Opinion Seattle recognises caste discrimination: South Asians travel with a system of inequality – perhaps that can change

Outing without consent is not a practice everywhere and can even be framed as an offence or crime. The first-ever case of caste discrimination that rattled the US courts in 2021 was on the issue of outing of caste and associated discrimination in CISCO, California. In that case, a Brahman colleague (also a fellow IITian) outed the caste of a subordinate, normalised his “lesser” worth and caused his downfall at work. John Doe (a pseudonym for the victim) challenged his upper-caste supervisors and filed a lawsuit. The Investigations conducted by Cisco are said to have found evidence of caste discrimination. Cisco, however, filed for dismissal of the case on several grounds including one that insisted — “caste and ethnicity are not protected classes under the Fair Employment and Housing Act in the US”.

Now, the City Council of Seattle has become the first to recognise and ban caste discrimination in the US. Kshama Sawant, a an upper caste of Indian origin and member of the Council (affiliated with Socialist Alternative) piloted this important piece of legislation. The Council voted to add caste to the city’s anti-discrimination laws and the ordinance defines caste as, “a system of rigid social stratification characterised by hereditary status, endogamy, and social barriers sanctioned by custom, law, or religion.” One important part of this legislation is that it recognises caste as a Hindu practice that has spread to other religions as well. The ordinance draws on past cases, several activist interventions and scholarship to recognise the double disadvantage of race and caste that the caste-oppressed may face. The legislation is an important and pioneering intervention in the western world as it makes it possible now to legally protest caste discrimination in Seattle and hopefully, paves the way to do so in other US states in the future.

Not surprisingly, collectives of people from privileged castes are voicing their protest against this legislation in the US — something we also witnessed in the UK in 2007. Many “Hindu” organisations are opposed to pieces of legislation that seek to recognise and ban caste discrimination. The Hindu American Foundation (HAF), for instance, had even filed an intervention in the CISCO case arguing that caste had “nothing to do with Hinduism”.

Why are the upper-caste Hindus protesting? Is caste really not related to Hinduism? What is Hinduism without caste? One needs to appreciate the fact that first or second-generation South Asians may lose part of their caste beliefs and rituals while growing up in largely individualist western countries. The making of a casteless Hindu is, therefore, not an impossibility. As part of my research on caste and cities, I have profiled a Vishwakarma (OBC) family that migrated to Africa from Gujarat and then to the UK. My key female respondent from this family is now married to a beef-eating Brahman in the US. Caste may almost seem lost in this inter-continental mobility — but is it? The female respondent shared how garba festivities continue to be organised along caste lines in the UK and that her family members were very proud and happy that she had married a Brahman and not the Muslim friend she used to hang out with. Beef-eaters may still seem “untouchable” unless they are Brahmans.

Caste may wither partly and simultaneously flourish wherever people from the Indian Subcontinent go. B R Ambedkar almost prophetically observed close to a century ago: “Practically, it [caste] is an institution that portends tremendous consequences. It is a local problem, but one capable of much wider mischief, for ‘as long as caste in India does exist, Hindus will hardly intermarry or have any social intercourse with outsiders; and if Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem’.”

How else does one explain the proliferation of caste associations in North America? Take, for instance, the Brahman Samaj of North America, which claims to be the largest organisation of Brahmans with an impressive presence across Canada and the US. The sole objective of this association is advancing their own cultural and social identity. A caste-less cosmopolitan Hindu is dystopic and maybe caste without caste discrimination is a misplaced utopia.

Hindu (upper-caste) cosmopolitanism faces the challenge of genuine transformation both in India and outside it. There is an urge to be caste free and seem liberal. However, Hindu cosmopolitanism encourages a soft cosmopolitanism where the urbane individual may be able to realise his/her “self” only when they root themselves in caste. Such a realisation of self in contemporary times continues to value a degree of caste closure as an ideal and cosmopolitanism here is against alterity, spontaneity and genuine dialogue – something that Kshama Sawant in Seattle attempting to practice.

The writer is professor of sociology, IIT-B