When I immigrated from India a decade ago, I couldn’t find another Indian in my big neighbourhood in Georgia’s Cobb County. Now, I have two on my street. One of them even has — what else — an Indian restaurant nearby. I see Indian moms in sarees out for an evening stroll, their children participating in Easter and Halloween celebrations. Last year, I heard fireworks on Diwali for the first time. The growing population of Indian Americans is apparent even beyond my immediate neighbourhood.
Seeing how vital Indian Americans as a voting block in Georgia have become in this presidential race, I talked to a broad cross-section of voters from the community to put a finger on what is most important to them. Edited excerpts:
ASHWIN RAMASWAMI
Running for Georgia State Senate on a Democratic ticket, 25-year-old Ramaswami is among the young Indian Americans seeking increasing political engagement in the country. An undergraduate in computer science from Stanford, he followed it up with a Master’s in law from Georgetown University. Growing up in the shadow of gun violence, he stands for common-sense gun laws, and reproductive rights, and wants to utilize his background in technology for economic growth and better education.
MANISH
Economy and taxation are important for Manish (last name withheld on request). He is a long-time Republican who would have voted for “a man with integrity, like Mike Pence”. But he is voting Democrat this time — not so much as a vote for Harris but as “a protest against Trump”. He believes that the government works best when Democrats and Republicans come together and discuss an idea. That’s not happening anymore and that’s part of the current paralysis in the government.
NARENDRA PATEL
Owner of popular Indian restaurants, Patel is a well-known figure in Atlanta’s business community. He can be seen hard at work on all days but worries that hard work may not be enough in these times. He has seen many of his friends lose gas stations, convenience stores, and restaurants. Economic survival feels most important to him. A Republican himself, his children are voting Democrat in this election for the progressive values.
NARENDER REDDY
Running for State Representative in Georgia on a Republican ticket, Reddy has been active in Georgia’s political landscape for many years. A successful real estate businessman, he co-founded a national bank and has been serving on the Board of Georgia Regional Transportation Authority for the past 20 years. He understands that people like Trump’s policies but not his rhetoric, though he does not think that Trump’s rhetoric creates the feeling of unsafety that some voters have talked about. In fact, public safety is one of the campaign issues for him. He also points out that he is campaigning for himself, not Trump.
TARUN SURTI
A socialist entrepreneur from Nashville, Tennessee, Surti serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International Hindi Association and has been Chairman of the Board of M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence. He has also founded many cultural and literary community organisations in Tennessee. He says he is a champion of women’s rights and is very proud of his daughter “who looks and talks like Kamala”. Surti says it is time America elected a woman president. “India, Britain, Israel, Sri Lanka, Germany have elected them almost 60 years ago and proved that they can run a country efficiently.” Surti has voted for both sides over the years, but this time, his vote goes to the Democrats.
SONJUI KUMAR
Kumar is co-founder of South Asians for Harris and serves as Chair of the Board for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. Founder of Kumar Prabhu Patel & Bannerjee Law Firm, Kumar has been past president of the South Asian Bar Association for both national and Georgia chapters. One of the organisers of the South Asian Women for Harris Zoom call, Kumar says she met Harris when she ran for District Attorney in San Francisco and “loved her even then. I thought she was a great candidate”.
ROHAN SONI
A senior at Columbia University, Soni is one of the young adult Indian Americans supporting Harris for progressive values. He has founded Streamline 2024, a database that makes the policies of both parties accessible. It offers a simplification of Project 2025, Donald Trump’s Agenda 47 platform, the Harris Walz platform, and the DNC platform. This platform is aimed at young adults who are looking to make informed voting choices.
MONI BASU
National Advisory Board Member of the Asian American Journalists Association and Director of the MFA program in Narrative Nonfiction at the University of Georgia, Basu is an award-winning journalist who has worked with CNN, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Bitter Southerner, among other publications. Basu, who felt othered growing up as a brown-skinned immigrant, says, “All my life, I have struggled with my own identity, and only in recent years have I come to embrace it fully. I can, at 61, finally delight in being a desi, in some brown girl magic. I beam with pride to see the enormous strides made by women of Indian heritage in America’s halls of power.”
Dr. GULSHAN HARJEE
Harjee has been included in the L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth National Honorees, Atlanta magazine’s 500 Most Powerful Leaders, and President George Bush’s Points of Light Honorees. Awarded the Yellow Rose Nikki T. Randall Servant Leader Award, Harjee is co-founder of the Clarkston Community Health Center, a linguistically, culturally, and ethnically sensitive volunteer-operated free clinic. A tireless medical practitioner, Harjee lost her husband in a gun shooting 25 years ago.
USREE BHATTACHARYA
Associate Professor in the Language and Literacy Education Department at the University of Georgia, Bhattacharya has a Ph.D in Education from the University of California, Berkeley. Motivated by her daughter Kalika’s diagnosis of Rett Syndrome in 2018, she has been investigating language and literacy socialisation within this multi-disability context. Hearing “Kamala” reverberating through the crowd at a rally she attended, Bhattacharya, whose grandmother’s name is also Kamala, says, “That moment filled me with so much joy, pride, and a sense of belonging. I think her story is, in so many ways, our story, the story of possibility in America, the possibility of being able to imagine a better self for ourselves.”
SHREYA PRAKASH
Along with her brother Anmol, Shreya is a student at Georgia Institute of Technology. First-time voters, the siblings are concerned about not just gun safety but also reproductive rights and climate change. Shreya says she wants to protect her bodily autonomy. Georgia has seen women lose their lives by not receiving medical assistance in case of miscarriages. “Doctors are unwilling to provide this medical service because they are unsure of the guidelines. Mothers cannot receive necessary care for themselves in such cases, increasing the number of deaths during childbirth.”
UMA PALAM PULENDRAN
A proud Bharatanatyam dancer and teacher, Pulendran is an activist and public health researcher. With a Master’s in public health from Emory University and academic programme experience at Stanford University School of Medicine, Pulendran has worked with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Calling herself philosophically independent, Pulendran has been supporting and voting Democratic. But this time, she has been waiting for a policy resolution for the Gaza conflict from Harris.
A version of this article first appeared in Khabar (Khabar.com), an Atlanta-based print magazine for the Indian American community. Reprinted here with permission.
The writer is deputy editor, Khabar magazine, and USC Annenberg Fellow for Writing and Community Storytelling.
Published – October 30, 2024 06:25 pm IST
