KAMALA DEVI HARRIS

From Sampath’s Desk:

 

KAMALA DEVI HARRIS

 

When the nomination of the 56-year-old Indian-origin  California Senator Ms. Kamala Devi Harris (her mother is Shyamala Gopalan, daughter of PV Gopalan and Rajam) as the running mate of the U.S. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden (Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.) was announced, Indians in general and Tamil Nadu and Chennai in particular - more specifically the Indian women  - felt very happy. Now that Joe Biden has won the presidential elections getting more than 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes, Kamala Harris is set to soon become the Vice President of America, one of the oldest democracies of the world.  

 

Her long journey from Chennai to California and shifting her walk from the Marina Beach (Besant Nagar) to Miami Beach was industrious, indefatigable, indomitable and intellectual one. However, her walking into the VP nomination honour on behalf of the Democratic party of the U.S. was certainly not a cakewalk on the featherbed and she had to pass through a difficult track full of pitfalls, thorns and what not!

 

Kamala Harris, who calls herself ‘a child of Oakland’, is the eldest daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrant parents. In fact, she was the first non-white woman to become San Francisco district attorney. Thereafter when she came back from behind to win during her run for Attorney General of California against a moderate Republican, she became the first non-white woman elected to that position.

 

As a senator, she had gained plaudits on the left. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she grilled controversial figures - Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing and Attorney General William Barr over the Special Counsel investigation in May 2019. When she pressed former attorney general Jeff Sessions about Russia in 2017 he asked her to slow down. Said he, "I'm not able to be rushed this fast. It makes me nervous!" That was the oratory skill of  Kamala!

 

Particularly on the Senate Judiciary Committee which Joe used to lead, Kamala had distinguished herself as a fighter on behalf of the American people on issues ranging from corruption to women's rights and election interference, the campaign wrote in an email after the pick was made.

 

Recently, she took the lead on Democrats policing legislation along with Representative Karen Bass, who was also on Biden's shortlist, which called for banning chokeholds limiting ‘qualified immunity’ for cops protecting them from civil suits, ending the use of the kind of no-knock warrants that led to the killing of Breonna Taylor and creating a national misconduct registry for officers. It needs no over-emphasis that she is a sensational human rights activist! But her elevation did not come without the quota of problems for the Biden campaign. A high-profile primary debate clash between the two on busing policies in the 1970s reportedly caused tension among campaign donors and within the vetting committee and will instantly provide fodder for Republicans who see daylight between Biden and his new VP.


Busing is a plan for promoting school desegregation, by which minority students are transported to largely white schools and white students are brought to largely minority schools. It is intended to safeguard the civil rights of students and to provide equal opportunity in public education. Busing is also an example of affirmative action, that is, the attempt to undo or compensate for the effects of past discrimination. Such action is sometimes called ‘compensatory justice’.


To become the Vice President of the U.S.A., a leading super power of the world and a super economy is certainly a great personal honour for her and also the country of her origin, India. In her ancestral village Thulasendrapuram in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, there were celebrations hailing her victory as the Vice President of the U.S.A.

 

Let us wish her ALL THE BEST!

 

 

R.SAMPATH

9/11/2020

 

 

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