LOTUS FOR POTUS: Election Canvassing in Pennsylvania

Sujata Massey

 The air was warm, and the sky so blue. Tall trees showed off crowns of red, orange and gold leaves as I cruised along Interstate 95 last Sunday morning.

Despite it being prime leaf-peeping time, I wasn't taking a scenic route for idle pleasure. Pennsylvania is a swing state in the coming national election; some say it's the state that Vice President Kamala Harris must win in order for the electoral college to line up in her favor. I’d heard about a massive canvassing day in Montgomery County, an area north of Philadelphia with slightly more Democrats than conservatives. My intention was to wind my way into North Wales, a town within the county, to deliver literature and perhaps a few words to possible voters.

 

The last time I canvassed was in Minnesota during the 2008 election on behalf of Barack Obama. During that long-ago fall, I carried a paper list and door-knocked in the tightly knit neighborhoods of Minneapolis, and the suburb of Eden Prairie, where the distance between houses was greater. I had chatted with Democrats and Republicans alike, because sixteen years ago, people were more relaxed about speaking with strangers. And we weren’t so polarized. Would canvassing work, in this day and age?  And now it was so much more complicated, involving data entry into a smartphone. 

 

The night before my drive, I’d received a text with instructions to add a voter canvassing app called Minivan. Now, It’s one thing to double-click an app onto your iPhone, but quite another to use that app skillfully. Minivan’s video tutorial showed how a map of houses would pop up when I was on the street, and how I’d be able to key in information such as whether I made contact, dropped literature, and any details the residents voluntarily shared about their voting plans. Minivan also had a built-in geographic tracker of where the phone was, something that made me feel a little more secure about the unknown encounters ahead. 

 

I reached the Montgomery Mall in North Wales in less than two hours, faster than Apple thought it would take. And walking into this vintage suburban mall, I realized I’d visited here twenty years earlier with friends to take our children to a Harry Potter movie. The suspenseful opening credits and thundering film score brought my daughter to tears, so we all fled the mall’s AMC theater and soothed the miserable at a candy stand, which was still there. I hoped this memory was not an omen that I'd once again back out of the mall without fulfilling a mission. 

 

Montgomery Mall seemed to have few visitors on a Sunday morning, just like many enclosed malls around the country today. The Harris-Walz campaign had rented a storefront for its purposes. This former shop was filled with volunteers, signs and totebags. I signed in and was off to sit at a table where a kindly man was giving a hands-on Minivan tutorial. Just what I needed. I also breathed easier when another volunteer appeared and said she’d be glad to partner with me while door-knocking. My partner was a lovely woman who had Minivan down cold without needing instruction. She also was a Perveen Mistry reader. What were the chances?

 

My partner and me 

Well, we both had connections to India. This particular rally and canvassing effort was organized by Indian American Impact, a national organization that raises money and gathers volunteers to support South Asian American candidates up and down the ballots. 

There are certainly conservative South Asian voters who support Trump, but the majority of South Asian voters lean Democratic. Kamala Harris has both Jamaican ancestry from her father, and Tamil ancestry from her late mother, who was born in India. The name Kamala is Sanskrit for lotus flower. I bought a catchy LOTUS FOR POTUS bumper sticker from Impact’s merch table, which also had wonderful tee-shirts with expressions like Desis Decide and Kamala Ke Saath (together for Kamala). How important is the South Asian vote in this campaign? Recent articles in The Washington Post  and New York Times focus on the nation's largest and most affluent immigrant population. Close to 400,000 South Asians who are eligible voters live in the swing states. 

 

After the buses carrying volunteers from Washington DC and New York City arrived, it looked like the crowd was pushing a few hundred. The people were of all ages—from children tagging along with their parents to well-dressed gentleman in their seventies. Volunteering also was not limited to South Asians; I saw Black and Caucasian and East Asian faces in the room. Yet the vibe at the gathering was distinctly Desi—the unifying nickname for South Asia that comes from the root word “Desh,” or homeland. Being a Desi means having roots on the Subcontinent, no matter how long ago your ancestors left.

Healthy snacks included samosas and chai

 

On Indian-American Impact’s  website, I found they were endorsing 48 candidates running for political office nationwide. These people were aspiring for jobs ranging from city council positions to judgeships and congress and senate. Impact does not expressly align itself with a political party, however it mentions that its core values include advocating for healthcare, climate and environmental safety, immigration, voting rights, and racial justice. They also don’t rubber stamp every politician who has South Asian ancestry. For example, Nikki Haley, a former Republican governor and a losing candidate in the Republican presidential primary, wasn’t on the list. 

