Change has been the buzzword of Obama’s campaign. Post-victory, that promise of change is what has drawn African and American students at Jawaharlal Nehru University to respond to Obama.

Chris, a PhD student from Kenya, calls Obama’s win a double victory: “His father was from Kenya and, more importantly, because the election of a black man to lead a superpower like the United States dispels all biases about black men as leaders.” For him, what makes Obama different from the Bush administration is his emphasis on dialogue and engagement in foreign policy.

Fellow student Khalid Abdullah, from Sudan, said, “The election is the realisation of what was envisaged by Martin Luther King. It’s the beginning of the end of the remnants of racial inequality in the US.” But he added that a more effective change in US foreign policy would be possible only with more inter-regional debates and engagement with the world, rather than the rhetoric of fighting Islamic terrorism.  

For US students at JNU, the decision to vote for Obama came from a desire for change. “The landslide victory indicates that American people want to change the way the Bush government has been operating in different parts of the world,” said Rachel Forse, a US national.

Rob Staley, at JNU’s School of International Studies, also said that Obama’s victory is a powerful symbol of empowerment for African-Americans. “It sends out the message that there is space for them in the country.”

But what also made a difference, Staley said, is Obama’s “own life, where he has come from, and how he worked to get where he is now. The potential for change remains huge.”