‘Our daughters’: Here’s why Indians are suddenly very interested in US elections

There’s a strong Indian interest in the US presidential election, with Kamala Harris and the wife of J.D. Vance having links to the country
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This presidential race will be watched closely around that world, not least in Southern India, where the Democratic candidate and the wife of Donald Trump’s running mate both have roots

Back in 2019, when Kamala Devi Harris – who this week became the Democratic Party’s candidate for US president – cooked a ‘dosa’ (a crispy Indian crepe made from fermented batter, stuffed with spicy potato) and a ‘sambar’ (a lentil-based spicy vegetable stew), assisted by Indian-American actress Mindy Kaling, it took social media by storm. 

Kamala’s dosa brought smiles to the faces of residents of Thulasendrapuram village in the Tiruvarur district of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu – Kamala’s ancestral village. 

A year later, when she became Joe Biden‘s vice president, the village erupted in celebration as people ignited firecrackers, distributed sweets, held special prayers, and even drew colourful ‘kolams’ (a traditional decorative art drawn using rice flour) on their doorsteps. 

Now, it’s not just Kamala Harris whose south Indian roots have come to the fore in the 2024 US election. Usha Chilukuri Vance, wife of Donald Trump's running mate J.D. Vance, is also in the limelight due to her Indian connections. She is from a family of illustrious academics in Visakhapatnam, a port city in Andhra Pradesh.

As both women are engaged in a high decibel political battle on US soil, back home in India, the US election has become a keenly watched event.

Incidentally, two other Americans of Indian ethnicity were involved in the presidential election at the primary stage: former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, whose parents emigrated from India’s breadbasket, Punjab, and who was Trump’s last competitor for the Republican party’s nomination; and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose family’s roots are in the south Indian state of Kerala.

Puja for Kamala

In Thulasendrapuram, the very mention of Kamala Harris brings a smile to the face of villagers, who celebrated her win in 2020.

K Kaliyaperumal, a member of the Thulasendrapuram village committee, said that, if Kamala were to win, the celebrations would be much larger this time, comparing it to India’s recent win at the cricket World Cup, which had spread waves of joy rippling through the nation. “We are praying she becomes president,” he said.

A huge vinyl banner embossed with Kamala’s photograph, placed at the entrance of a temple, welcomes visitors to the village. The banner wishes her success.

The villagers have been tracking the US election on TV.  

“Many people hung calendars with her picture outside their homes when she became vice president,” recalled G Manikandan. He said if Harris becomes president, the celebration would be on a grand scale, suggesting that the euphoria has already set in.

Ever since the news broke out that Joe Biden had endorsed her, special pujas were performed at the temple with villagers praying for her victory.

Harris’ maternal grandfather was born in Thulasendrapuram, a village she visited when she was five. However, she has not visited since she became vice president. Nonetheless, Harris a household name in her ancestral village.

The US vice president is the daughter of Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist in California. She raised Kamala and her sister Maya as a single mother. 

“I was raised eating south Indian food, lots of rice and yoghurt, potato curry, dal and of course idli,” Kamala has said.

Speaking about her mother’s love for ‘idli’ (a savoury rice cake popular as breakfast in south India), Kamala, while addressing a virtual campaign event to commemorate India’s independence day in 2020, said: “Because she wanted us to understand where she had come from and where we had ancestry.”

She even joked that her mother always wanted to instil in her the love of “good idli.” 

About her grandfather PV Gopalan, with whom she would go on walks in Chennai, the state capital of Tamil Nadu, Kamala said he would speak of the heroes of the Indian freedom struggle. She even spoke a few words in the Tamil language while proudly referring to various aspects of her upbringing.

Gopalan worked on the rehabilitation of refugees from East Pakistan in India. Later, he became an adviser to the Zambian president and lived in Lusaka, while his wife Rajam built a reputation for her social work. The vice president’s maternal uncle Gopalan Balachandran, a former consultant at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA), is an academic based in Delhi. 

According to Balachandran, Harris remains connected to her roots in India, both through her upbringing and visits to Chennai. Locals recall that Harris donated money to a Thulasendrapuram temple’s kumbhabhishekam (the consecration after its renovation) held in 2014. Her name is inscribed on a stone tablet containing a list of donors in the shrine premises.

She also visited Chennai along with her sister Maya after their mother died, to immerse her ashes in the sea, according to Hindu tradition.

Family of academics 

The Chilukuri family in the neighboring south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is no less prolific.

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Usha’s father Chilukuri Radhakrishna, a mechanical engineer, was a lecturer at San Diego University. Her mother Lakshmi was a molecular biologist and provost at the University of California, San Diego. The Telugu-speaking Chilukuri couple moved to the US in 1980. 

“I have never met Usha personally but I know all about her. Her father, grandfather and great-grandfather have all been toppers and excelled in everything they did. Same is the case with Usha, who excelled academically and professionally. It runs in the family,” smiled Usha’s great-aunt Chilukuri Shantamma, who has been flooded with phone calls ever since J.D. Vance was picked by Trump as his running mate.

Usha’s father Radhakrishna is the youngest son of C Rama Sastry. Sastry’s younger brother, Dr Chilukuri Subramanya Sastry, retired as professor in the Telugu Department at Andhra University (AU) in Visakhapatnam. He was a gold medallist in BA (Telugu) and the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) unit in Andhra Pradesh. His wife, retired professor Chilukuri Shantamma, lives in Abid Nagar and continues to take classes.

“I wish to convey to Usha that she supports her husband, uphold Hindu values and support Hindus in the US,” says Shantamma, a gold medallist in physics. 

At 96, Shantamma is India's oldest teaching professor. She started teaching at the physics department in AU in 1956 and officially retired in 1989 but continues to teach classes at AU and travels 60km every day to teach at Centurion University at Vizianagaram (in Andhra Pradesh), where she is an emeritus professor.

“Usha is following in the footsteps of her family members who were academically strong and always prioritised education,” said Shantamma, adding that she will try to invite Usha and J.D. Vance to India for “a short visit so that people can see her.” 

Usha was raised in a San Diego suburb and attended Mt Carmel High School, before graduating with a BA in history from Yale University in 2007. The 38-year-old lawyer, an expert in civil litigation, continued her studies at the University of Cambridge, where she earned an M.Phil in 2009 as a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

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Usha’s contribution to her husband’s achievement has been noteworthy. She helped Vance put his ideas about the decline of society in rural white America, which led to his best-selling novel ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, which director Ron Howard turned into a movie in 2020.

“It’s a matter of pride for us that someone with roots in Andhra could become the potential second lady of the US. It definitely feels good,” says Anakala Rao, a private employee based in Visakhapatnam.

He says this has huge significance, with thousands of students from Andhra Pradesh studying or settled in the US. “If J.D. Vance gets elected, I am sure Usha will take care of the interests of the Telugus,” Rao says. He added that Andhraites across the world would celebrate Vance’s win. “It will strengthen ties between India and the US,” he remarks.

According to Dr Sharada Jandhyala, a doctor in Chennai and Usha’s maternal aunt, her brother Radhakrishna did his mechanical engineering from IIT Madras and his family later moved to the US. “Usha would come to our house in Chennai as a kid. I attended her marriage in the US,” she said.