 

Among the passionate speakers at our rally was Nina Ahmad, a Bangladeshi immigrant who is both the first Muslim and first Asian-American elected to the Philadelphia City Council. Nina reminded us to tell immigrant voters leaning Republican that while in office, Trump created a de-naturalization section within the Department of Justice that enabled government to strip Americans of citizenship. Recently, Trump has spoken of weaponizing the Justice Department and actively sending away legal immigrants, starting with Haitians, through a concept called Remigration. Imagine how this tactic could be employed at will against all green card holders and naturalized citizens!

Neil Makhija and Padma Lakshmi

 

Neil Makhija, a vibrant young man who was elected as the first Asian-American Montgomery County commissioner (there are three), also got us fired up with a discussion of local politics. Makheja had been sued three times already by the Pennsylvania Republican party for organizing a voter registration van and ensured voting information was printed in eight languages. “They sued me for making it possible for people to vote!” he said. His New York Times editorial about the importance of voting and the ironclad security around ballots is excellent.

 

Washington State Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal was on hand to push us into motivation, including the now-famous chant, “We’re Not Going Back.” We heard a moving song performed live by the Broadway composer/singer Ari Afsar, backed by a talented South Asian student acapella singing group from Penn State. Padma Lakshmi, who celebrates foods and diverse cultures on her Hulu series, “Taste the Nation,” explained why she supports Kamala Harris, and also why she thinks Donald Trump is so dangerous for the country. 

 

A volunteer meets Pramila Jayapal

Padma Lakshmi in action

Forty minutes after arrival, my new pal and I headed to her car, loaded with some election literature, and with our phones playing Minivan. 

 

The first two households were apartments on the back of a restaurant building. Nobody answered the door, so it was a rather anticlimactic feeling. Had we even reached the correct doors?  We continued on to a townhouse community. Here, on a street called Susan Circle, we had a list of 58 households. All close together, all well-numbered; excellent.

 

Going with a companion from door to door in the sunshine was quite a bit of fun. We saw great Halloween decorations, containers planted with fall chrysanthemums, and windows that were sometimes opened for conversation with us—or used as a way to see what we were up to. I understand that solicitors aren’t welcome on most doorsteps, including my own. Therefore, I felt very grateful for the people who were brave enough to open their doors and listen to our spiel:

 

“Hi, we’re here to check if you are planning to vote…that’s great, will it be early voting or on election day? Do you feel comfortable telling us who you’re planning to vote for? …That’s wonderful…And will you also support Senator Bob Casey?”

 

When we met people who said they hadn’t made up their minds, one of us might ask, “What issues are important to you in this election?” We’d both listen and reflect back to them what they had expressed. “That makes sense. Did you know…”  We were careful not to make speeches.

 

In this neighborhood, we chatted with many Asian Americans, many first or second generation immigrants. We had a conversation with a white woman who said she was grateful her boss made it clear to all his employees that they could take time on a workday to vote; she was voting for Kamala, and so were most of her co-workers. We also met a young white man who opened the door and held a whispered conversation with us because of conservative people nearby. He said he was voting for Kamala because of his girlfriend, and the importance of women’s rights over their bodies. I thanked him for it, just as many of the residents thanked us for volunteering. 

 

Those were very heartening moments. There were also some laughs. We couldn’t even begin to ask questions when an East Asian lady (probably in her eighties) opened her door, took one look at the two of us, and shouted: “No, no! I don’t want that. I’m voting Trump!” 

 

We had another humorous encounter when we rang the doorbell on a nearby house. Eventually  a second floor window was raised, and we saw the sliver of the face of a friendly boy who looked and sounded under age eleven. 

Boy: “I can’t open the door because my parents aren’t home.”

Us: “No problem, we understand. Is it OK if we leave a piece of information at your door?” 

Boy: “Go ahead.”

Sharp unknown adult voice: “No! Don’t leave anything!”

 

As we crisscrossed Susan Circle, Minivan cheered us on: “You’re 25% done!” until we completed our list. It turned out that we had made personal contacts with 26% of the households on the list, something to crow about because the Indian Impact volunteers told us that a10 percent rate of personal contact was typical. I suspect the sight of two women made people more curious than wary.  Although--as my partner pointed out--the Amazon delivery truck did roll through and help us get people to the doors during our last half hour of service. 

