MEET THE WRITER
‘Does upper caste society acknowledge the private reservations it has had for years?’: Yashica Dutt
An interview with the writer of ‘Coming Out As Dalit’.

Yashica Dutt. | Calvin Tso Admerasia
2/2/2020 · Vighnesh Hampapura

I read Yashica Dutt’s memoir Coming Out As Dalit when Professor Rita Kothari suggested it as additional reading for our Dalit Literatures course at Ashoka University. Dutt’s was an unusual story: She had hidden her caste from others, disengaging from conversations around caste in the fear that it might reveal her identity. After graduating from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, Dutt went to Columbia University, New York, and has been living and working in the US since then.

But with Rohith Vemula’s death in 2016, much of what had remained within her – the experiences in childhood, the courses at Columbia, the wish to write and record – burst forth in a stunning memoir. To me, the book stood out for two reasons. One, it wove the stories of a diverse group of Dalits into Dutt’s own journey. Two, along with the sharp journalism there was her critical insight into the relationship between caste and education, which, as a student whose caste supposedly had no bearing – and thus all the bearing historically – on education, was of great consequence.
I met Dutt at the Jaipur Literary Fest, where she spoke about her book, her experiences, the systems that fail people, reservations, and the current government’s appropriation of the Dalit identity. Our conversation, however, was focused on questions that surround the education system and the looming presence of caste everywhere.

People talk about “merit” when they talk about education. And there is, via “merit”, an argument against reservation in educational institutions, that “merit” does not get enough seats, that universities should value only “merit”. Even today we have such an argument, say with respect to JNU: The university should be shut down because there is no real merit there. What they mean is that the students who go to JNU are mostly from the “reserved” categories. Could you unpack this idea of “merit” for us?

Yeah, let’s talk about what they mean by “merit”. Are they talking about IITs? That is, clearing the entrance exams there, the JEE – is this “merit”? Anybody who has taken the entrance exam or done some preparation for them has probably gone through the experience of going to coaching centres. Do you know what exactly happens at coaching centres?

Oh, I do, yeah…

You look like you do. They give you...there are these designed questions, these tricks and formulae and methods and ways to solve them. It isn’t that people who cannot solve them are dumb. It’s just that the people who end up solving them have practised them, have been coached, have been mentored, have had the ways to solve the equations in less than two minutes. How did they get this education? With money. Somebody who does not have access to money does not have access to “merit”.

So, I think, before we talk about Dalit students not being “intelligent”, we need to talk about how we became “intelligent” in the first place. This is a question about the caste system, but also a question about India’s education system: Does it promote critical thought? If it did that, and entrances were based on critical arguments, then we could say: This argument makes sense, while that does not.

But it does not do that. Here we are talking about the tools to build a skillset to solve a set of problems on paper: Without these tools, you cannot do well here. Instead of saying, then, that Dalit students are not meritorious and thus diluting the campus space, let us be the socialist state that we are, and help students to have access to a system that they don’t.

One of the arguments made once we talk about the economic factor is that there are students who are poor in the “unreserved” categories too. What would your response be to that? Because it’s a very alluring argument for people to mount against reservation.
Absolutely, and that is a totally valid argument – that there are poor “general” quota students as well. But how are they treated by the teachers? What kinds of support systems do they have access to? Do they have a teacher who asks your last names and decides on grace marks, for instance? If you’re a “quota” student, how are you seen and treated?

Of course, money is the primary issue. Dalit students who have money access coaching centres too. But that’s not the only question. We are asking how these Dalit students are treated once they are inside. Who are the students dropping out of universities and educational spaces? Most of them are Dalits. SC and ST students.

And it’s not because they are unintelligent…

Exactly, not because they’re bad [students]. Studies and surveys document how casteism is institutionalised in these spaces. When you enter these hostile spaces as reservation students, your mental health takes a big hit. There’s first the conversation we need to have about mental health in general, which we don’t; and then about the fact that students with no resources, students who are institutionally disadvantaged, are affected the most. And you may be rich or poor, but if you’re a “quota” student, you’re institutionally disadvantaged.

Yes, you lack other forms of capital that may not just be money. You touched upon many topics that I wanted to discuss. “Merit” has another narrative, and that is to paint a rosy picture of university spaces, that they are about education, that they treat all students equally, for all students are meritorious. In other words, universities do not harbour caste discrimination. And one has to only…

Oh, look at Rohith Vemula.

