Manu Joseph: Kamala Harris inspires us but don’t ask us to explain

livemint.com:

Among the leading causes of human absurdity is people identifying with the famous just because they have one thing in common. As we will see in the coming days when Kamala Harris intensifies her campaign to become the next American president. Three kinds of people will extol her because they would misunderstand her as a beacon of hope and pride.

The most obvious would be Indians who would celebrate once again the notion that she is of ‘Indian origin’ because her mother was from Tamil Nadu. The celebration of foreigners of ‘Indian origin’ is among the silliest things Indians do. It is as though the Indian links of successful foreigners somehow demonstrates that Indians have respectable genes.

But there is a more erroneous idea that Harris inspires and it is more sophisticated than the absurd pride of Indians in foreigners who look a bit like them. There is a broad consensus in America that the Indian community succeeds in America because of something that Indians do in an Indian way, something abstractly but innately Indian. Americans of ‘Indian origin’ like this view.

They use their general success to subtly and bluntly admonish African-Americans and other communities and tell them that the secret of success in America is very simply valiant human virtues. This is nonsense. Indians appear to do well compared to other communities because the first wave of Indian migrants were the social and economic upper class back home.

They were the Caucasians of their native lands. In fact, they could migrate to the US precisely because they were a part of the elite. It was an extension of their privileges.