 

Would I canvas again? I am signed up for next weekend, canvassing for Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic Senate hopeful in Maryland. A slow stroll for three hours seems a small effort to make in exchange for some memorable encounters. And if these meetings will encourage a few uncommitted people to think more about making a choice—and knowing the importance of voting—I’m very satisfied. 

Sujata will mail a free signed book to anyone in the US who door-knocks for Kamala Harris before November 5. Visit her website, sujatamassey.com,and email her with subject line Canvas for Kamala. In your email to me please include a selfie of you at the canvassing headquarters; your home street address;book of choice and optional personalized inscription. Thank you!

Attention, Voters! A Letter from Perveen Mistry

 Sujata Massey

(Ed. note: Perveen Mistry, a female lawyer living in 1920’s Bombay, has reached across time and reality to write a frank letter to 2024 voters. As the chronicler of Perveen's legal mysteries, I'm impressed by her forthright investigations  of political issues and modern technology. Let us enjoy her ramblings and perhaps find a few kernels of timeless wisdom.)

 

To My Dearest Readers Abroad:

 

I send very best greetings from Bombay, where we are deluged by the rainy season, and I spend much time trapped inside my family home in Dadar Parsi Colony. If the newsboy can get through the flooded streets, he delivers a paper that is the highlight of my day. So, imagine my surprise when, instead of handing me the August 4, 1924, Sunday edition of Times of India, he brought me a bundle of Sunday newspaper titled The New York Times dating from August 4, 2024, as well as the previous weekend in July!

 

What kind of magic broug these epistles from a remote land and time? At first, I worried that the experience meant that I am suffering insanity. I've come to think I'm part of a very complicated, literary dream that has allowed me hours of excitement. Because of the similarities between me and Miss Kamala Harris, clearly only I could be the architect of this fantasy.  But there remains a possibility that these engaging tabloids are an authentic portent--and that is why I am writing an open letter to the dear citizens of the United States in future times.

 

Could it be true that an election for the presidency of your country is 92 days hence?. If so, the papers are saying that female voters are anticipated to be very active.  In my day, very few women are allowed to vote in elections—it happened just recently in Bombay that ladies owing property and suitable income can vote in elections. Thus, my mother has a voting right, because her name appears alongside my father's on the household deed. That privilege is not mine yet, I am a supporter of universal suffrage regardless of gender and income; I've enclosed a picture of Indian suffragists in London in 1911, fighting to say this.

 

Being unable to vote is a great frustration for me; although I must say the candidates who have come up in the Bombay for the city legislative spots are rather dull. The powerful rulers—the viceroy in charge of governing British India, and the governor of my own Bombay Presidency—are hand-picked by Britains’ prime minister; it has nothing to do with their popularity in India. Within the last few years, though, Indians have the right to run for seats in the central legislative, the council of state, and provincial assemblies. And this is a good start.

 

I tell myself that I can support forward-thinking politics in Bombay by attending meetings to hear these candidates. Chiefly, I’ve made donations of my own hard-earned money and inheritance to the candidates who are brave enough to speak up for dominion status or any sort of freedom from colonial rule. Take note of a treasured photograph of the esteemed Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in a peaceful procession with his supporters.

 

Even with my limited political experience, I beg to offer a few words to faraway citizen living in the strange new world your newspapers illustrated.

 

My first recommendation is to be cognizant of your own ability to cast vote. If you voted without incident four years ago, things are likely fine; but many such voters receive a notice by mail, reminding them that they will receive a postal ballot by mail or should vote in person. If citizens have moved out of station, or only recently registered to vote, it’s prudent to check that your papers are in order to enable voting. College students who will be away from their native place in November especially need to ensure their ability to vote. 

 

My second point is financial. It is quite common to receive solicitation for donation from various candidates and political parties. Yet we must keep an eye out for unscrupulous organizations that abuse presidential candidate’s names for their own purposes. (Ed note: I recently received a text promising to match any credit card donation to the Harris campaign by 400 percent. Highly dubious! )

 

Ahem—let’s return to business, shall we? My heartfelt plea is to give to others running for office: the many good people running to take places as senators and congressional representatives. These people aren’t so much in the news, and they receive scant funds in comparison to presidential candidates.  Yet they are crucial, for how could a president suggest societal improvements be put into law without having a solid base of elected members of Congress to pass such laws? Please do the needful and support them!

 

Another of my pleas is to put pen to paper. A good letter can brighten a day and inspire a person to action. Why not send personal cards to people around the country urging them to vote in this election? There are postcard-writing parties throughout America—and I can attest that it's a practical use of time to write letters from home during inclement weather.  

