Kamala Harris: Her Indian Roots and Path to the US Presidency

Who is Kamala Harris?

Kamala Harris, the 49th vice president of the United States, has served in Joe Biden’s administration since 2021, making history as the first Asian American and the first woman to hold the office. Previously, she was California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017 and represented the state as a U.S. senator from 2017 to 2021. In July 2024, when President Biden announced he would not seek re-election, he endorsed Harris as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidency.

An accomplished attorney and politician, Kamala Devi Harris has broken numerous barriers. She is the first African American and Asian American to serve as vice president, making her the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. During her time in the Senate, Harris championed reforms in healthcare, advocated for the DREAM Act, and pushed for stronger gun control measures.

Early life and education

The year 1964 marks the birth of Kamala Devi Harris in Oakland, California. Shyamala Gopalan, her mother, was a biologist who attended the University of California, Berkeley, to study endocrinology. Development economics was the area of expertise for her Afro-Jamaican father, Donald J. Harris. Before relocating to different colleges in 1966, the Harris family resided in Berkeley. Kamala and her girls relocated to Montreal in 1972 after Donald Harris accepted a job offer at Stanford University. Harris attended Howard University and Vanier College after graduating from Westmount High School in 1981. Later, she was president of the Black Law Students Association chapter at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. 

Early career

  Harris began her career as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, where she was appointed to various boards. In 1998, she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division at San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan. In 2000, she worked at San Francisco City Hall, representing child abuse and neglect cases.  

Connection of Kamala Harris with India

Ms. Harris's mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, hails from a Tamil Nadu family of high achievers. Kamala and her sister Maya were reared by their single mother, Ms. Gopalan Harris, a civil rights activist and cancer researcher in California.
Gopalan Balachandran, the maternal uncle of VP Harris, is a Delhi-based scholar and former consultant at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA). P.V. Gopalan, her grandpa, was involved in the rehabilitation of East Pakistani refugees in India. He then moved in Lusaka and served as an advisor to the president of Zambia, while his wife Rajam gained notoriety for her social activities. Mr. Balachandran asserts that Ms. Harris maintains ties to her Indian heritage through her upbringing and trips to Chennai.

Following the death of her mother, Ms. Harris traveled to Chennai with her sister Maya Harris to, following Hindu customs, immerse his ashes in the sea. 

When Ms. Harris addressed a virtual campaign event in 2020 to honor India's Independence Day, she talked about her mother's love of delicious idli. Since she wanted us to know where she was from and where our ancestors lay. Naturally, mother also sought to instill in us a love of delicious idli," Ms. Harris jokingly said. She also recalls her grandfather telling her about the "heroes" of the Indian freedom movement and how it was "up to us to pick up where they left off" during their walks around Chennai.

Alongside Indian-origin actor Mindy Kaling, Ms. Harris also prepared masala dosas in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.
 

In her hometown of Thulasendrapuram in Tamil Nadu's Tiruvarur district, she and Mr. Biden celebrated their victories in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by setting off fireworks, giving out candy, and drawing vibrant "kolams" in front of their houses. 

The villagers celebrated Ms. Harris' triumph by performing special pujas at the Sri Dharma Sastha Temple and giving thanks to the deity for hearing their prayers.    

Kamala Harris's chances of winning the US presidency

The statistical model of the US presidential election has been updated six times due to the volume of new polls, the limited time left before the election, and the remarkably close race. Kamala Harris's probability of victory rose by six percentage points, making the race a dead heat. The most influential polls were concentrated in four states: Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Harris's forecasted vote share rose by an average of 0.4 percentage points in those states, increasing her chance of victory by an average of six percentage points. The model shifts poll results to counteract biases and nudges vote margins in swing-state polls around half a percentage point in Harris's direction. The model predicts a two-in-five chance of the winning candidate receiving more electoral votes than Joe Biden or Donald Trump in 2020 or 2016.