Exactly, one has to only read Rohith Vemula’s letter. How have you seen caste discrimination in these elite spaces of education?

Personal experience?

Anything – personal experience or experiences you know about.
Okay, personal experience. I went to St Stephen’s and Columbia. Stephen’s is caste-agnostic, as I mentioned in my session: It’s not caste-neutral or caste-blind, but caste is concealed very well. As far as other institutions are concerned, if you’ve read my book, I talk about this professor who constructed a well, and it was called the Brahmin’s well. And you could draw water only if you were upper-caste.

I have another professor who is Dalit talk about people not sitting on the chair he sat on despite his being the head of the department. Dalit students – this happened to Rohith – don’t get their fellowships. There was a study by [Surinder S] Jodhka – if I remember correctly – where he revealed that Dalit students were told when they applied for the Rajiv Gandhi fellowship that they did not deserve a government handout.

I know students who have waited for years and years for a PhD guide. These are all examples of institutional casteism. In fact, quotas have become a way for people to identify who a Dalit student is. And once you’re recognised, you are a Dalit student; ergo you are merit-less.

And merit on their terms. Tell me, what would merit ideally be?

What would I consider merit? Diversity. Diversity is merit, quality, excellence. Not only in terms of the Dalit experience, but everybody’s experience. Let’s get a poor upper-caste person who farms; let’s get someone who knows how to till the land to teach, give us their experiences. Have a Dalit person who has different ideas of knowledge production show you how to create art. That’s how you create a just and equal society with equal properties for all.

That expands the field of knowledge itself. It has only constituted the written word and theory.

And is also limited to a certain caste.

Yes. A review of your book states that one of the common threads in the stories of Yashica Dutt, Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, or Sujatha Gidla has been about their mothers working really hard to get them a “ticket out of their caste”.

And Rohith’s mother, Radhika aunty.

Yes. I want to think about that phrase: “ticket out of caste”. And this goes back to one of our classes where we discussed caste and privilege. If you don’t know your caste, if you can say that you don’t know your caste, then it’s mostly true that you’re privileged.
Most likely. There are instances, though, where a lot of Dalit parents conceal caste to shield their children from discrimination, and inevitably when the children find out, they feel disgust, revulsion and shame. But most likely, if you can afford to say, “I’m so progressive that I don’t know my caste”, then you probably are upper-caste.

I want to discuss that difference between these privileges. You write in your book how you could lie about your caste, which is a very different kind of privilege from not knowing your caste at all, and both these are different from being able to conceal caste to shield children from discrimination. And these differences are important to register, because one can mix all of this up and say: ah, everyone is now a part of equal society.
But they’re not. I had the unique privilege of being able to use other caste labels because I pass off easily. If I didn’t pass off easily, nobody would believe me even if I tried. Or if I lived in a rural setting where the village would be divided according to jats, like Valmiki village or so on, everyone would know even without my telling them that I belonged to the Valmiki caste, or this or that caste. There are gradients. And of course we all have our privileges. Urban Dalits have more privilege than rural Dalits; richer Dalits than poorer Dalits – but before we get into discussing privileges among Dalits, let’s examine the larger society.

Of course. To question Dalit privilege and homogenise it with upper-caste privilege is to derail the conversation.

Exactly. Is society confronting itself at how caste has existed within its folds for years and how different people have either benefited or have been disadvantaged? Are we – the “general” upper-caste society – acknowledging how we have had private reservations because of our caste for centuries? Let’s reckon with that, right?

Cases like mine are rare: Can a Dalit girl in rural Bilwada, Rajasthan hide her caste like I did? No, she can’t. She doesn’t have the same opportunities that I did. And the question is: How do I use this opportunity? Can I use my marginalised voice with a relative privilege to make a noise in a world that I have somehow gained access to, a world that didn’t want me in the first place?

And you are indeed, even here at JLF. That was fascinating. A few minutes ago, you talked about being institutionally disadvantaged. And that seems odd, because institutions are supposed to do otherwise. Reservation, which is a guarantee to one’s right to education – because it has been historically denied to you – turns to be, in the way we speak or think of it, a favour, as you yourself said, “a government handout”. Society’s perspective on reservation is so negative that its perspective on a “quota” student is the same, because she seen as actively exercising a right but as passively receiving a favour. Is there a way we can address this issue institutionally? What can colleges and universities do?

I think that’s a really good question. Most universities have this, but all of them should have SC-ST cells in place, support systems for Dalits, treat them as people who are overcoming their generational trauma rather than as beneficiaries of a system that wasn’t theirs to begin with. Let’s remember that they are now equal stakeholders now in this system.