 

Now, might I address larger types of gatherings? Here in India, large political assemblies in public are often prohibited by the government on the basis that they incite sedition. How fortunate you are to be able to dance and cheer in university stadiums for the sake of politics! I also learned that modern Americans may view films of such gatherings from their own houses, which sounds most amusing. Another curiosity I read about is something called a Zoom meeting for fundraising and political encouragement. Apparently, news spread from person to person, and audiences of thousands come together to witness the meeting whilst actually remaining in their various homes. 

 

The Zoom business is incomprehensible, but I can discuss what it means to do political work outside the home. Motivated individuals may enroll to assist on the important day either as an elections judge or nonpartisan election observer. If people wish to campaign to the very end,   they can drive to swing states to distribute materials and even help people who need transportation to polling places. 

What choices you have! But this idea of “choice “is something that you will surely lose, should a small group of conservatives take control of your diverse and impressive nation. These men have publicly stated their desires to implement strict laws about childbearing and other personal behavior, and to dismantle education and censor libraries and the press. Believe it when I say your society will suffer under such laws—that’s how it is in my time.

 

 

Yours sincerely, 

 

Perveen Mistry (Miss)

Partner, Mistry Law

Mistry House, 10 Bruce Street,

Fort, Bombay. 

The Book Challengers

Sujata Massey

I was messing with my books today and turned them so that the spines were hidden. No titles, no idea of content. They seem like a visual representation of how powerless books are if we don't see what they're about. 

 

Blank books remind me of silenced voices. The volumes make me think of the growing movement inside the United States to ban books from schools and public libraries. In 2021, almost 2000 titles were challenged by citizens, according to this recent New York Times article. Much of the banning action is in states like Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. 

 

The book challenges bring back memories of my own relationship with libraries. Back in my 1970s and ‘80s childhood, we were regulars at the public library. My mother usually drove me and my two sisters to the Ramsey County public library once a week, sometimes twice during summer vacation. I walked to the beautiful little Carnegie Library in neighboring St. Anthony Park myself, and of course, I always got books from the school library when my class had visiting time. My father always gave us books specially chosen for our particular interests at Christmas and birthdays. He still does; and I do the same for him.

 

I recall vanishing into the faraway, much more charming worlds of these library books. I adored a series about a Jewish family in turn-of-the century Brooklyn (All of a Kind Family). I marveled at the hardships of pioneer children in the Midwest (the Little House books), and the fantasy landscapes in The Dark is Rising Sequence. My sisters and I also read close to one hundred Amar Chitra Katha children’s comic books that my father got for us in India. This Indian publishing house, founded in 1967, specialized in the pictorial depiction of religious stories, epics, folktales and South Asian history. The comics felt special because they told me something about the country of my heritage, when the libraries had no books about it except for those by British Colonials. As my sisters and I matured, we were attracted to reading darker themes, especially books set during World War II that detailed the Holocaust. With the other half of my personal identity rooted in Germany, I felt a dissonance between my own experiences in the country and the history emerging for me in literature. 

 

I recall a handful of children’s books with Black characters. However, when I recently researched the books’ authors, I discovered they were all White. In my late teens, the first African-American author I read was Maya Angelou, followed by Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. As a teenager, I finally got a peek behind the curtain shielding the mysterious and alluring world of sex. My favorites were Rosemary Rodgers' Sweet Savage Love, and an erotic essay collection by Nancy Friday, and the ultimate mind-blower, Rita Mae Brown’s tour-de-force novel about lesbianism, Rubyfruit Jungle. Not that these particular titles were carried in any of my libraries: I remember buying My Secret Garden using my weekly allowance, and getting a battered second-hand copy of Rubyfruit Jungle handed to me by one of my sisters. 

Prior to 1999, most books removed from school libraries were done so due to profanity and sexual or political content. Think George Orwell’s 1984 and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 

The next area where books were attacked was in a perceived threat against Christianity. I remember back in the early 2000s, some conservative parents had success banning J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books using the argument it encouraged witchcraft. 

 

One of the strangest recent bans is against mathematics textbooks in Florida. Its Governor, Ron DeSantis, has not named the titles of the books involved, nor the instances, but the state dept of education has rejected 70 percent of math materials for K-5 students, 20 percent of math material for Grade 6-8, and 35 percent of the math materials for grades 9-12. With the hiding of book titles and any excerpts deemed offensive, it seems absolutely crazy that this recall could succeed. He's also requiring all schools to provide a searchable list of all books in their libraries for parents, and to continue updating parents with details of every book that the school acquires.

