Kamala Harris inspires women leaders in her ancestral village of Thulasendrapuram

Chennai: Thulasendrapuram, a village about 320 km south of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, is where US Presidential candidate Kamala Harris's grandfather was born more than a century ago. Harris visited Thulasendrapuram when she was five and talked about walking on Chennai beaches with her grandfather.

The women in the village have been cheering for the "American lady", and the locals have held special prayers for her in the village temple.

The 34-year-old M Umadevi - elected to the village council in December - said she related to Harris as a fellow woman politician.

"She is a daughter of our village," said Umadevi, who has a five-year-old son and sews clothes to support her family. "This must have been difficult and challenging for her. But anything new is like that. I feel both excited and nervous about my new role. The first thing on my list is to make sure we have a proper road," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview. "It is in terrible shape, and you can barely call it a road. A good road will bring better fortune."

Umadevi said her priority as a member of the village council, representing some 200 mostly farming families, was to build a tarmac road.

Ambitions
Unlike Harris, who has a law degree, Umadevi dropped out of school at 15 on her mother's decision.

Umadevi said education was key if the next generation of girls in the village were to become high achievers like Harris, whose smiling image is plastered on banners in the village wishing her electoral success. 

"Today, all our girls study, even if it means going to high school that is a few kilometers away from the village," said Umadevi.

"College is also far, but many still go and get a degree," she said, adding that young people in the area still find it hard to get well-paid jobs.

At the Government Higher Secondary School in neighbouring Painganadu village, English teacher S Tamilselvan has been following Harris's campaign speeches and plans to use them to motivate his students.

"She is so articulate and clear," he said. "My students know about her, but I want at least some of them to succeed like her. Most of my students are first-generation learners, and even the brightest find it difficult to articulate their ambitions."

Hemalatha Raja is also a member of Thulasendrapuram's village council. Like Umadevi, she describes herself as a housewife who was elected for a five-year term, as 33 per cent of seats were reserved for women.

Despite their lack of formal education or qualifications, the two women share Harris's passion for social justice.

"I want to solve all the problems that people from my neighbourhood come to me with," said Raja, who dropped out of school when she was 13 because her parents did not want her to travel out of the village to attend high school. I don't know if I can, but I want to try. And all this talk about how someone with roots in our village is doing big things in America also encourages me to do a little extra," she added. 

According to India's last census data, about 60 per cent of girls are educated, but some states record a higher rate of over 90 per cent. In Thiruvarur district, where Thulasendrapuram is located, the literacy rate is more than 82 per cent, and district education officials state that all girls are enrolled in schools.