted assassination of Republican candidate Donald J. Trump to the sitting Democratic President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek another term. Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, has stepped into his shoes to run as her party’s candidate for the office of president of the United States.
What would her presidency mean for India?
Kamala Harris is half-Indian, born in California to a mother from Tamil Nadu and a father from Jamaica. Her parents met and married in the United States, before separating and getting divorced. Growing up, she visited her maternal family several times in Chennai, and apparently enjoys South Indian food such as dosas. Beyond this, it is unclear to what extent Harris has a strong cultural connection to India, let alone to the politics and geostrategic concerns of her mother’s homeland. Raised a Baptist Christian — her father’s religion — and married to a Jewish man, she has not spoken much about her Hindu heritage in public.
Throughout her adult career, she has been identified more with the Black community than the Indian American one. As her political career progressed — she served as a senator from California in the U.S. Senate before becoming vice president — Harris has done little to highlight her Indian heritage or support Indian causes. As vice president, she has not visited India. In short, despite her Indian heritage, Harris does not seem to bring to the India-U.S. relationship any special cultural connection, nuance, or attention.
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