 

After looking at the lists of the most banned books in the United States, I’ve come away with the impression that the challenged books are mostly be by LGBTQ authors and writers of color. 

 

Here is a tiny sampling of some of the most often-contested books that some people are trying to keep out of libraries.

 

Nonfiction

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The End of Policing by Alex Vitale

 

Fiction 

The Autobiography of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X Kendi

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

.

Are you wondering exactly who the people are who are fearful of books about social issues?

 

Often, they’re parents who complain to a teacher or principal. Or library volunteers quietly snapping pictures of books that they are shelving. They could be church or political party members taking their issue with a book to a lawmaker who wants their support.

In Virginia, just south of my home state of Maryland, Glenn Youngkin ran for governor promising to prohibit teaching of course material that addresses the history of racism (in his words, critical race theory). He won the election.

 

Texas State Representative Matt Krause is running for re-election in a tightly contested primary. He created a list of 850 children’s and young adult titles he believes could make youth feel uneasy or uncomfortable or guilty. He sent it to the state’s school boards and asked them to let him know whether they had any of these books in the school libraries.

 

Censorship activism has been nicknamed by some as the Ed Scare as a reference to the 1950’s “Red Scare.” Seventy years ago, people were so afraid of losing their jobs that they signed oaths professing no connection to the Communist Party. Today, librarians might keep a book behind a counter, or teachers would think carefully about what they can share during read-aloud time. Some of the proposed bills could criminalize the teaching of a book that someone judges to be obscene.

 

Last week, I received an email from one of my past publishers. Jonathan Karp, the CEO of Simon and Schuster, wrote to its authors about the publisher’s intention to stand firm and keep publishing books without fear of censorship. It also included resources for readers and writers to fight book challenges.  

 

The New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library are allowing people across the country who aren’t NYPL cardholders to borrow banned books as digital downloads. It’s a generous move made to support access, but it also reveals the tragedy of how different library culture is from state-to-state. After all, the people in Texas and Florida pay taxes to support these libraries, so they can have access to what they want to read. 

 

A Meditation on Boundaries

Sujata Massey

I-Screen by Dhruvi Acharya

"Breaking Boundaries" is an expression that is usually meant to show freedom--crashing through a fence that prohibits expression. But there's another side to boundaries.

And that's "Holding Boundaries."

The first boundary I recall is a low brick wall that marked the edge of the front garden of my first home in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England. At age four, I played close to the wall, and this was how I visited other children in the neighborhood: playing on the sides of the garden walls. 

Once, my younger sister breached the wall to toddle after a fire engine. She was safely retrieved, yet my mother’s panicked reaction to my sister’s boundary violation is the second part of the memory. 

 

This week, a huge fence is going up in Washington D.C., supposed protection for those participating in President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. This physical barrier can deter some behaviors, but it cannot do anything to erase the danger we face.

 

I started feeling this way last winter, when doctors around the world pleaded for people to wear face masks. Across the country, mask adherence is spotty, and a number of people say that not wearing a mask is a defense of their personal freedom. Last week, when seditionists stormed the US Capitol, members of Congress escaped and together for hours in a small, undisclosed location. Six Republican House members refused to wear masks. Three members who wore masks caught COVID-19, quite possibly from one of these people. Because the boundary wasn’t observed by everyone, it didn’t work.

 

“Holding boundaries” is an expression used in counseling practice and self-help books and sometimes causes an eye roll. For me, it means following my gut, rather than giving in to pressure. Holding a boundary might mean saying “Sorry, I can’t come to that party,” or “I don’t want to get involved in that argument,” or as simple “no.” 

 

The U.S. Constitution is packed with laws, and garnished with amendments, that are meant to protect the country from corrupt government and ensure its stability and articulate the rights of citizens. However, none of it works if people don't pay attention to it. Vice President Michael Pence knows that President Trump did all but throw him to a mob, yet he won’t exercise the Constitution’s 25^th amendment, which could remove a president unfit for duty. And what of the 147 Republican lawmakers who won't accept the certified results of the 2020 election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris? Who won't accept...the law? 

 

The challenge with boundaries is that you can't yoke people into them. We hold them because of the people we are. 

 

About nineteen years ago, I bought a painting called I-Screen by an Indian woman painter, Dhruvi Acharya, who had a one-woman show in Baltimore. I remember settling down on a bench and staring at the vast amount of huge, psychologically paintings, looking for the one that spoke to me most. 