Compassion, empathy – all these of course should come from everywhere. And professors, especially professors, need to let go of their casteist mindsets and do their job as teachers, to really uplift all students. All students will not have equal abilities and that’s why teachers must focus of those who don’t have and know enough. They need upliftment.

Not as a favour, but because they deserve it. Yes. Now my last question, and this is from your book. You say there that more often than not your success is mixed with a sense of guilt. And what would you tell students who may feel this same sense of guilt? Because while it’s understandable, it’s misplaced as you point out yourself. When people go to their rooms and say, “oh, this isn’t mine, this success isn’t me”, it’s even more destabilising.
Success is yours. You worked really hard to be here. You came here against all odds, and you beat all of them to become a part of a society that had structural barriers for you. Don’t allow anybody to diminish that struggle, even yourself. Be kind to yourself – I know this is a lot of therapy talk, but I’ve been through it all – and just own the struggle, own the journey, and own the success too. It’s really funny, er, you might have noticed I’ve suddenly become emotional…

I’m really sorry if I…

No, no, no, please don’t be. You see, something happened this morning, and you can see this if you go to my twitter handle: I’ve been attacked for coming to lit-fests, talking about my book and “promoting myself”. There is a section of twitter handles – I’m not sure of their caste location, but they say they are from the “lower castes”, and that’s probably true – that say that I don’t deserve to have the voice that I do, that I’m not a representative of the movement.

Hmm, if you include this part, I just want to say: I have never claimed to represent anybody but myself. If you have an opinion about the book, don’t just go with what the title says. Please read the book – it’s a work of journalism, a work of non-fiction, there’s research, data and analysis. Of course there’s a thread of my own story, but I’ve also used other stories and voices to amplify the story. I’m not centring myself in this discourse.

As somebody who now seems enormously privileged, not only am I feeling bad about the book and all this – sitting here and talking to you – but I’m also being made to feel bad about it. All of this is seen as personal promotion and book-tour, and that’s gross and tasteless. And this is from within the community.

All of this does work into guilt: should I feel happy about myself? Do I deserve this? But these aren’t the right questions, and this isn’t how we should be thinking about it. If I worked hard, I deserve credit, as everybody else does. There are so many other stories that deserve to be told, and I had great privilege to get published that many others don’t. But it isn’t my fault, it’s how the system is built. And we’re fighting it. I have clawed my way in. I had certain advantages. And let’s work together to bring those advantages to everyone. I can do my part.

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IS FASCISM, CASTISM AND RACISM

Seattle considers historic law barring caste discrimination

By DEEPA BHARATH

yesterday

1 of 7
New Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant speaks, in Seattle. One of Sawant’s earliest memories of the caste system was hearing her grandfather – a man she “otherwise loved very much” – utter a slur to summon their lower-caste maid. Now an elected official in a city thousands of miles from India, she has proposed an ordinance to add caste to Seattle’s anti-discrimination laws. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

One of Kshama Sawant’s earliest memories of the caste system was hearing her grandfather — a man she “otherwise loved very much” — utter a slur to summon their lower-caste maid.

The Seattle City Council member, raised in an upper-caste Hindu Brahmin household in India, was 6 when she asked her grandfather why he used that derogatory word when he knew the girl’s name. He responded that his granddaughter “talked too much.”

Now 50, and an elected official in a city far from India, Sawant has proposed an ordinance to add caste to Seattle’s anti-discrimination laws. If her fellow council members approve it Tuesday, Seattle will become the first city in the United States to specifically outlaw caste discrimination.

In India, the origins of the caste system can be traced back 3,000 years as a social hierarchy based on one’s birth. While the definition of caste has evolved over the centuries, under both Muslim and British rule, the suffering of those at the bottom of the caste pyramid – known as Dalits, which in Sanskrit means “broken” — has continued.

In 1948, a year after independence from British rule, India banned discrimination on the basis of caste, a law that became enshrined in the nation’s constitution in 1950. Yet the undercurrents of caste continue to swirl in India’s politics, education, employment and even in everyday social interactions. Caste-based violence, including sexual violence against Dalit women, is still rampant.

What is India's caste system? Is it contentious in U.S.?

