Indian American fundraiser urges Kamala Harris to visit Chennai if elected US president

An Indian-American fundraiser has called on US Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to visit her mother’s hometown of Chennai if elected president in the November general elections.

Harris, 59, is a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. She formally announced her candidacy after incumbent President Joe Biden withdrew from running for a second term on July 20. Harris is expected to be officially announced as the Democratic presidential candidate next month.

“If she wins, I would make the case: Go to India, but you have to go to Chennai too. You can go to Delhi, you can go to Delhi, you have to, but you have to go to Chennai,” Shekhar Narasimhan, chairman and founder of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Victory Fund, told PTI in an interview.

Chennai is the hometown of Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan. Shyamalan moved to the US at the age of 16 to pursue higher education. Harris has fond memories of Chennai, a city she often visited as a child. In 2009, Harris brought her mother’s ashes to Chennai to have them scattered in the Indian Ocean.

“In one of the articles I wrote, because my mother is from Chennai and her mother is from Chennai, I wrote, ‘My dream would be for her to become president and go to Chennai and she would receive a rapturous welcome, and she should,'” Narasimhan said.

“If Bill Clinton could win, why not welcome the mother of our mother’s daughter? So there should be excitement (among Indians),” he said.

“The negative will always be, what can she do for us? How is she different from other countries? American foreign policy, for better or worse, should be determined by American interests. I think the same is true for Indian foreign policy. I have always maintained that Indian foreign policy should be determined by what is important to India,” he said.

In response to a question, he said, “As adults, but there is an emotional connection. Let’s use that to our advantage. Let’s think about how we can take this to the next level. How can we build a partnership based on trust and mutual understanding?”