It was a big red painting, 50 inches square, that couldn't stop call me. In I-Screen, A mature woman with a peaceful expression appears to be defending herself against a stream of angry words coming from a younger woman. The screen in her hand is a simple vegetable grater.

 

As years passed and life tested me, I began to understand the story within the picture. The loving elder lets the words come at her, but she protects herself. She reminds me to stay true to myself. 

Politics to Pastry: What Writers Share When They Blog

 sujata massey

A novelist I greatly admire wrote her last blogpost in September. Catriona McPherson, formerly of the Femmes Fatales, declared that that with the election ahead, so much work needed to be done that she felt it useless to write about "cats and courgettes"--nor did she want to turn her blogposts into a political soapbox. 

Catriona (pronounced Catrina) comes from Scotland and is one of the funniest mystery authors on the planet. She was writing with a wink, but the truth is, writers are constantly self-censoring. It occurs when we write novels—editing out lots to make them better—and when we offer up essays to the internet or print publications. ,We become known for one thing—and people expect us to be amusing. Typically, we keep dark, pressing worries and political opinions to ourselves.

 

During the months after Catriona quit blogging, her activism was substantial. She penned 240 personal handwritten letters and mailed them to voters all over the country in the Vote Forward movement, something I also participated in (with just 40 letters written). Currently, Catriona’s working on letters to voters in Georgia. All the while she did this, she launched a new novel, The Turning Tide, featuring her clever and charming Mitfordesque heroine, Dandy Gilver, who lives in 1930s Scotland. 

 

 

I’m glad Catriona put her priorities the way she needed this fall. And we've got to credit today's readers for their choices. Since the pandemic, reader choices are trending toward social activist and apocalyptic books. Although there's nothing wrong with the historical novels we write, either!

You might be reading this particular blogpost because you follow Murder is Everywhere, a blog built by ten writers whose crime fiction set outside of the US. Or you've found my blogposts cross-posted to my website and Goodreads and my Amazon page. Some information you are learning about me—the protests I participate in for Black Lives Matter, women’s rights, post office service and voting inclusion—is probably not the reason you Googled me. Yet I am someone who writes about a female lawyer in 1920s India whose concerns are national emancipation and civil rights for women. What I care about is probably not a shock.

 

Writing about politics is most definitely allowed in Murder is Everywhere, and I learn a lot listening to the accounts of my fellow bloggers, especially when they draw cultural parallels with the past or in other countries. You must sample the words of my co-conspirators Annamaria Alfieri, Cara Black, Kwei Quartey, Caro Ramsey, Zoe Sharp, Jeff Siger, Michael Stanley, and Susan Spann to get a taste of politics and pastry around the world.

 

I’m pleased that there are enough of us writing that I only need contribute every other week. Fourteen days are a lot of time for events to break and then recede and for my mood to change from outraged to mellow. I can almost guarantee I'll be writing about holiday cooking within the next few weeks and post pictures of adorable dogs on the hunt for crumbs. 

 

The cozy and the distressing all part of the world we live in, and I thank you for being here. 

What a Wednesday

 Sujata Massey

In the early hours of Wednesday November 4, I am running on fumes and bittersweet chocolate. 

I stayed awake much of Tuesday night, watching and waiting as the votes roll in for the 2020 presidential election. Where was the easy win for Biden that I expected?

 

I voted about a month ago, as an absentee, which in Maryland meant that I filled out a ballot the Board of Elections mailed to my home. I then carried it to a locked ballot box placed outside one of my favorite places, the Baltimore Museum of Art. Two days later, I got an email saying my ballot was received, and a few weeks after that I was notified that my vote had been counted. 

My situation was pretty ideal, and I appreciate Maryland's decision to start counting absentee ballots as they arrive, rather than waiting to open the envelopes on election night, as is happening in Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania and other swing states,  the mail has been markedly slow, and many people didn't get absentee ballots in time, and don't have an assurance that their board of elections has their ballot to count. 

 

The waiting game is not new for me. As a writer, I must have patience with myself to make it through the process of writing a book…and then seeing the publisher bring it to the bookshelf. As a mother who adopted two children internationally, I had long waits that were filled with longing and worry for the babies who could not join me right away. 

 

Currently, I am waiting for a vaccination against the coronavirus that might be on the market by springtime…or some other time.

 

56 years of waiting have revealed that obsessing about the worst, while waiting, doesn’t change the outcome—or the way I feel, once destiny is revealed. 