The national debate in the United States around caste has been centered in the South Asian community, causing deep divisions within the diaspora. Dalit activist-led organizations such as Oakland, California-based Equality Labs, say caste discrimination is prevalent in diaspora communities, surfacing in the form of social alienation and discrimination in housing, education and the tech sector where South Asians hold key roles.

The U.S. is the second most popular destination for Indians living abroad, according to the Migration Policy 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 Americans Leading Together reports that nearly 5.4 million South Asians live in the U.S. — up from the 3.5 million counted in the 2010 census. Most trace their roots to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

There has been strong pushback to anti-discrimination laws and policies that target caste from groups such as the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America. They say such legislation will hurt a community whose members are viewed as “people of color” and already face hate and discrimination.

But over the past decade, Dalit activism has garnered support from several corners of the diaspora, including from groups like Hindus for Human Rights. The last three years in particular have seen more people identify as Dalits and publicly tell their stories, energizing this movement.

Prem Pariyar, a Dalit Hindu from Nepal, gets emotional as he talks about escaping caste violence in his native village. His family was brutally attacked for taking water from a community tap, said Pariyar, who is now a social worker in California and serves on Alameda County’s Human Relations Commission. He moved to the U.S. in 2015, but says he couldn’t escape stereotyping and discrimination because of his caste-identifying last name, even as he tried to make a new far from his homeland.

Pariyar, motivated by the overt caste discrimination he faced in his social and academic circles, was a driving force behind it becoming a protected category in the 23-campus California State University system in January 2022.

“I’m fighting so Dalits can be recognized as human beings,” he said.

In December 2019, Brandeis University near Boston became the first U.S. college to include caste in its nondiscrimination policy. Colby College, Brown University and the University of California, Davis, have adopted similar measures. Harvard University instituted caste protections for student workers in 2021 as part of its contract with its graduate student union.

Laurence Simon, international development professor at Brandeis, said a university task force made the decision based “on the feelings and fears of students from marginalized communities.”

“To us, that was enough, even though we did not hear of any serious allegations of caste discrimination,” he said. “Why do we have to wait for there to be a horrendous problem?”

Among the most striking findings in a survey of 1,500 South Asians in the U.S. by Equality Labs: 67% of Dalits who responded reported being treated unfairly at their workplace because of their caste and 40% of Dalit students who were surveyed reported facing discrimination in educational institutions compared to only 3% of upper-caste respondents. Also, 40% of Dalit respondents said they felt unwelcome at their place of worship because of their caste.

Caste needs to be a protected category under the law because Dalits and others negatively affected by it do not have a legal way to address it, said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder and executive director of Equality Labs. Soundararajan’s parents, natives of Tamil Nadu in southern India, fled caste oppression in the 1970s and immigrated to Los Angeles, where she was born.

“We South Asians have so many difficult historical traumas,” she said. “But when we come to this country, we shove all that under the rug and try to be a model minority. The shadow of caste is still there. It still destabilizes lives, families and communities.”

The trauma is intergenerational, she said. In her book “The Trauma of Caste,” Soundararajan writes of being devastated when she learned that her family members were considered “untouchables” in India. She recounts the hurt she felt when a friend’s mother who was upper caste, gave her a separate plate to eat from after learning about her Dalit identity.

“This battle around caste is a battle for our souls,” she said.

The Dalit American community is not monolithic on this issue. Aldrin Deepak, a gay, Dalit resident of the San Francisco Bay area, said he has never faced caste discrimination in his 35 years in the U.S. He has decorated deities in local Hindu temples and has an array of community members over to his house for Diwali celebrations.

“No one’s asked me about my caste,” he said. “Making an issue where there is none is only creating more fractures in our community.”

Nikunj Trivedi, president of the Coalition of Hindus of North America, views the narrative around caste as “completely twisted.” Caste-based laws that single out Indian Americans and Hindu Americans are unacceptable, he said.

“The understanding of Hinduism is poor in this country,” Trivedi said. “Many people believe caste equals Hinduism, which is simply not true. There is diversity of thought, belief and practice within Hinduism.”

Trivedi said Seattle’s proposed policy is dangerous because it is not based on reliable data.

“There is a heavy reliance on anecdotal reports,” he said, suggesting it would be difficult to verify someone’s caste. “How can people who know very little or nothing about caste adjudicate issues stemming from it?”

Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation, called Seattle’s proposed ordinance unconstitutional because “it singles out and targets an ethnic minority and seeks to institutionalize implicit bias toward a community.”

“It sends that message that we are an inherently bigoted community that must be monitored,” Shukla said.

