From coverage to household: How the Kamala Harris nomination is related to India

Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden on Wednesday named Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential nominee, ending weeks of hypothesis over who his working mate can be.

Harris’ nomination could be very related to India: she had backed one other US Congresswoman, Pramila Jayapal, and had obliquely criticised Exterior Affairs minister S Jaishankar in December final 12 months for not assembly her and different Congress members resulting from Jayapal’s criticism of the Indian authorities relating to Kashmir. On one other event, when she was requested to touch upon the Kashmir scenario after the abrogation of Article 370, she had stated, “we’re watching”.

She has invoked her Indian mom on a number of events, particularly within the final 4 years as a Senator, and had even referenced Indira Gandhi as one of many strongest girls leaders. She has additionally spoken out in defence of immigrants, was towards Trump’s muslim immigrant ban, and has additionally spoken in favour of immigrant girls in search of jobs as she has batted for the H-Four visas given to spouses of H-1B visa holders.

She has additionally spoken out towards China’s human rights document, particularly close to Uighurs, and has voted within the US Senate towards China’s monitor document.

Harris, whose mom was an Indian, was born and raised within the US. Her choice because the VP nominee not solely makes her the primary lady of color to be on the highest ticket on the US elections, but additionally positions herself on the high rung of the Democratic get together.

However her relevance to India isn’t just due to her Indian roots, though she has been fairly vocal of her Indian ancestry particularly within the final Four years within the US Senate.

The Jaishankar-Jayapal incident

In December 2019, when Exterior Affairs minister S Jaishankar was to satisfy members of the US Home International Affairs Committee, which additionally included one other Indian-origin US Congresswoman, Pramila Jayapal, he apparently advised the chairman of the committee, Eliot Engel, that he wouldn’t meet the panel except Jayapal was dropped. Engel refused to entertain the request and the scheduled assembly was cancelled on the final second.

Harris backed her colleague in a tweet saying, “It’s improper for any international authorities to inform Congress what members are allowed in conferences on Capitol Hill.” The primary US Senator of Indian origin, Harris stated she stands with Jayapal. “I’m glad her colleagues within the Home did too,” she stated.

Indian origin

Relating to her maternal ancestry from India, she has stated, “I come from an extended line of robust, trailblazing, phenomenal girls. My grandmother would go into villages in India with a bullhorn, telling poor girls easy methods to entry contraception. My mom got here to the USA on the age of 19 to check endocrinology at UC Berkeley and finally turned a number one breast most cancers researcher.”

Her mom has been a recurring a theme in lots of her speeches. On July 03, 2017, at a ceremony the place 41 youngsters and youth have been being sworn in as US residents, she stated, “Taking a look at this group, I can’t assist however consider a younger lady roughly the age of lots of you. She was born in Chennai, within the south of India, the place she had been a gifted singer and a precocious scholar. And this younger lady dreamed of turning into a scientist. She needed to check at one of many high universities on this planet, the College of California, Berkeley. She was solely 19, however her father let her journey midway world wide, with the settlement that when she completed faculty she would return residence to a conventional Indian marriage.”

“However at Berkeley, this younger lady met a younger man, additionally an immigrant. A high economics scholar from Jamaica. And so, as a substitute of an organized marriage, she went towards 1000’s of years of custom and selected a love marriage. That lady was my mom, Shyamala Gopalan. It was a tough alternative and a courageous alternative that she made, fuelled by love and optimism,” she stated.

Help for H-Four visas

On September 26, 2018, she and one other US Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) despatched a letter to the US Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and US Citizenship and Immigration Providers (USCIS) Director L Francis Cissna urging them to not revoke employment authorisation for roughly 100,000 high-skilled immigrant girls presently lined below the “H-Four rule”. Underneath the rule, the ladies, who’re principally South Asian, are in a position to make use of their schooling {and professional} coaching within the US as medical doctors, nurses, scientists, academics, lecturers and know-how professionals, amongst different careers in high-demand, expert fields. These H-Four visa holders are spouses of H-1B visa holders.

Criticism from US Sikhs

Harris has confronted criticism from the Sikh neighborhood. In July 2019, a bunch of Sikh activists had launched an internet petition asking her to apologise to the neighborhood for allegedly defending a discriminatory coverage in 2011 that prohibited state jail guards from maintaining beards for non secular causes, regardless that exceptions got for medical causes.

📣 The Indian Specific is now on Telegram. Click on right here to hitch our channel (@indianexpress) and keep up to date with the newest headlines

For all the newest Defined Information, obtain Indian Specific App.