 

What I did today, to get through the wait for election results, I spent my day going through a copy edited manuscript, doing some light cooking. Almost all day I live-streamed rousing alternative rock and funk from my favorite radio station, the Current, based in Minneapolis. I don’t usually fill my day with live radio, but this time I welcomed the distracting beat.

 

I kept walking my dogs. After lunch, I drove over to the polling station at Barclay Elementary School and smiled to see a line of people almost as long as the block. Someone was playing music on their phone, and there was a festive sound to people’s conversations. I drove to another larger polling place, where there was no line, making me think the staffing and organization was efficient, or more voters in that area had filed absentee ballots.  

 

When you work as a campaign volunteer--as I have in the prior three presidential elections--you get a small, personal snapshot of what's going on. It usually feels very optimistic, and I am good at talking myself into thinking the rest of the country is like the people I'm talking to.

 

But at the moment,my spirit is stressed. I suspect I'll be at a "Count Every Vote" demonstration on the street later today. I voted for Biden-Harris, for many reasons, including Trump's reckless endangerment of people's lives by not mounting a serious pandemic response. I thought that the rising death toll in red states would have meant something to the people living there. 

Still, nothing is set. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will take days to count votes. And it would be good if all votes from overseas citizens arrive by mail to be counted...and our mail is running slow.

I have to remind myself that a few extra days, or even a week, is nothing compared to the distress of the last four years, when environmental regulation collapsed, and jobs and lives were lost for no good reason.

And this is why waiting does not mean giving up. 

How Can a Woman Win?

Sujata Massey

I'm posting on the eve of the day that Democratic House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for an impeachment inquiry. The Democrats' concern--which is shared by me and many Americans--is whether the Republican president, Donald Trump, coerced a foreign government to investigate his own political rival. I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop on this guy since before he was elected, and there's nothing I can do to affect the outcome of this political process. I don't even know that the House will vote for impeachment and that the Republican-controlled Senate will agree that Trump violated the Constitution. But I keep thinking, why can't a reasonable woman serve as our next president?

It's about time. 

Americans have never had a woman president, or even vice-president, although sixty other countries have had a female premier. 

When I did some research on female leadership, I was not surprised that the first female national leader was from South Asia. However, I made a big mistake about her identity. In my mind, I always had it that the world's first female premier was Indira Gandhi, who won election for prime minister in India in 1966. 

Sirimavo and Indira were close in age and became friends

Actually, the honor goes to Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1960. And hearing her name, I began wanting to know more about her. 

Sirima Ratwatte was born in 1916 in Ceylon’s highlands, near the town of Kandy. The day Sirima was born, a herd of elephants reportedly invaded an enclosure on her family’s estate. This was said to be an auspicious sign. Her wealthy Sinhalese parents also had an astrologer come to analyze time of birth and location data. Based on all of his calculations, the astrologer found Sirima's destiny was to be a queen (Probably a sign of the times. A modern-day astrologer predicted my daughter would probably be a doctor!)

The idea of Baby Sirima becoming a queen seemed impossible, with King George V in power over Ceylon and the rest of the empire. However, Sirima had noble Sinhalese blood on both sides of her family, and her father, Barnes Ratwatte Dissawe, was a senator in the British-controlled colony. 

Sirima was the eldest of the family's six children. She attended a variety of small schools including a Roman Catholic convent school in Colombo, but her parents did not send their future queen for higher education. Therefore, after finishing high school, she devoted herself to volunteer work throughout the island, encouraging agricultural development and women’s health and education in rural areas. All the while, Sirima lived with her parents on their beautiful estate, while they fretted over finding the right husband for their socially committed  daughter.  

Solomon and Sirima Bandaranaike at their wedding 

After several disappointing candidates, a matchmaker approached them suggesting a promising lawyer who was a junior administrator in the State Council of Ceylon. Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (say that fast three times), had graduated from Oxford and came from a low country Sinhalese family who’d become rich during generations of administrative service to Ceylon's colonial rulers. The Ratwattes considered this background beneath them; but an astrologer insisted the young people’s horoscopes matched in a particularly powerful pattern. The marriage was a go. 

Solomon, 41, and Sirima, 24, had one of Ceylon’s grandest Raj-era weddings in 1940. As Solomon (better known as SWRD) rose in government, Sirima gave birth to three children and continued social work relating to agriculture, women’s health and education, eventually becoming president of the Mahila Samiti women’s organization. 

