[Kamala
Harris’s ancestral village in southern India rejoiced on Sunday. But across the
country, many wonder what changes the new administration will bring.]
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Prakash
Elumalai
“Congratulations
Kamala Harris, pride of our village.”
If
there was one place in India that relished the triumph of Joseph R. Biden Jr.
and Ms. Harris, his running mate, in America’s presidential election, it
was Thulasendrapuram,
the hamlet where Ms. Harris’s Indian grandfather was born more than 100 years
ago. Her name is scrawled on a board by the temple. People there love her and
identify strongly with her.
For
four days, Thulasendrapuram’s 500 or so residents had been waiting anxiously.
They’d been praying at the temple, draping Hindu idols with rose petals and
strings of sweet-smelling jasmine, and alternately searching for good omens and
checking their cellphones for the latest updates.
On
Sunday, a wave of joy burst.
“Kamala
has made this village very proud,” said Renganathan, a farmer, who rushed to
the village’s main temple. “She’s a great lady and an inspiration. She belongs
to this soil.”
Although
Ms. Harris has been more understated about her Indian heritage than about her
experience as
a Black woman, her path to the vice presidency has also been guided by the
values of her Indian-born mother and her wider Indian family, who have stood by
her all her life. In several major speeches, Ms. Harris has gushed about her
Indian grandfather, P.V. Gopalan, who inspired her with his stories about
the fight for India’s independence.
Her
mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who came to America young and alone in
the late 1950s and made a career as a breast cancer researcher before
dying of cancer in 2009, remains one of the people Ms. Harris talks about most.
In
her victory speech in Delaware on Saturday, Ms. Harris said her mother was “the
woman most responsible for my presence here today.”
“When
she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t quite imagine this
moment,” Ms. Harris said. “But she believed so deeply in an America where a
moment like this is possible.”
Indians
have been watching this election extremely closely, less because of Ms.
Harris’s heritage than for what it might portend for India-United States
relations. In the past few months, the two countries, the world’s largest
democracies, have drawn closer.
Part
of the reason is China. Since Chinese troops surged across the disputed
India-China border in June, sparking
clashes that killed more than 20 Indian soldiers, the United States and
India have bolstered their military relationship, sharing more intelligence and
planning more coordinated training exercises, both sides motivated by a desire
to contain China.
How
things will change under a Biden-Harris administration is the big question
Indians are now asking. The incoming administration is definitely much more
familiar with India. Ms. Harris spent a lot of time in India as a young woman,
visiting family and developing a fondness for Indian food and culture.
And
Mr. Biden, even before he was President Barack Obama’s vice president, was a
champion for India in the Senate, pushing hard for a nuclear deal between the
two nations. Mr. Biden has also promised to allow more visas for skilled
immigrant workers, which President Trump drastically reduced, and Indian
workers could benefit enormously from that.
But
foreign policy experts expect that the Biden-Harris team will also be tougher
on India. They say that the policies of the Indian prime minister, Narendra
Modi, have made life more difficult for Muslims in the country, and while the
Trump administration has kept quiet about changes in Kashmir and the passage
of a
new, blatantly anti-Muslim citizenship law, Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden are
likely to be more critical.
Ms.
Harris has already indicated that she is concerned about the way India
has tightened control over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority territory that is
disputed between India and Pakistan. People who know her well expect her to
speak up more.
“Kamala
is a very strong personality who feels very strongly about certain issues like
human and civil rights,” her uncle G. Balachandran, said by telephone from his
house in New Delhi on Sunday morning. “She may say things if she feels India is
going against humanitarian rights.”
Most
analysts believe that human rights overall will probably get more attention
under a Biden administration, which might make Mr. Modi nervous.
Shortly
after midnight, Mr. Modi tweeted his congratulations to Mr. Biden and Ms.
Harris. “Your success is pathbreaking, and a matter of immense pride not just
for your chittis, but also for all Indian-Americans,” he wrote in a separate message to Ms. Harris, using a Tamil
term of endearment for aunts that she herself used in her
speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination in August.
A
handful of Ms. Harris’s relatives still live in India, including an aunt who
has been in her corner for years. She once lined up 108 coconuts to be smashed
at a Hindu temple to bring Ms. Harris good luck in a race for California
attorney general. (Ms. Harris won that election, by the slimmest of margins.)
But
Ms. Harris’s grandfather left the ancestral village of Thulasendrapuram, which
is a bumpy eight-hour drive from the city of Chennai, more than 80 years ago.
She no longer has close relatives there. Still, that’s not stopping the village
from hatching big plans.
Some
people are hoping the government will now build a college there, a wish the
village has been making for years. Others say Ms. Harris’s ascension might
bring a better road. Or at least some more donations for the temple.
On
Sunday, packs of women in bright saris thronged the temple, carrying buckets of
freshly made sweets.
The
smell of gunpowder hung in the air, from all the firecrackers.
A
light rain fell.
“From
the moment she announced that she was a candidate, we have been praying,” said
Arul Mozhi Sudhakar, a village councilor. “God has been listening to our
prayers.”
Jeffrey
Gettleman reported from New Delhi and Prakash Elumalai from Thulasendrapuram,
India. Suhasini Raj contributed reporting from Ganjam, India.
