Mumbai-born author Salman Rushdie has supported Kamala Harris’ candidature for the US presidency and said he believes she is the person who can stop former President Donald Trump from taking the country towards authoritarianism.
Rushdie expressed his support and approval for US Vice President Harris during a virtual ‘South Asian Men for Harris’ event on Sunday, attended by several prominent names from the Indian-American community, including prominent lawmakers, authors, policy experts, entrepreneurs and diaspora organisations.
Rushdie said, “It’s an important moment. I’m a Bombay boy and it’s great to see an Indian woman running for the White House. And my wife is African-American, so we love that a black and Indian woman is running for the White House.”
59-year-old Harris is the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential candidate. She officially announced her candidacy on July 20 after incumbent President Joe Biden withdrew from the race for a second term. She is expected to be officially declared the presidential candidate by the Democrats next month.
The 77-year-old British-American novelist also said ethnicity is not enough. “We don’t gather like this for Usha Vance or Nikki Haley,” he said, referring to the Indian-American wife of Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance and the Indian-American former governor of South Carolina.
Rushdie stressed that this momentum is because something “extraordinary, transformative” has happened in American politics in the space of a week.
“The conversation has completely changed with the advent of Kamala Harris’ candidacy, and that’s what’s most heartening, is that there’s a heightened sense of optimism and positive, forward-thinking,” he said.
Rushdie emphasized that the community must do this work, because “we cannot allow the alternative to happen.”
“This hollow man without a single great quality is trying to drag this country toward totalitarianism. That can’t happen,” he said, referring to 78-year-old Republican Trump.
Rushdie expressed confidence that Harris is “the person who can stop this. And so I’m 1,000 percent for her.” He added that star power matters in the US and one could argue that Trump’s celebrity status from being on TV for many years helped him get elected to the White House in 2016.
“Right now he doesn’t look like a star. He looks like an old, fat man. Kamala looks like a superstar. And I think the charisma she brings to the campaign is going to be important in the weeks to come,” he said.
Responding to a question that there are skeptics in the country who believe that America will not elect a black and Indian-origin woman as president, Rushdie said that this argument might have been made even a decade ago, but times have changed.
“I think the way female leadership is viewed now is different. The way the issue of race can be made positive is a new thing. And so I think there’s no reason why Kamala Harris shouldn’t win and in fact she could win easily,” Rushdie said.
Emphasizing that the situation is changing, Rushdie cited recent media surveys that put Harris on par with Trump, “which is a huge jump from the last Biden survey.”
“And it’s not even a week yet. We can do it. We just have to believe in it.” Rushdie called on people across the country, including the writers’ community, to “use whatever power we have, whether it’s speaking, writing, debating, we have to win this debate. And writers are very good at debating. So I think we will do our best.” Noting that the November 5 presidential election is just 100 days away, Rushdie said: “Not a minute is to be wasted,” urging “aunties” and extended families to unite and come out and vote in large numbers for Harris.
With communities ranging from South Asian to Indo-Caribbean coming together to support Harris, Rushdie called their support deeply inspiring.
“It’s moving forward in the same way that these great gatherings of people have been moving forward in recent times. The gathering of Black women, the gathering of white women, the gathering of Asian women and now this event. It shows that there is great power in us coming together,” she said.
Rushdie emphasised that “We cannot be complacent. We have to fight against this to the very last, because it will probably take until the very last, but that doesn’t mean we cannot be at the forefront of this matter. I believe we can.”
The event called on all South Asian men and women to rally, raise funds and vote for “our first female president, Kamala Harris.” The event was co-organised by Sri Srinivasan, CEO and co-founder of full-service digital agency DigiMentors, and was attended by prominent names such as Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois, South Asians for Harris co-founder Harini Krishnan and Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
