Anticipating Kamala Harris winning the US presidency, the original title of my article was The Woman Behind the 47^th President of the United States. Most unfortunately and surprisingly to us, Donald Trump won the election. However, defeated Kamala has a couple of achievements to her name. She is the first woman, Black American and South Asian American to be elected Vice President of the US, District Attorney of San Francisco and Attorney General of California. And more importantly she is young, healthy, vibrant and next time around may overcome obvious prejudices in the minds of the American voting public and garner the honour of being first woman president of the US. Four years hence?

The election result was surprising since she had so much going for her, in the sense that her proposed policies were so wide and beneficial to the people of America. “She has worked to bring people together to advance opportunity; deliver for families, particularly the less advantaged; protect fundamental freedoms across the country. She has led the fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies; the freedom to live safe from gun violence, to vote; drink clean water and breathe clean air.” She promised reduced-price housing, improvement in education and helping the poorer student. In sharp contrast, Trump’s rhetoric was almost solely on blocking immigration to the US to keep out terrorists, rapists, dog and cat eaters.

Parents of the two candidates

Kamala Harris while campaigning for the presidency almost always spoke of her mother in gratitude for instilling certain qualities in her; we could surmise most being those of perseverance and overcoming prejudices and obstacles. She often narrated anecdotes to show how much she owes her mother who brought her and her sister up as a single parent. She wove her mother’s past into an only-in-America success story but it certainly was not exactly correct since her mother’s life was far from America offering her a welcome, care thereafter and equal opportunity. Her mother has been eulogized as “The greatest influence in her life – the Brown Woman with an accent who left India at 19 and spurned convention to marry a Jamaican and settle down in the US.” All correct but the woman praised having paid a heavy price.

This is so in sharp contrast to Donald Trump and his family since he hardly mentions his parents and never what he owes anyone. His father, Fred Trump (1905-1999), of Irish descent, born in New York was a successful real estate developer. Using his and his wife’s inheritances he founded E. Trump and Son in 1927, which undertook construction of houses in Queens and NY City, barracks etc for US Navy and major shipyards. He was investigated by a US Committee for profiteering in 1954 and again in 1966.

Trump’s mother Mary Anne Macleod (1912-2000) was born in a small village in the Western Isles of Scotland to a fisherman. At 17, with $50 in hand she migrated to the US.

Donald Trump became prez of his father’s business in 1971 and renamed it Trump Organization. Father and son were sued for violating the Fair Housing Act. He borrowed $14 m from his father but said it was one million. Thus lying and felony seem to have been traits of his, inherited and built upon. This is so in contrast to his presidential opponent’s humble beginnings, influence of mother and how both women strove to achieve their ambitions.

The South Indian Mother

Shyamala Gopalan (1938-2009) was the oldest daughter of four children of Indian civil servant Rajam Gopalan who rose from stenographer to higher levels. The longest article I read in the NYT of 28/10 has author, Benjamin Mueller, state that Gopalan was a Tamil Brahmin and diplomat. He did travel and work outside India.

Shyamala schooled in Delhi and then read for a degree in home science at Lady Irvin College, New Delhi. That was a course of study not her choice but followed since no other option was open. Her father too commented she was too intelligent to opt for such a degree to start a career. She applied for scholarships and won a research grant in biomedical science at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In the last year of her teens, in 1958, all alone, she ventured forth to University of California, Berkeley, and took up research in isolating and characterizing progesterone receptor gene in breast and colon cancer. She had with her a $1,600 scholarship and funding from her parents with some of their retirement money. She succeeded in her Master’s programme in nutrition and endocrinology and earned her PhD at UC in 1964, researching on the physiology of cholesterol.

She was expected back in India with her parents busy arranging a suitable marriage for her. She had faced discrimination as a coloured and joined protest groups – Black Movements. One of her co-protestors went on to form the Black Panther Party in 1966. Shyamala met Jamaican Donald Harris in 1962; he reading for his doctorate in economics. They married in 1963. She continued her research but followed her husband when he moved to Illinois and Wisconsin. Their two daughters were born – Kamala Devi in 1964 and Maya Lakshmi in 1967. Maya is now a lawyer, public policy advocate, writer and was up front in Hilary Clinton’s campaign for presidency

The marriage was not going well so Shyamala with the two girls returned to Berkeley. She opted to reside in a cheap flat in a Black community rather than with Asians. “Dr Gopalan wanted to root her daughters in their black identity to prepare them for attacks on their race she could see coming.” Regina Shelton, a black neighbour, ran a day care centre and the girls were left in her charge, even for nights when Shyamala worked late. The split with her husband embittered her and she cut herself and even the two girls from him. He is now Emeritus Professor at Stanford University.

Much has been written about the discrimination she suffered and did not keep quiet about. “There are two people in Shyamala. One all about democracy, disparity and equality and all that. But she also grew up in the caste system.” “In an era when most scientists spoke in whispers about discrimination, Dr Gopalan Harris readily complained to her bosses about the mistreatment of nonwhite workers,” her supervisors at Berkeley commented in the early 2000s. At Berkeley in the early 1970s, she was still often running experiments for her bosses. “She came to feel that American schools were not yet ready to hire a brown woman who dressed for interviews in sari.” American norms to her seemed to demand her to quiet her laugh, swallow her opinions and keep her students at arms’ length; which last was far from how she behaved towards them. She was sympathetic and often helped with advice and even offered a home to an Indian or two who were new in American.

Benjamin Muller in the NYT of 18/10 cites these and many more instances of her outspokenness in his article ‘The Rebellious Scientist who made Kamala Harris.’ He quotes Joe Gray, who fielded Dr Gopalan’s complaints as an administrator at Lawrence Berkeley. “She was not at all shy about calling out things she thought needed to be corrected. She was probably more attuned to inequities in the workplace than was common in those days.”

Her research papers failed to win her the more secure academic positions she craved. The final straw was her supervisor at Berkeley reneging on a promise to give her a faculty position and hiring a white man from Britain. Angered, she pondered on legal action but instead, left Berkeley for a hospital affiliated to McGill University, Montreal, and moved to Canada with her daughters. She was given her own lab space and continued her research on cancer.

She returned to Berkeley and the Lawrence lab continuing her research and seeing her two daughters through college, both alpha students at University of California, Hastings College (Kamala) and Universities of California and Stanford (Maya). She was present when Kamala was sworn in as District Attorney of Los Angeles in 2003 but was ill with an autoimmune disease and later colon cancer. As her daughters progressed in their chosen careers, Shyamala looked after her ‘other kids’ – newly arrived in America research students. She wanted to return to Chennai to die but could not do so. Her end came when she was 70 in 2009, leaving both daughters greatly bereaved, more so Kamala.

Vice President Kamala Harris may be reviewing the recent past. I for one am sure she is not ‘licking the wounds of defeat’ but will be wisely recognizing realities and determining to win next time. As always she will have in mind the strength and will of Shyamala and probably echo what George Washington, Founding Father and first President from 1789 to 1797, said of his mother:

“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her