‘We’re both daughters of India’: What Priyanka Chopra said to US VP Kamala Harris

Priyanka Chopra, who interviewed US Vice President Kamala Harris in a fireside chat organised by the Democratic National Committee's Women's Leadership Forum called the duo ‘daughters of India’. Priyanka Chopra’s parents were physicians, and Kamala Harris’ father Donald J Harris was Jamaican, and mother Shyamala Gopalan was Indian, who had migrated to the US from Tamil Nadu.

In the interview attended by a room-full of Democrats, Chopra said, "I think we're both daughters of India, in a way." "You're a proud American-born daughter of an Indian mom and a Jamaican father. I am an Indian born of two physicians as parents and a recent immigrant to this country who totally still believes in the wholehearted...American Dream," she said.

Chopra said that the US has been regarded as a beacon of hope, freedom and choice for the world but these tenets are being “endlessly assaulted right now”. She also said that after working for 20 years in films, it is only this year that she got paid equal to her male co-stars.

Harris also said that the world right now is in an “unsettled” state, and that all the things they took for granted earlier are up for debate and questioning now. "You look, for example, at Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine. We thought it was pretty well settled--the issue of territorial integrity and sovereignty -- and now that is up for some debate, given what's happening there," she noted.

The Vice President said that in the US, with the Voting Rights Act, they assumed that the issue of voting rights was settled. But after the 2020 election when more and more people voted and more young people voted, states around the country started “systematically and intentionally making it more difficult for people to vote”.

Talking about the US Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe vs Wade that provided constitutional rights to abortion, Harris said, “We thought a woman's right--a constitutional right--to make decisions about her own body was settled. No longer."

Chopra said, "Absolutely. You're so right. There's so much to navigate right now."

They also discussed climate change. "Extreme weather conditions like this are becoming more frequent and more severe. And I wanted to acknowledge the administration for passing the biggest climate legislation in history earlier this year because it is a fact that America's leadership sets an example to other major economies around the world, which are truly dragging their feet when it comes to doing their bit," said Chopra, who is also the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Harris said that the crisis is real, and that the clock is ticking. She said that the urgency with which they must act is without any question. It is the lowest income communities and communities of colour that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making, said Harris.

(With PTI inputs)

Also read: Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was asked if Priyanka Chopra was his favourite actress: He gave a winning answer!