Sirima with her children

As India gained independence, it became apparent Ceylon could achieve self-rule. SWRD Bandaranaike joined the nationalist movement and ran for house of representatives. Later he became minister of health. Behind the scenes, Sirima encouraged him to join Ceylon’s nationalist movement and run for the house of representatives. He did that and won; Sirima, with her finger on the national pulse, persuaded him to resign from the dominant party and establish a new one that would attract rural people who had been ignored. She campaigned for SWRD with the new Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and he eventually was elected to parliament and became prime minister of Ceylon in 1956. 

SWRD and Sirima Bandaranaike

SWRD leaned toward socialism as a way to assist the poor, and he wanted non-English speaking people to feel strong in the country that was no longer under British rule. One of the most polarizing suggestions from SWRD’s party was to make Sinhalese the national language, because there was also a significant Tamil minority with a different language and religion. He also wanted to take businesses controlled by wealthy individuals who were often Christian into government hands. SWRD became embattled on many fronts and was assassinated in 1959 by a Buddhist monk who was angry over the government’s seeming dismissal of traditional medicine.

After her husband’s death, Sirima’s life was upended. With almost 20 years of marriage behind her and mature children, what would her role in life be? She had campaigned for the Sri Lanka Freedom Party before—and now its members implored her to hit the campaign trail to speak about her husband’s death and unfinished business. They voted her in as leader of their party, which held a minority number of seats in government. The SLFP theorized that the pleas of a grieving widow could move more people to vote for the party.  

A rally for Sirima

As Sirima campaigned, she appeared always in a widow’s white sari. Instead of lecturing about abstract ideas, she spoke frankly about the death of her husband and cried openly, which often moved her audience to cry as well. Simira's opponents called her the Weeping Widow and arranged to have a random widow from their own party run for prime minister in order to beat her.

The gambit didn't work.

Largely because of the rural Sinhalese voters’ support, the SLFP had a huge victory in the 1960 election, and Sirima was sworn in as prime minister, as well as minister of defense and external affairs. This was a lot to ponder  for a woman who had no education in economic, military and international affairs. Her late husband had come to government with the benefit of a law degree and an Oxford education. She had high school, and her years of volunteer experience.

The Prime Minister 

Meeting with Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosyin

Ceylon's population was ready for her, though. They no longer referred to her as Sirima; she was now named Sirimavo, a term of greater respect.

Prime Minister Sirimavo’s first steps were to follow her late husband’s agenda toward strengthening the power of Buddhist Sinhalese and nationalizing many areas that had been privately held in the past. Banking, foreign trade, petroleum and insurance were taken over by her government in the hopes of spurring business development among non-elite citizens. She made the bold move of cutting off state aid to Catholic schools and replaced the national language, English, with Sinhalese.

Most of Sirimavo’s actions were welcomed by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, but discontent was rising among Christians and Tamil Hindus. The situation in Ceylon reminds me of what happens with any leader who appears to cater to a particular religious or ethnic group in a country that is diverse.

Sirimavo was re-elected to a second term in the 1970s, during which time Ceylon transformed into the Republic of Sri Lanka. Yet concerns about Sirimavo abusing power led to being banned from political life from 1980 to 1986. After the ban was lifted, Sirimavo ran for the office of president in 1988, losing narrowly. By this time, two of her children were in politics. Her son Anura defected to his father’s original party, the United National Party, and her daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was elected Sri Lanka's president. Chandrika duly appointed her mother to a third term as prime minister, which had become a largely honorary position. Sirimavo served from late 1994 until 2000, when she resigned at the age of 84 due to failing health—or perhaps the party’s wish for a younger, more hardline politician to campaign in upcoming primary elections.

With age comes experience and confidence

Sirimavo Bandaranaike was a civilian in a wheelchair when she went to vote in the polls in October 2000, the same day as her 60^thwedding anniversary. Within hours of casting her ballot, her heart gave out, and she passed away. Shops and schools were closed for national days of mourning, and oil lamps were lit in homes, and white flags fluttered in remembrance. 

 As I think about Sirimavo's ascent, I realize that she succeeded with much less preparation and government experience than the women senators running for US president today. I think the volunteer work she’d done with the poor over many years made it possible for her to talk simply and powerfully to her constituents. She enchanted people who had never voted before and led them to the ballot box. Her people followed her from victory to scandal and back without flinching.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s strength was her ability to win hearts and minds of those who lived far from the city and thought nobody knew about them. As I look toward the presidential primaries beginning in February 2020, I hope an American woman leader can do the same.