Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American and first African-American woman Vice-President of the U.S., could be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. File
| Photo Credit: AP
U.S. President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race on July 21, clearing the way for his deputy Kamala Harris to be the Democratic candidate of choice. Although it wasn’t immediately clear if other senior Democrats would challenge Ms. Harris for the party’s nomination, Mr. Biden endorsed her to be the party’s presidential candidate.
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“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this,” he wrote in a post on X.
The India connection
In 2020, Ms. Harris became the first Indian-American and first African-American woman Vice-President of the U.S., and will be looking to repeat the feat as the President too, if Democrats approve her as the party candidate to run the 2024 presidential race.
Ms. Harris is the daughter of Shyamala Gopalan Harris who comes from a family of achievers from Tamil Nadu.
Ms. Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist in California, raised Kamala and her sister Maya as a single mother.
VP Harris’ maternal uncle Gopalan Balachandran, a former consultant at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), is an academic based in Delhi. Her grandfather P.V. Gopalan worked on the rehabilitation of refugees from East Pakistan in India. Later in his life, he became an advisor to the Zambian President and lived in Lusaka, while his wife Rajam built a reputation for her social work.
According to Mr. Balachandran, Ms. Harris remains connected to her roots in India, both through her upbringing and visits to Chennai.
Ms. Harris also visited Chennai along with her sister Maya Harris after her mother died, to immerse his ashes in the sea according to Hindu traditions.
In 2020, Ms. Harris spoke about her mother’s love of good idli while addressing a virtual campaign event to commemorate India’s Independence Day. “Because she wanted us to understand where she had come from and where we had ancestry. And of course, she always wanted to instil in us, a love of good idli,” Ms. Harris joked. She also walks in Chennai with her grandfather and how he would tell her about the ‘heroes’ of the Indian freedom struggle and that it was “on us to pick up where they left off”.
In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Ms. Harris also cooked masala dosas alongside Indian-origin actor Mindy Kaling.
Her victory alongside Mr. Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election was celebrated in her ancestral village of Thulasendrapuram in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu where villagers burst crackers, distributed sweets, and drew colourful ‘kolams’ in front of their homes.
Special pujas were performed at the Sri Dharma Sastha Temple by the villagers to celebrate Ms. Harris’ victory, thanking the deity for answering their prayers.
