Topline
Residents of Thulasendrapuram, a small village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, are excitedly preparing for the U.S. presidential election in which Kamala Harris, the granddaughter of one of the village’s former residents, is all set to become the Democratic party’s nominee.
A large banner wishing Kamala Harris success in the U.S. presidential elections has been put up in … [+]
Key Facts
Located nearly 8,700 miles from Washington D.C., the village erupted in celebration in 2021 after Harris was sworn in as vice president; residents told Reuters there will be “a larger celebration this time” as she runs for president.
Excited about her expected nomination as the Democratic candidate, some residents are celebrating by installing a large banner with Harris’ photo outside the entrance of the village’s main Hindu temple.
The banner wishes Harris success, while hailing her for putting Thulasendrapuram on the global map and bringing pride to India and Tamil Nadu.
According to The Hindu, villagers have been performing special “poojas” (prayers) and making offerings to the local Hindu deity for Harris’ success, while others have .
Harris’ name, along with her maternal grandfather’s, has also been inscribed on a stone tablet inside the temple as the vice president donated to the temple in 2014 for its consecration after a renovation, the report added.
Even though she last visited the village when she was only five, Thulasendrapuram residents told the BBC that everyone in the village knows her name and addresses her as “sister and mother”—usually a respectful way for children to address people older than them.
Key Background
Harris’ maternal grandfather PV Gopalan was born in Thulasendrapuram in 1911. He would go on to become a civil servant in British-ruled India, which eventually became the Indian civil service after the country gained independence. While Harris claimed he participated in the Indian independence movement in her 2019 memoir, there is little record of this. In independent India, Gopalan would later serve on an Indian diplomatic mission to Zambia to help the country manage an influx of refugees from Zimbabwe (then known as Rhodesia) as the country fought for its independence. Harris’s mother Shyamala was one of Gopalan’s four children and she emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 19 to study at U.C. Berkeley. Harris’ mother met her father, Donald Harris, an immigrant from Jamaica, at Berkeley.
Tangent
While most in Thulasendrapuram are excited about Harris’ rise to the top of the Democratic party, some have expressed disappointment about her not visiting the village or publicly mentioning it since becoming vice president. A shopkeeper in the village told Reuters that calendars with her photos were hung outside homes in the village after her swearing-in in 2021. “They are not so prominent anymore. But it’s likely they’ll now make a comeback,” he added.
A banner calling Harris the “Precious daughter of our soil” success was install in front of the main … [+]
Thulasendrapuram is the birth place of Harris’s maternal grandfather PV Gopalan.
Villagers gather to offer prayers for the US Vice President Kamala Harris at the Sri Dharmasastha … [+]
A villager points to the name of US Vice President Kamala Harris, written in Tamil language on a … [+]
Banners with Harris’s have popped up across Thulasendrapuram after she Democratic party’s leading … [+]
A local leader distributes sweets after offering prayers for Harris at the temple.
Further Reading
‘Long Live Kamala Harris’: Vice President’s Ancestral Village In India Erupts With Joy (Photos) (Forbes)
Excitement in air in Kamala Harris’ ancestral village in Tamil Nadu (The Hindu)
