America is heading into a general election that has been unprecedented in terms of rhetoric, surprises and the potential to alter the founding principles of US democracy. In this three-part series, the Post looks at the legacy of the departing president, Joe Biden, and the influences and policies of the two contenders, former president Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
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Gleaming with golden sand and stunning vistas of the Indian Ocean, Besant Nagar Beach in southern India’s Tamil Nadu is known to many as a popular local retreat.
For US Vice-President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, however, the cherished spot holds even greater meaning: by her account, it is where her conceptions of freedom, democracy and equal rights first developed.
Harris counts strolls on the beach among her most vivid childhood memories, joining her maternal grandfather, P.V. Gopalan, an Indian career civil servant whom she has described as “one of the original freedom fighters” against the British Raj.
“My grandfather had a ritual with his buddies who were like him, people who had served and who had fought … of walking on the beach every morning,” Harris told a gathering of Indian-Americans in 2018. “My grandfather would let me walk with him.”
Harris said Gopalan and his contemporaries spoke of colonial India’s tumult decades before, when thousands of ordinary Indians regularly took to the streets demanding independence and brutal crackdowns could ensue.
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