Caste is already covered under the current set of anti-discrimination laws, which provide protections for race, ethnicity and religion, she said.

Legislation pertaining to caste is not about targeting any community, said Nikhil Mandalaparthy, deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights. The Washington, D.C.-based group supports the proposed caste ordinance.

“Caste needs to be a protected category because we want South Asians to have similar access to opportunities and not face discrimination in workplaces and educational settings,” he said. “Sometimes, that means airing the dirty laundry of the community in public to make it known that caste-based discrimination is not acceptable.”

Council member Sawant said legal recourse is needed because current anti-discrimination laws are not enough. Sawant, who is a socialist, said the ordinance is backed by several groups including Amnesty International and Alphabet Workers Union that represents workers employed by Google’s parent company.

More than 150,000 South Asians live in Washington state, with many employed in the tech sector where Dalit activists say caste-based discrimination has gone unaddressed. The issue was in the spotlight in 2020 when California regulators sued Cisco Systems saying a Dalit Indian engineer faced caste discrimination at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

Sawant said the ordinance does not single out one community, but accounts for how caste discrimination crosses national and religious boundaries. A United Nations report in 2016 said at least 250 million people worldwide still face caste discrimination in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Pacific regions, as well as in various diaspora communities. Caste systems are found among Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs.

Among the diaspora, many Dalits pushing to end caste discrimination are not Hindu. Nor are they all from India.

D.B. Sagar faced caste oppression growing up in the 1990s in northern Nepal, not far from the Buddha’s birthplace. He fled it, emigrating to the U.S. in 2007. Sagar says he still bears physical and emotional scars from the oppression. His family was Dalit and practicing elements of both Hinduism and Buddhism, and felt shunned by both faiths.

“We were not allowed to participate in village festivals or enter temples,” he said. “Buddhists did not allow anyone from the Dalit community to become monks. You could change your religion, but you still cannot escape your caste identity. If converting to another religion was a solution, people would be free from caste discrimination by now.”

In school, Sagar was made to sit on a separate bench. He was once caned by the school’s principal for drinking from a water pot in the classroom that Dalits were barred from using. They believed his touch would pollute the water.

Sagar said he was shocked to see similar attitudes arise in social settings among the U.S. diaspora. His experiences motivated him to start the International Commission for Dalit Rights. In 2014, he organized a march from the White House to Capitol Hill demanding that caste discrimination be recognized under the U.S. Civil Rights Act.

His organization is currently looking into about 150 complaints of housing discrimination from Dalit Americans, he said. In one case, a Dalit man in Virginia said his landlord rented out a basement, but prevented him from using the kitchen because of his caste.

“Caste is a social justice issue, period,” he said.

Like Sagar, Arizona resident Shahira Bangar is Dalit. But she is a practicing Sikh and her parents fled caste oppression in Punjab, India. Her parents never discussed caste when she was young, but she learned the truth in her teens as she attended high school in Silicon Valley surrounded by high-caste Punjabi friends who belonged to the higher, land-owning Jat caste.

She felt left out when her friends played “Jat pride” music and when a friend’s mother used her caste identity as a slur.

“I felt this deep sadness of not being accepted by my own community,” Bangar said. “I felt betrayed.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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INDIA

Gujarat: Dalit Groups to Hold Massive Demonstrations Demanding Mevani's Release on May 1

Dalits from more than 1,000 villages are expected to join the demonstrations on May 1- Gujarat Day.

Newsclick Report
29 Apr 2022

Image Courtesy: PTI

Protests against the arrest of Vadgam (Gujarat) MLA Jignesh Mevani have intensified, with dalit groups announcing a huge demonstration against Assam police's action on May 1, Gujarat Day.

Mevani was arrested by Assam police from Palanpur circuit house in Gujarat's Banasakantha district on April 20 and was flown to Assam the next day.

The arrest was made after a complaint by Arup Dey, an executive member of the Bodoland Territorial Council and Member of the Council Legislative Assembly (MCLA) in Bodoland Territorial Council. The complaint was regarding a tweet by Mevani on April 18 ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to his home state Gujarat.

Mevani had tweeted: "Godse ko apna aradhya manne wale pradhanmantri Narendra Modi 20 tarikh se Gujarat daure pe hai, unse appeal hai ki Gujarat me Himmatnagar, Khambat aur Veraval me jo kaumi hadse huye hai uske khilaf shanti aur aman ka appeal kare. Mahatma mandir ke nirmata se itni ummid to banti hai. (PM Modi, who idealises Godse, is set to commence his Gujarat tour on April 20. I appeal to him to appeal for peace and brotherhood in Himmatnagar, Khambat and Veraval, which recently witnessed communal tension. I hope this much can be expected of someone who built Mahatma Mandir)."

