The day after US President Joe Biden withdrew from the race to contest for a second term and endorsed his Vice-President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s candidate in the coming elections in November, in Thulasendrapuram, a tiny village In Tamil Nadu around 300 km away from Chennai, community prayers began, with the head priest at the village temple paying homage to Dharmasastha, also known as LoTrd Ayyappan, the Hindu deity of truth and righteousness. The prayers, expected to to continue till election day, November 5, are being organised to wish Harris success in the elections.
Thulasendrapuram, which even many Indians will likely have difficulty in pronouncing correctly, leave alone finding on a map, is roughly 14,000 km from Washington D.C. Yet, it is the village from where Harris’ ancestors–at least one half of them–originate. Harris, 59, is half Indian. Her late mother Shyamala, a biologist, migrated to the US in her teens and her family originally is from that tiny village (population: around 350).
Harris’ other half is Jamaican. Her father, Donald, an economist, migrated to the US in 1961. Although Harris was raised by her mother after her parents divorced, she identifies more with the African-American community than with Indians.
Harris has occasionally visited India with her mother but her links to Thulasendrapuram are remote. That hasn’t stopped villagers there from swelling with pride. Who becomes the President of the US is certainly not going to affect their fortunes but the village is already festooned with huge posters and banners of Harris’s image and congratulatory messages in Tamil.
The spirit of celebration has spread across India, especially in the media as well as among citizens who see the possibility of an Indian origin person in the White House as a win. The phenomenon is not an isolated one. Every time a person of Indian origin–no matter how removed in reality he or she is from the country or how inconsequential their links with India might be–Indians appear to get excited and proud.
When Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2022, there was similar jubilation. In Sunak’s case, it was heightened by the fact that he is married to the daughter of one of India’s leading infotech tycoons, N.R. Narayana Murthy, the billionaire founder of Infosys. Sunak demitted office this year after his Conservative Party lost in the elections but media interest in him and his popularity among Indians continues.
Back in 2015, when Bobby Jindal, a son of Indian immigrants from Punjab, and former Governor of Louisiana, became a candidate for the presidency of the US, there was similar hype around him in Indian media, although Jindal, a Republican known for his conservatism, never really highlighted his origins nor any affinity for the country. More recently, when Nikki Haley (birth name: Nimarata), a daughter of Sikh immigrants, made an eventually unsuccessful bid for becoming the Republican candidate for the upcoming elections, interest in her campaign spiked in India.
Even if political leaders of Indian origins have little to do with their country of origin or ethnicity, Indians tend to get excited, sometimes irrationally. Such as in the case of Vivek Ramaswamy, a rich young technocrat and Republican who, like Haley, ran for candidacy of his party before Donald Trump was chosen as its candidate. Although the son of Indian immigrants, Ramswamy is a hardliner when it comes to immigration and is a vocal proponent of mass deportation and tighter rules for anyone, including Indians, who want to migrate to the US. Yet, when it was speculated that he could have a chance at winning the candidacy, the interest in his campaign was disproportionately high in India.
Why is it that Indians get so upbeat when anyone with ethnic roots to their country is seen to be successful in the politics of another country, particularly in the West?
Cultural Pride and Visibility
The excitement is part of a broader pattern in India, where achievements of people of Indian origin in other countries are often celebrated as a point of national and cultural pride. There are several reasons why they feel excited and proud when global leaders of Indian origin rise to prominent positions, even if those leaders don’t actively emphasise their Indian heritage.
For one, it’s a source of national and cultural pride to see someone with shared roots achieving success on a global stage. It is to many a validation of Indian potential and capabilities. It also provides a sense of representation and visibility for Indians in global affairs, which can be inspiring, especially for younger generations.
For many decades, India’s place on the global scene was not prominent. There were few Indian success stories, particularly in global politics. That has changed. India’s importance in geopolitics has grown; there is a high visibility that Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys in the world; and India is strategically more important in geopolitics, particularly for the US-led Western bloc.
