A.R. Rahman bats for Kamala Harris in upcoming U.S. presidential election

A.R. Rahman endorses Kamala Harris for President in a virtual concert, highlighting her South Asian roots and unity message

Music composer and singer A.R. Rahman endorsed U.S. Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris for the White House, as he led a concert for her. Ms. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher in California, was originally from Chennai (then Madras), from where Mr. Rahman hails.

The pre-recorded Sunday evening (October 13, 2024) concert was organized by the AAPI Victory Fund, a Super PAC (Political Activity Committee) that is backing Ms. Harris and other Asian American candidates.

Mr. Rahman sang various well-known songs, including Jai Ho [Be Victorious] from Slumdog Millionaire and ‘Singapenney’, which translates to ‘lioness’ from the Tamil movie called Bigil. He was accompanied by drummer Veeramani and sang duets, including with singer and voice actor Chinmayi Sripada.

“Her [Ms. Harris] interest in focusing on what unites us instead of what divides us is a message that is very important, not just for the United States but for the world,” Mr. Rahman said.

“As a fellow South Asian, Tamil, person, I’m deeply proud of her commitment to making the world a better place,” he said.

Ms. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was Indian and her father is Black, from Jamaica. In her book, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Ms. Harris, who was mostly raised by her mother, says Ms. Gopalan and her relatives “instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots” and that Ms. Harris and her sister, Maya, were raised with “a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture”. She also says her mother knew that, in the U.S., they would be seen as “black” and therefore raised them to be “confident, proud black women”. 

Speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists in July 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is fighting Ms. Harris for the Presidency, had questioned Ms. Harris’s racial identity by suggesting that she had leaned into her Indian identity relatively more, until recently. Ms. Harris had characterized Mr. Trump’s suggestion as an example of “the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect”.

During Sunday’s (October 13, 2024) concert, the founder of AAPI, India-born Shekhar Narasimhan, urged participants to get involved in the elections.

“You have to make a plan to vote. You have to volunteer in this campaign, and you have to donate,” said Shekhar Narasimhan, adding, “It’s called ‘tan man dhan’ [body, mind, wealth].”

Mr. Narasimhan said that 400,000 Indian America voters in seven ‘battleground states’ [i.e., Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina] could become the “margin of difference” between winning and losing the election, given the victory margins in these states in 2020.

U.S. President Joe Biden won six of these states, while Mr. Trump won one, North Carolina, in 2020.

Published - October 14, 2024 08:29 am IST