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The importance of Kamala Harris’s South Asian heritage

Kailash Kumar

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The Importance of Kamala Harris’s South Asian Heritage

The media often underplays the fact that Biden’s vice presidential pick has an Indian mother. Her heritage could play a crucial role in U.S. foreign policy.

NEIL MAKHIJA

AUGUST 12, 2020

Kamala-Harris-Indian-South-Asia-Joe-Biden-Vice-President-GettyImages-630913190.jpg

Then Vice President Joe Biden talks with Sen. Kamala Harris and her aunt, Sarala Gopalan, during a swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol on Jan. 3, 2016.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate has been rightly hailed as historic: If elected, she would be the first female vice president of the United States as well as the first Black woman to hold that office. But what’s getting less attention in global media is the fact that Harris will also be the first vice president of South Asian heritage—and to Indian Americans like myself that is inspiring but also instructive.

How might Harris’s South Asian identity shape a Biden administration’s foreign-policy agenda? To tackle global problems, the United States needs a leader with a global mindset. As the daughter of an immigrant from Chennai, in southern India, it’s likely that Harris will share a perspective on foreign policy that looks at the world’s two largest democracies as critical allies. And while that lens of partnership could play a role in U.S.-China relations, on matters related to immigration, technology, trade, and defense, it will perhaps be most important in confronting the urgent threat of climate change, a challenge that previous U.S. governments have not achieved enough on and that the United States has regressed on under the administration of President Donald Trump.

There are more than 4 million people of Indian origin in the United States, and while they are not a monolith, they share a common heritage and many experiences that shape their perspective. Most are relatively new to the country and retain ties to family and loved ones in India. On the whole, they tend to be a highly educated and scientifically oriented demographic—many Indian immigrants arrived in the United States on H-1B visas for highly skilled tech workers. Indian Americans comprise one of the highest-earning demographics in the United States, with a median household income of around $100,000, according to the Pew Research Center.

These immigrants have generally voted Democratic in recent elections: About 77 percent voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But more importantly, they tend to care deeply about climate change, not only because they believe in science but because they hear the stories of the devastating effects of extreme weather from relatives in India and its neighboring countries. They also know that climate change was the biggest challenge confronting the planet before the coronavirus pandemic and that it will be the biggest challenge facing the world once COVID-19 is—eventually—behind us.

Indian Americans see, perhaps more than most, how the world has changed over the past two decades. When I was growing up, trips with my family to India meant me and my sisters packing ourselves into the single room in my grandmother’s home that had air conditioning. Today, I can order a latte from a Starbucks in Mumbai with the air conditioning blasting so hard it gives me the chills. The growing Indian middle class is an economic miracle in many ways. But Indian Americans also share an acute understanding that if rapidly developing countries like India and China burn cheap coal to fuel their growth the way the United States did, there won’t be a world for children in any country to inherit.

What Indian Americans want is for the United States to lead the path to a clean energy future that serves them at home and also leads to sustainable development abroad. They want an administration that cooperates with India and China on these critical issues and supports policies that improve living conditions around the world.

A Biden-Harris administration would build on the successes of the Obama-Biden administration, undo the damages of the Trump administration, and work to reestablish and strengthen the Paris climate agreement.

Consider also the Trump administration’s policies regarding immigrants. After campaigning on building a medieval wall on the U.S. southern border and banning Muslims, the Trump administration enacted a slew of policies hostile to immigrants from all parts of the world, including India. This summer, the Trump administration suspended H-1B visas, pulling the rug out from under 525,000 workers, most of them of South Asian origin. In every instance, Harris confronted Trump’s nativism, criticizing his policies of putting “babies in cages” and reminding us that “their children are our children,” as well as introducing legislation to remove national caps on H-1B visas that lead to lengthy delays for Indian immigrants seeking green cards.

Indian Americans know—just as a Biden-Harris administration will—that sensible immigration reform will also be integral to addressing major global challenges such as climate change, because the United States cannot lead the world when it is turning its back on its best talent, and because the only way for the country to succeed in building a future resilient to climate change is to welcome those from around the world who have great ideas and the work ethic to make them a reality.

Harris understands these issues personally. Her mother came to the United States to do cancer research and earn her doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. She is part of the generation of Indians—like my father—who came to the United States because they saw it as a place to learn, a place to grow, a place to improve the world, and a place to work hard and have a good life.

Harris also knows that the only way to solve global problems like climate change, inequality, or the externalities stemming from globalization is to reverse the Trump administration’s policies of retrenching from the world and instead to bring countries closer together. During her own presidential campaign, Harris proposed an unprecedented $10 trillion plan to create a carbon-neutral economy in the United States, alongside billions in aid to countries that meet the goals of the Paris accords. “Climate change is an existential threat to our species, and the United States must lead the world with bold action to safeguard our future and protect our planet,” Harris has said.

