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

Washington: An Indian-American fundraiser has urged US Vice President and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris to visit her mother's hometown Chennai if elected as the president in the November general elections.

Harris, 59, is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. She officially declared her candidacy after incumbent President Joe Biden withdrew from the race for a second term on July 20. She is expected to be officially declared as the presidential candidate by the Democrats next month.

“If she's elected, I will be pushing and saying, let's go to India. But you got to go to Chennai. You got to go to Chennai. You can go to Delhi. Delhi's fine with me. You got to do all that, but Chennai we gotta go,” Shekar Narasimhan, Chairman and founder of the Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Victory Fund, told PTI in an interview.

Chennai was the hometown of Harris' mother Shyamala Gopalan. Shyamalan moved to the US for higher studies at the age of 16. 

Harris has fond memories of Chennai, a city she used to visit quite often in her childhood. In 2009, Harris carried her mother's ashes to the city and scattered them in the Indian Ocean waters.

“I said in one of the pieces I've written, because my mother's from Chennai and her mother's from Chennai, I said, boy, you know, to me, the dream is she's president and we are going to Chennai. And she will get an enraptured welcome, and she should,” Narasimhan said.

“If Bill Clinton could get it, why would you not welcome back the daughter of the mother of your soil? So yes, there should be excitement (among Indians),” he said.

“I think the negatives always are going to be what is she doing for us? How is she different than? American foreign policy should be dictated by American interests, unfortunately or fortunately. I think the same for Indian foreign policy. I always argue Indian foreign policy should be dictated by what's important to India,” he said.

In response to a question, he said, “So, let's just be adults, but here you have an emotional connection. Let's take advantage of it. Let's build on it to say, what's the next level we could take this? How could we create a partnership that was baked on trust and mutual understanding?”