Seattle first US city to ban caste bias
Seattle has became the first city in the United States to add caste as a distinct category to its anti-discrimination legislation, adding to growing conversations around caste-based incidents and awareness in the country.
Seattle has became the first city in the United States to add caste as a distinct category to its anti-discrimination legislation, adding to growing conversations around caste-based incidents and awareness in the country.
The move sparked a debate within the South Asian diaspora, with Dalit groups and progressive outfits hailing the decision but some organisations alleging that the provision will target other Hindu-Americans.
On Tuesday, the Seattle City Council passed an amendment, with six members in favour and one against, titled “Caste as a Protected Class” that banned discrimination in employment, housing, public transport and retail establishments, among others. Sponsored by council members Kshama Sawant and Lisa Herbold, the amendment said that caste discrimination affected more than 250 million people internationally.
“Although caste is often associated with Hinduism and India, it transcends religious and geographic boundaries, with caste-based discrimination showing up in Christian, Muslim, Sikh, and other religious communities, all over South Asia, and in Southeast Asian and African communities, including Japan, the Middle East, Nigeria, Somalia, and Senegal,” the amendment read.
The amendment added that caste and associated discrimination travelled with the diaspora, including in the US, and Washington State and Seattle were home to such communities. “The city of Seattle is committed to recognising the dignity of all its residents, including the right of all Seattle residents to live in a city that does not subject them to prejudicial treatment or discrimination,” the statement added.
It also stated that existing anti-discrimination provisions did not encompass caste discrimination.
“It’s official: our movement has won a historic, first-in-the-nation ban on caste discrimination in Seattle! Now we need to build a movement to spread this victory around the country,” tweeted Sawant.
“Love has won over hate …this was a win led by Dalit women and its foundation was set by Dalit feminism,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, director of the Dalit rights advocacy group Equality Labs.
The development is the latest in a series of events that have spotlighted the presence of caste among the South Asian population in the US with a significant group of activists saying that birth-based biases have followed the diaspora. This has included a landmark case filed by a former employee of tech giant Cisco alleging bias and discrimination due to his caste status last year, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raiding an under-construction temple complex in New Jersey following allegations that Dalit workers were exploited and even tortured.
Hours ahead of the vote, Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal backed the move. “Caste discrimination has no place in society anywhere in the world, including here in America,” she tweeted.
In a separate summary note, the city council defined caste as a “a system of rigid social stratification characterised by hereditary status, endogamy, and social barriers sanctioned by custom, law, or religion.” The legislation, it claimed, will allow those subject to discrimination on the basis of caste a legal avenue to pursue a remedy against alleged discrimination. Seattle, a technology and business hub, is home to roughly 167,000 people of South Asian origin.
The move sparked opposition from some groups. In a statement, Suhag Shukla, the executive director of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), said that while HAF maintained that caste discrimination was wrong, the “singling out of the South Asians and addition of ‘caste’ to non-discrimination” violated the very policies it sought to amend.
“The city of Seattle has voted to treat South Asians in a manner than no other ethnic or racial community is treated under the guise of non-discrimination. It has voted yes to discriminating against ethnic minority, repeating the ugliness of nativists in the state nearly a century ago,” she added.
The development is emblematic of rising caste awareness in the US – especially among progressive groups and universities. In December 2019, Brandeis University became the first US institution to include caste in its non-discrimination policy, and was followed by the California State University System, Brown University and the University of California, Davis.
