Kamala Harris’ ancestral village in India holds a special prayer for her victory

A modest village about 13,000 km from Washington it is observing the US presidential election of exceptional interest due to his ties to the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

A Hindu temple in the ancestral village of the vice president in Indiahis Tamil Nadu state they prayed on election day for her victory over her Republican rival Donald Trump.

Life-size billboards wishing Ms. Harris good luck before the crucial elections graced the lanes of Thulasendrapuram, an idyllic rural paradise surrounded by paddy fields for about 350 km from the state capital Chennai.

Born to an Indian mother and Jamaican father in Oakland, California, Ms. Harris primarily embraced her black identity, but periodically recalled her Asian roots and her time in Chennai as a child.

G Manikandan, a villager who runs a small shop near the temple, said “celebrations will follow if she wins” as a large banner outside the temple wished the “daughter of the earth” success.

Outside the 300-year-old Hindu temple, a black stone table features Ms Harris’s name along with major donors. According to locals, a relative made a record donation of Rs 5000 (£46.50) on her behalf in 2014 when she was the Attorney General of California.

Ms Harris’s grandfather, PV Gopalan, was born in Thulasendrapuram in the early 1900s and moved from the village, first to Chennai and later to Delhi, where he worked as a senior government official until his retirement.

Its success paved the way for Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, to move to the US when she was 19 to study biomedical science at UC Berkeley. There she met her future husband Donald Harris, an immigrant from Jamaica.

The village received global attention four years ago when its residents prayed for victory for Ms Harris’s Democratic Party in 2020 before celebrating her inauguration as US vice president by setting off firecrackers and handing out food.

“Even after her family moved out of the village, they still sponsor prayers at the temple without giving up their roots. This is a source of pride for us,” said N Maheshwari, a grocery store owner. The Independent earlier in September.

While the excitement is muted in the village this year, people are still waiting with baited breath for the election results.

Ms Harris is said to have visited the village herself when she was five and in interviews has reminisced about going to the beach in Chennai with her grandfather. He has not returned to Tamil Nadu since then.

“Ms. Harris was not that well known in the village until it was announced that she was the vice presidential candidate (in August 2020). That was when we started gathering information,” said retired banker N Krishnamurthy.

In an op-ed published just days before Tuesday’s election, Ms. Harris reflected on her Indian roots in an apparent effort to win support from South Asian voters.

“Growing up, my mother raised my sister and I to value and honor our heritage. About once every two years, I would go to India for Diwali. We were spending time with our grandparents, uncles and chitthis (Tamil for aunt),” she wrote Juggernaut.

“My grandfather was a retired civil servant. His morning routine consisted of taking long walks on the beach with his retired friends. I would join him on those walks and listen to stories about the importance of the fight for democracy and civil rights,” she added . .

Ms Harris spoke movingly about her ties to her late mother’s home country during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington in June 2023.

She said her walks with her grandfather and the lessons “first inspired my interest in public service … and have guided me ever since.”

She also talked about her mother’s influence and how she discovered her “love of good idli,” prompting laughter from the crowd with her reference to a steamed rice cake dish from South India.

In the neighboring state of Telangana, Hindu priests performed an 11-day “yajna” or prayer ritual for Ms Harris’s electoral success.