Fireworks and flowers as Indian village celebrates Harris’s roots
Waking up to the news of Kamala Harris’s election as the first US vice president with South Asian heritage, overjoyed people in her Indian grandfather’s home town set off fireworks, waved her campaign placards and offered prayers.
Groups gathered in the tiny village of Thulasendrapuram, population 350, reading newspapers and chatting about the Democrats’ victory before moving to the local temple.
A woman wrote in coloured powder by the family home: “Congratulations Kamala Harris. Pride of our village. Vanakkam [greetings] America.”
Most residents of the village in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state were asleep by the time Joe Biden passed the winning threshold of 270 electoral college votes, making Ms Harris the first woman and the first person of South Asian descent to be elected vice president.
“For two or three days we kept our fingers crossed while the result was delayed,” resident Kalidas Vamdayar said.
“Now it’s a joyful moment for us. We are enjoying it. We will celebrate with firecrackers, distributing sweets to people and praying in the temple. We will request her to come here. She would have heard our voice and she may come.”
Tamil Nadu Food Minister R Kamraj led about 100 people at the Dharma Sastha temple in a 20-minute prayer during which the idol of Hindu deity Ayyanar was washed with milk and decked with flowers by the priest. He chanted hymns after lighting oil lamps, and the villagers bowed their heads in respect.
“Kamala Harris is the daughter of our village. From children to senior citizens, each one of us is awaiting the day she will take oath as the vice president of the US,” Aulmozhi Sudhakar, a village councillor, said.
More singing, dancing and fireworks were planned in the hamlet, where cutouts and posters wishing Ms Harris “grand success” adorn walls.
J Sudhakar, who organised prayers on US election day, expressed his wish that Ms Harris would visit. As Americans voted, about 50 Thulasendrapuram residents, with folded hands, lined up in the temple as it reverberated with the sound of ringing bells.
Women in the village, 350 kilometres from the southern coastal city of Chennai, wrote “We Wish Kamala Harris Wins” on the ground, alongside a thumbs-up sign.
The lush green village is the birthplace of Ms Harris’ maternal grandfather, who moved to Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, decades ago.
Ms Harris’s mother moved to the US from India at the age of 19 to study at the University of California. She married a Jamaican fellow student.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Ms Harris’s success was pathbreaking and a matter of immense pride for all Indian Americans.
“I am confident that the vibrant India-US ties will get even stronger with your support and leadership,” he said on Twitter.
Mr Biden’s choice of running mate led to both excitement and concern, however, and Mr Modi’s many Hindu nationalist supporters were upset with Ms Harris when she expressed concern about the region of Kashmir, whose statehood India revoked in August last year.
Pramila Jayapal, another US congresswoman of Indian origin, moved a resolution on Kashmir in the House of Representatives last year that was critical of New Delhi.
When India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar refused to attend a meeting in the US over Ms Jaypal’s actions, Ms Harris leapt to her defence.
Campaigners accuse India of human rights breaches in Kashmir, where insurgents have fought for independence or to join Pakistan since 1989.