Mallika Dureja
Seattle is the first city in the United States to ban cast bias as a distinct category to its anti-discrimination legislation, adding to the growing dialogue and national awareness surrounding caste-based incidents.
The action sparked a debate within the South Asian diaspora, with Dalit groups and progressive organisations praising the decision while other groups claiming the provision will target other Hindu-Americans.
Tuesday, the Seattle City Council passed an amendment titled “Caste as a Protected Class” that prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, public transportation, and retail establishments, among others. Six members voted in favour, while one voted against. The amendment sponsored by Kshama Sawant and Lisa Herbold stated that caste discrimination affected more than 250 million people worldwide.
The amendment stated, “Although caste is commonly associated with Hinduism and India, it transcends religious and geographic boundaries, with caste-based discrimination occurring in Christian, Muslim, Sikh, and other religious communities throughout South Asia, as well as in Southeast Asian and African communities, including Japan, the Middle East, Nigeria, Somalia, and Senegal.”
Caste and affiliated discrimination travelled with the diaspora, including to the United States, and Washington State and Seattle are home to such communities. The statement continued, “The city of Seattle is committed to recognising the dignity of all its residents, including their right to live in a city that does not subject them to prejudice or discrimination.”
It was also stated that extant anti-discrimination laws did not apply to caste discrimination.
“It’s official: Seattle has become the first city in the nation to prohibit caste discrimination! Now we must create a movement to spread this victory across the nation,” Sawant tweeted.
“Love has triumphed over hatred,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, director of the Dalit rights advocacy group Equality Labs. “This victory was guided by Dalit women and its foundation was laid by Dalit feminism.”
The latest in a series of events that have highlighted the presence of caste among the South Asian population in the United States, a significant number of activists assert that birth-based prejudices have followed the diaspora. This includes a landmark case filed last year by a former employee of tech giant Cisco alleging bias and discrimination based on his caste status, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raiding an under-construction temple complex in New Jersey in response to allegations that Dalit workers were exploited and even tortured.
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The Indian-American congresswoman Pramila Jayapal supported the motion hours before the vote. She tweeted, “Caste discrimination has no place in society anywhere in the globe, including the United States.”
The city council defined caste as “a system of rigorous social stratification characterised by hereditary status, endogamy, and social barriers sanctioned by custom, law, or religion” in a separate summary document. It was asserted that the legislation will provide those subject to caste-based discrimination with a legal remedy against alleged discrimination. A technology and commercial hub, Seattle is home to approximately 167,000 South Asians.
Some organisations expressed opposition to the ban cast bias . Suhag Shukla, the executive director of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), stated in a statement that while HAF maintained that caste discrimination was incorrect, the “singling out of South Asians and addition of ‘caste’ to non-discrimination” violated the policies that HAF sought to amend.
Under the guise of nondiscrimination, Seattle has voted to regard South Asians differently than any other ethnic or racial community. It has voted in favour of discrimination against ethnic minorities, replicating the ugliness of the state’s nativists from nearly a century ago,” she added.
This event is emblematic of a growing awareness of caste in the United States, particularly among progressive groups and universities. In December of 2019, Brandeis University was the first institution in the United States to include caste in its non-discrimination policy, followed by the California State University System, Brown University, and the University of California Davis.
