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Mumbai:
Already bursting with delight at Kamala Harris’s ancestry, India has now began digging up potential native roots for US President-elect Joe Biden.
The subsequent chief of the United States has speculated that he may need had family in colonial India. While there is no such thing as a proof, the Biden identify has develop into a genealogical goal of investigation throughout the nation.
A plaque commemorating 19th-century British ship captain Christopher Biden has been a well-liked selfie spot in Chennai for the reason that US election.
And a Biden household in western India says it has develop into “exhausted” by calls since their namesake staked his declare to the White House.
The American vote has been underneath the highlight in India as a result of Biden’s operating mate is the daughter of a migrant from Tamil Nadu state.
The 56-year-old Harris has made a lot of her Indian connections and the way she likes to eat “idli with a really good sambar” — typical meals from the south.
Less consideration has been paid to Biden, who has established Irish hyperlinks. But he spoke of potential Indian connections on a visit to Mumbai in 2013 when he was vp.
Biden mentioned in a speech that he had obtained a letter from an Indian Biden after turning into a senator in 1972, suggesting they might be associated.
“One of the first letters I received and I regret I never followed up on it,” he mentioned.
Mumbai Bidens lie low
The letter mentioned their “mutual, great, great, great, something or other worked for the East India Trading Company back in the 1700s”.
It sparked pleasure in Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu state, which can also be residence to Harris’s Indian family.
A plaque at St George’s Cathedral in Chennai that celebrates Christopher Biden, born in 1789, has instantly develop into an area vacationer draw.
“We’ve come to know the records of two Bidens — William Biden and Christopher Biden — who were brothers and became captains of the East India Company on merchant ships in the 19th century,” the Bishop of Madras, Reverend J. George Stephen, instructed AFP.
“While William Biden died at an early age, Christopher Biden went on to captain several ships, and eventually settled down in Madras,” which is now often known as Chennai.
Despite the hypothesis, there was no affirmation that the Biden brothers are associated to the 77-year-old American.
If the president-elect does have an Indian ancestor, Christopher is taken into account the probably candidate, in accordance with consultants who’ve studied household information.
There are additionally Bidens in Mumbai and Nagpur in Maharashtra state who might be descendants of Christopher, certainly one of eight youngsters of a John Biden who might be the frequent hyperlink.
The media consideration has been overwhelming, in accordance with the Maharashtra Bidens. Indian media has speculated that their late grandfather Leslie wrote to the US politician.
Rowena Biden, a member of the family in Mumbai, insisted that they weren’t making an attempt to determine any relationship.
“We wish Mr. Joe Biden all the best for his new role as president of the USA but we are not trying to establish any connections or linkages,” she instructed AFP.
“We share a last name and that’s about it,” she mentioned.
“All of us are well-to-do financially and have well-settled lives so we don’t need any gains — monetary or non-monetary.”
Rowena Biden mentioned that after the primary reviews got here out concerning the potential hyperlinks, “people started tracking us to our house and everyone in the family had to bear the brunt of it”.
The “undue limelight” had forged a shadow over “the primacy of Mr. Biden’s win and our privacy as well”, she mentioned.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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