In that context, success stories of Indian-origin political leaders in the West, who are considered as part of the Indian diaspora, can further burnish the country’s image. Such stories can also serve as motivation for Indians, showing that people with similar backgrounds can reach the highest levels of leadership in developed nations. Many Indians have family members or friends who have emigrated, so there’s often a sense of connection to the diaspora’s achievements. In the US, with a population of more than 4.9 million, Indian Americans make up approximately 1.35% of the country’s population and the biggest South Asian community.
Busting Stereotypes and Perceptions
Some Indians may also feel that having leaders of Indian origin in powerful positions could potentially benefit India indirectly through more favorable policies or increased cultural understanding, although there has been little evidence of such correlation between leaders and policies.
Yet, these success stories can help challenge the stereotypes about Indians and South Asians. An Indian origin candidate in the US Presidential elections is likely to influence the perception of Indians in general and change existing narratives about the country and its citizens.
Moreover, even if people of second and third-generation Indian origin do not actively promote their Indian heritage, many still relate to the challenges that their parents or even grandparents might have faced as immigrants. Kamala Harris rarely invokes her Indian heritage but her mother’s struggles and achievements in an alien land where she came as a teenager in the 1950s does influence her enough to talk about what she learnt while growing up.
Why Indians Do Well in the West
Not everyone is over the top about the success of people such as Harris or Sunak. Some Indians are critical of this fandom. They argue that it reflects a colonised mentality, which tends to internalise ethnic, linguistic, or a cultural inferiority complex. India has suffered colonialism under the British for more than 200 years and that has had the effect on many into believing that the language and culture of the West are superior to one’s own. So if someone of Indian origin is seen to succeed in Western society, it is celebrated as a win even if such leaders themselves distance themselves from their own Indian heritage–for example, even though Nimarata became Nikki, or Piyush is known as Bobby.
Yet, there are reasons why Indians, rather than other South Asians seem to be more successful in Western societies. For one, India has the world’s largest population and, therefore, sizably more immigrants who settle abroad, notably to the West. Second, India’s history as a British colony has left a linguistic legacy: widespread usage of English, which is an advantage in the English-speaking world.
Unlike China, India’s long-standing system of democracy makes it easier for Indian immigrants to adapt to and participate in political systems in other democracies such as the US. There is also a strong stress on higher education in many Indian families, often in fields valued in global leadership roles, such as law, business, and technology.
Rise of Indian Global CEOs
The rise of Indians has been a bigger phenomenon in the global business scene than it has in western politics. According to one estimate, more than 35 global billion-dollar corporations have Indian origin CEOs. The trend has been a notable phenomenon. Consider, for instance, just a few of them: at Microsoft, Satya Nadella is the CEO; at Google/Alphabet, it is Sundar Pichai; at Adobe, it is Shantanu Narayen; at IBM, it is Arvind Krishna; at Chanel, it is Leena Nair; and at Starbucks, it is Laxman Narasimhan. The list, which is longer, is impressive.
It highlights the stress on education. Many Indian families prioritise higher education, often in fields like engineering, computer science, and business. It also demonstrates that many Indian professionals are able to adapt to different work cultures and have a strong work ethic, and showcases the leadership skills that Indians are able to inculcate.
The growing list of Indian origin executives is a matter of pride for many Indians. However, it is also a fact that many of these executives made it big because they chose to leave India. India has very few global corporations that dominate the world’s markets on the scale and extent to which the companies headed by some of these Indian CEOs do. An Indian Google, or an Indian Microsoft simply doesn’t exist. India’s infotech companies, including the one that Sunak’s father-in-law started, is, basically, an outfit that offers cheap offshore services and not high value-added infotech products.
This has given rise to the perception that talented Indians do really well when they choose to leave their country and move to the West. That probably shouldn’t fire up the pride among the millions of those who live in India as much as it does.
Back in Thulasendrapuram, though, the festivities and prayers are believed to be continuing. Yet, even as many villagers are feeling proud about their connection to such a prominent global figure, it is worth noting that Harris has never visited their village and likely never will.
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