Letters to the Editor: 1/21/2021

Dear India Currents,

It was nice that Kamala Devi Harris swore on the Bible that belonged to Thurgood Marshall; a wonderful gesture, that speaks gallons for one side of her heritage that goes back to the Civil Rights movement and first steps towards desegregation in schooling practices. It is an area I myself teach on. But is Kamala-ji forgetting her South Asian heritage and spiritual prowess of that side of her tradition?  Her mother would have been proud if she also had her mother’s copy of the Bhagavad Gita or some holy text from their Tamil religious background next to the Holy Bible or on the table; or perhaps even her grandfather’s copy of Gandhi’s text on ’Truth is God (which is in his Autobiography: My Experiment with Truth’ as well. I believe Tulsi Gabbard – though not exactly of South Asian origin, but brought up as a Hindu – swore her oath, upon her entering the Congress, on the Bhagavad Gita (which edition or – if – translation I am not sure, as that too matters). It is time more attention was paid to the holy scriptures of other traditions represented in the US and increasingly in the administrative echelons.