By AXJ Bosco
Vijayawada: “Kamala Harris’ journey from ‘Brahmin’ to Blackhood is rarest of the rare,” writes Kanch Ilaia Shepherd, one of the outspoken professors of politics and a persistent voice of the marginalized.
It is indeed a moment of pride for Indians that Kamala Harris, a woman with Indian roots, has become the vice president of the United States. She is the revolution that India needs today.
Shyamala Harris, the mother of Kamala Harris, was a Tamil Brahmin woman who went to the United States for higher studies. She fell in love and got married to Donald Jasper, a Black Jamaican migrant who taught economics. She became a Protestant Christian and a Black Civil Rights activist, along with her husband, following Martin Luther King, the great Black leader of the Civil Rights movement.
Her daughter, Kamala was an active singer in the choir in the Protestant Church. It is the Protestant Christian background which helped Kamala become the District Attorney General, and a Senator, paving the way to become the first woman vice president of the most powerful country in the world.
Kamala’s rise to power challenges many essential values of the fundamentalist and conservative Hindutva forces in our country. Shyamala Harrison, her mother, could go to the United States for higher studies because she studied English, not just Sanskrit and Hindi. Although a Tamil Brahmin, usually conservative and caste oriented, she married a Black Jamaican, which was something unimaginable.
She rose above the prejudices of Brahmanical purity, race and color. Then she became a Protestant (conversion is a detested word in political Hinduism and is considered a crime). Following Christian cultural practices is yet another revolution. Committing to the cause of Black Civil Rights Movement and actively fighting for the freedom of the so called lower race (caste in India) signals the inner transformation that enabled her to consider all humans equal with the same dignity. Kamala is the product of such a great revolutionary mother.
Kamala, in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention at Milwaukee, Wisconsin said, “… Another woman whose shoulders I stand on. And that’s my mother – Shyamala Gopalan Harris.
“She taught us to be conscious and compassionate about the struggles of all people. To believe public service is a noble cause and the fight for justice is a shared responsibility”.
Kamala said that she is proud of belonging to “A country (USA) where we may not agree on every detail, but we are united by the fundamental belief that every human being is of infinite worth, deserving of compassion, dignity and respect. A country where we look out for one another, where we rise and fall as one, where we face our challenges, and celebrate our triumphs – together.”
This is the dream and vision of the fathers of our Constitution too, which the present regime and the Hindutva forces are consistently trying to undermine. They have created an atmosphere of fear and hatred, going against all norms of secularism and pluralism, putting in peril democratic values of equality, fraternity and liberty.
Happiness and prosperity of our country and our people consist in tolerance and inclusiveness, and in a broadminded attitude of understanding and acceptance, of all the people and groups, the minorities, people belonging to different religions, languages, castes, races and regions.
May we, especially the Indian women, be inspired by Shyamala Harris and her daughter Kamala to withstand the regressive forces of fundamentalism, caste and race in our country and to fight for equality and justice for all.
(Father Arockiasamy Xavier John Bosco was a former provincial of the Jesuits’ Andhra province. Currently he is a counselor at Sanjeevan Niwas attached to the Loyola College in Vijayawada. He is also the adviser to the National Council for Dalit Christians, convener of the Andhra unit of the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, president of the Dalit Muslim and Christian Reservation Forum. He could be contacted at boscofr@gmail.com)