Every single Indian following the news knows who won the Presidential election in the United States of America last week. But the same people may draw a blank if asked to identify the top honchos of neighbouring Nepal or Sri Lanka, nations with which India has cultural links. Why does the politics of a country that is more than 13,000 km away and might easily take 16 hours to reach fascinate us, particularly the people of Chennai, so much? Even as the results were coming out, most of the verbal ramblings at tea shops, bars and other public places were on the elections in a faraway land with people who have never set foot on that once considered ‘land of milk and honey’ and with scant knowledge of that nation’s political system animatedly giving opinions on the candidates and possible fallouts of the results.
True, the people of Tamil Nadu are more politically conscious and have a conscientious approach towards public life in comparison to those in many other parts of the country. But the fascination for US elections is unique and not without reasons. For many people in Chennai, the US elections were not like watching a boxing bout or a soccer match, where you take a side, support your favourite contestant or team for which you shed a drop of tear or beat up supporters of the rivals when it loses but go home to move on with life. It can be the case when you follow the elections in Senegal or even in France and get excited by the drama that unfolds, which at worst can lead to an adrenaline rush. But the US is different as it has an inexplicable and intriguing bond with Chennai.
One of the most striking vignettes that drew my attention when I was new to Chennai in the early 1980s was a pre-dawn queue outside the US consulate below the Anna flyover. Through the window of the not so crowded Pallavan Transport Corporation bus, one always managed to get a glimpse of the well-dressed people waiting outside the gates as the bus ascended the slope. In those days when the dependence on computers for conducting routine business was minimal and the internet was not used even by Americans, people with dreams of going to the US for whatever reason would have to brazen it out by waiting in the long queue for visas, standing on the pavement.
So, people would come from faraway places and stand in the line at night itself (it was only a hearsay as I have never gone that side past midnight) and then enter the fortified consulate building after daybreak. I am not sure if Shyamala Gopalan, mother of the defeated US presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and the parents of Usha Vance, wife of the future Vice President of US, had to stand in the queue outside the consulate. But later day Indians who made it big in America, say like Sundar Pichai, would have definitely gone through the ordeal.
Even now I see a long queue on the same pavement though visa applications, I am told, are processed by computers that give definite time and date for interviews. What I am trying to say is that the American dream of the people of south India – let me expand the geographical milieu, as Usha Vance’s parents went to the US from Andhra Pradesh, rather than confine it to Chennai from where Shyamala Gopal went – has not waned even a bit. It has only become a popular aspiration of educated youth.
True, most American universities admit Indian students, who stay back by taking up jobs. So, many people in south India have relatives who are American citizens and hence have their favourite candidates in the US elections. Based on whose victory in the polls would make their children, relatives, friends, classmates and acquaintances happy, Indians back home pitch for candidates and parties in the US, which explains the hullabaloo over a faraway happening.
In the run up to the present election, things went a notch higher since poojas and religious rituals were conducted in temples and other places invoking divine intervention in ensuring the victory of either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. While Harris herself is half Indian, Trump’s running mate J D Vance has married a full-fledged Indian. So, keen to see people with Indian roots in positions of power in the US, Indians went gaga over the polls. In fact, it was a relief that the Democrats lost because Harris’s victory would have led to more thanksgiving rituals in Thulasendrapuram village in Tiruvarur district by faceless people rejoicing her victory.
Even when Harris was nominated as the running mate of Joe Biden, a group of people in Thulasendrapuram had organized religious events to pray for the victory of Democrats though Harris had never set foot on the village from where the ancestors of her mother had reportedly hailed. They had even erected flex boards with her photograph. But my heart goes to another group of people deeply concerned over Harris’ debacle. They are worried about the future of their children, relatives and friends who have landed in the US but are waiting for a green card. Trump has vowed to smash those American dreams. Whatever, it is nice to know US politics is intertwined with the lives of many people in India.
