Calls to outlaw discrimination primarily based on caste, a division of individuals primarily based on beginning or descent, have grown louder amongst South Asian diaspora communities in america. However the motion is getting pushback from some Hindu People who argue that such laws maligns a particular group.
Proponents of the ordinance that was permitted by a 6-1 vote Tuesday say caste discrimination crosses nationwide and spiritual boundaries and that with out such legal guidelines, these going through caste discrimination within the U.S. could have no protections.
The ordinance is a contentious situation, particularly among the many nation’s South Asian diaspora. Supporters argue it’s wanted as a result of caste just isn’t lined beneath present civil rights protections. Teams opposing the measure say it is going to malign a group that’s already the goal of prejudice.
Council Member Kshama Sawant, a socialist and the one Indian American on the Metropolis Council, mentioned the ordinance, which she proposed, doesn’t single out one group, however it accounts for the way caste discrimination crosses nationwide and spiritual boundaries.
Activists on completely different sides of the difficulty started arriving in Seattle properly forward of Tuesday’s metropolis council assembly. As early as final week, greater than 100 individuals had put in requests to talk on the assembly. Early Tuesday, a number of activists braved chilly temperatures and wind gusts to line up exterior Metropolis Corridor so they might get an opportunity to talk to the council earlier than the vote. However the council restricted public remark on the assembly.
The origins of the caste system in India will be traced again 3,000 years as a social hierarchy primarily based on one’s occupation and beginning. It’s a system that has advanced over the centuries beneath Muslim and British rule. The struggling of those that are on the backside of the caste pyramid — often called Dalits — has continued. Caste discrimination has been prohibited in India since 1948, a yr after the nation’s independence from British rule.
Dalit activists from Seattle and past rallied at Seattle Metropolis Corridor in help of the ordinance, mentioned Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder and govt director of California-based Equality Labs.
The U.S. is the second hottest vacation spot for Indians dwelling overseas, in line with the Migration Coverage Institute, which estimates the U.S. diaspora grew from about 206,000 in 1980 to about 2.7 million in 2021. The group South Asian People Main Collectively stories that almost 5.4 million South Asians dwell within the U.S. — up from the three.5 million counted within the 2010 census. Most hint their roots to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Over the previous three years, a number of faculties and college programs have moved to ban caste discrimination.
In December 2019, Brandeis College close to Boston turned the primary U.S. faculty to incorporate caste in its nondiscrimination coverage. The California State College System, Colby School, Brown College and the College of California, Davis have all adopted related measures. Harvard College instituted caste protections for scholar staff in 2021 as a part of its contract with its graduate scholar union.
The Seattle measure had the help of Dalit activist-led organizations like Equality Labs and others. The teams say caste discrimination is prevalent in diaspora communities manifesting itself within the type of social alienation and discrimination in housing, training and the tech sector the place South Asians maintain key roles.
Opposition to the ordinance got here from teams such because the Hindu American Basis and the Coalition of Hindus of North America who say it unnecessarily singles-out a group already susceptible to discrimination within the U.S.
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