Growing up in an immigrant family in Pennsylvania’s coal country, not far from Biden’s hometown of Scranton, I’ve seen the environmental devastation that underlaid the United States’ great postwar expansion, as well as the opportunity that the coal era provided. In Kamala Harris, I see someone who looks like me, who shares in my experiences, and who knows that we simply cannot treat the planet in the future as we have in the past. As an Indian American, as someone who wants to see a safe, prosperous, and healthy world, I can’t wait for her to be my vice president, and I can’t wait to see her represent my country on the world stage.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/12/the-importance-of-kamala-harriss-south-asian-heritage/
 
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Neil makhija has no relation to a tamil/black christian like kamala. THey dont intermarry or have same food or same castes. Why did the article start with south asian move on to indian ?
Kamala harris is not sympathetic to bhakth india. RSS hates her. THey heavily funded the hawaii candidate Tulsi gabbard.

INdian heritage plays no role in USA. Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadella did not ban beef from google/microsoft canteens not introduced more vegetarian items. They will be toast if they as much as lift their finger in that direction. IN fact satya made some noises against NCR.
 
Neil makhija has no relation to a tamil/black christian like kamala. THey dont intermarry or have same food or same castes. Why did the article start with south asian move on to indian ?
Kamala harris is not sympathetic to bhakth india. RSS hates her. THey heavily funded the hawaii candidate Tulsi gabbard.

INdian heritage plays no role in USA. Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadella did not ban beef from google/microsoft canteens not introduced more vegetarian items. They will be toast if they as much as lift their finger in that direction. IN fact satya made some noises against NCR.
As a pakistani our foreign office should woo her. But our weight behind, if she give one hqrd statement against against india the sanghs would never vote for her.
 
Trump was going strong. There is no chance he would loose. I have full faith in americans to vote him back again.
But then carona happened. This is the first time i doubt his ability to win.
 
world’s two largest democracies
India has failed multiple litmus tests for democracy in the last two years.

Rule of law.
Failure to protect minorities from discrimination.
Institution of discriminatory policy.
Non-interference of government in media and judiciary.
Taxation without representation.
Incarceration without charge or even suspicion of crime.
Suppression of the right to protest peacefully and to assemble for this purpose.
Indefinite armed curfew and suppression of freedom of speech, expression and media in Kashmir.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-53684408

According to the BBC article, journalists cannot report the truth and doctors cannot issue death certificates to bereaved families. Is this a democracy?

"Now journalists are questioned, arrested and forced to reveal sources. If I have to put up a post on social media, I have to think twice or thrice now because I have to work too. The fear is always there."

"Usaib Altaf, 17, drowned after he jumped into a river to escape security forces who were chasing him - a charge they have denied.

A year later, his death has still not been officially acknowledged - even the hospital where he died has refused to issue the family with a death certificate.

"He had gone to play football but he returned in a coffin. Police insist no-one died that day. They are not acknowledging that he was killed. I have witnesses but still they are refusing to file a case. We went to the police station and courts but there's been no justice," he says. "

The article posted by OP is inherently biased when it states the secular republic of India to be a "democracy" without carrying out due diligence and fact checking this definition viz the above counterarguments, which are but a few examples.

@Jyotish For you, being a respected member of the pdf community who believes in quality just like I do, it's always worth checking for inherent bias within articles prior to posting them, as this sort of bias degrades the reliability of the rest of that particular article.

If we are to believe India is a "democracy" and moreover some sister democracy of USA, we need to see evidence for this. Until then, it is a spurious and unsubstantiated claim, nothing more.
 
The article posted by OP is inherently biased when it states the secular republic of India to be a "democracy" without carrying out due diligence and fact checking this definition viz the above counterarguments, which are but a few examples.

@Jyotish For you, being a respected member of the pdf community who believes in quality just like I do, it's always worth checking for inherent bias within articles prior to posting them, as this sort of bias degrades tAccrhe reliability of the rest of that particular article.

If we are to believe India is a "democracy" and moreover some sister democracy of USA, we need to see evidence for this. Until then, it is a spurious and unsubstantiated claim, nothing more.

According to the Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), India is a democracy, albeit a flawed one.

Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

And I agree with the assessment of the EIU.

India is currently a very flawed democracy, but still a democracy.

The points you mentioned of where you said that India has failed the litmus tests for democracy, I agree with.

And I do think that if the trend continues, India will become a hybrid regime.

Hybrid regimes are nations with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracies. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opposition, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#:~:text=The Democracy Index is an,2008, 2010 and later years.
 
According to the Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), India is a democracy, albeit a flawed one.

Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

And I agree with the assessment of the EIU.

India is currently a very flawed democracy, but still a democracy.

The points you mentioned of where you said that India has failed the litmus tests for democracy, I agree with.

And I do think that if the trend continues, India will become a hybrid regime.

Hybrid regimes are nations with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracies. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opposition, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#:~:text=The Democracy Index is an,2008, 2010 and later years.
Thank you for checking up on this. I feel the jingoistic soundbyte "world's largest democracy" sells newspapers and generates clicks. It needs verification and updating as you have alluded to.
 
I think Indians will flock to vote for Biden, knowing that there is a very good chance Harris may become the president one day. It's all about race and Indians can one day claim the first Indian POTUS. Trump will lose Indian support in this election.
 

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