US election: meet the Tambrahms, the Indian caste linking Kamala Harris to Alphabet’s CEO and Nobel laureates

The US vice-presidential candidate can trace her roots to a high-caste Brahmin community in Tamil Nadu, India, known as the ‘Tambrahm’

Other prominent Tambrahm names include Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and former PepsiCo CEO Indira Nooyi

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A banner featuring US Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the entrance to the village of Thulasendrapuram, where Harris' maternal grandfather was born and grew up, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:00pm, 2 Nov 2020Updated: 12:50pm, 4 Nov 2020

With the latest opinion polls showing Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading Donald Trump both nationally and in battleground states ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election in the United States, Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, has increasingly found herself in the spotlight.

Harris’s rise as the first Indian-American vice-presidential candidate has been celebrated not only across the US, but as far away as the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu where the 56-year-old California senator’s maternal side of the family originated.

Indeed, it was here in Tamil Nadu where Harris asked her aunt to break 108 coconuts as an auspicious Hindu ritual at the Varasiddhi Vinayagar Temple to bless her attempt to become California’s attorney general.

Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, described by Harris as the “most important person” in her life, was part of the Tamil Brahmin community, a group often referred to as the “Tambrahm”.

US Democratic vice-presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris. Photo: Reuters

Brahmins occupy the highest pedestal in the rigid Indian caste hierarchy and for decades have enjoyed a disproportionate presence in the world of intelligentsia, including the judiciary, bureaucracy, media and politics.