Mevani's arrest saw immediate reactions in Gujarat and Assam. On April 21, dalit women led by Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch (RDAM) protested across Gujarat and held 'Rasta Roko' demonstrations in Ahmedabad, Kutch, Godhra, Bhavnagar and other districts. Yash Makwana, a member of RDAM, told NewsClick that the dalit community in Gujarat is disappointed over Mevani's brazen arrest, adding that "Mevani is more than an MLA for us; he is our fellow activist."

In Assam, Congress workers have been protesting since April 21. Assam police detained senior Congress leaders in the state following a protest demonstration in the Barpeta district on April 26.

Following the arrest, Mevani had received bail in the case from a chief judicial magistrate in the Kokrajhar district but was re-arrested moments later in another FIR filed in Assam's Barpeta district. The second arrest under Sections 294, 323, and 354 of the Indian Penal Code was made in a case involving an assault on a woman officer and obstructing a public servant from discharging their duty.

Dalit rights activist Martin Macwan said that "dalits from over 1,000 villages in Gujarat will switch off the lights in their homes and light a lamp in front of the Constitution" on May 1.

Macwan further said that while one can question Mevani's choice of words in his tweet, he only appealed for communal harmony, adding that "in all probability dalits from more than 1,000 villages will join the protest."

Dalit groups also wrote to Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel, seeking an apology for the action against Mevani. They also demanded that Mevani "be brought back to Gujarat with all due respect." On May 1, dalit groups in Gujarat will organise state-wide programmes, further intensifying their protest demanding Mevani's release and withdrawal of cases against all other dalits.

Finally, Dalit Leader Jignesh Mevani Gets Bail by Assam Court in Second Case

The Vadgam MLA from Gujarat had been arrested by the Assam Police for a tweet seen as critical of PM Modi. He was given bail and then rearrested.


PTI
29 Apr 2022


Barpeta (Assam): Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani was granted bail by a court in Assam's Barpeta district on Friday in a case related to the alleged assault of a woman police officer.

Barpeta District and Sessions judge Paresh Chakraborty granted bail to Mevani on a Personal Recognisance (PR) bond of Rs 1,000 in the case filed at the Barpeta Road police station.

The court had heard Mevani's lawyer and the public prosecutor on Thursday on the bail application and reserved the order for Friday.

The dalit leader was arrested in this case on Monday soon after he was released on bail in another case in Kokrajhar district.

Mevani, an Independent MLA backed by the Congress, was first arrested on April 19 from Palanpur town in Gujarat, and was brought to Kokrajhar for tweeting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It is alleged that he assaulted the woman officer when she was accompanying him from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar along with senior police officials.

In this case, he was booked under IPC Sections 294 (uttering obscene words in public), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 353 (assaulting a public servant in the execution of duty) and 354 (using criminal force to a woman intending to outrage her modesty).

The court had Tuesday sent him to five days in police custody.

Assam Congress MP Abdul Khaleque Wednesday had demanded the immediate release of Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani and a judicial inquiry into the case filed against him for alleged assault of a woman police officer in Barpeta for which he was rearrested after being granted bail in a case related to a tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said Mevani's arrest was a ''full fledged conspiracy" and expressed scepticism over the incident which had reportedly taken place when he was in police custody after being brought to Kokrajhar in Assam from Gujarat for his tweet.

''An independent judicial inquiry must be instituted into the fabricated case immediately as the police is not independent in Assam and is acting under political pressure. He should be released immediately," said Khaleque, who is an MP from Barpeta, where the alleged assault of the woman police officer took place.

He said Mevani had tweeted in Gujarat. "Then why was a case filed in Assam? It is obvious that the Assam chief minister wants to please the prime minister. It is shameful for a chief minister to behave in such a manner''.

Khaleque claimed that he had filed a case against Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma but the police did not register it despite a local court's direction to do so.

India’s federal agency to probe Dalit woman’s gang rape and death
HINDUTVA 

CASTISM MISOGYNY BIGOTRY EXCEPTIONALIST ARYANISM
Uttar Pradesh state police to hand case over to Central Bureau of Investigation amid nationwide uproar over assault.

Demonstrators in New Delhi protest over the rape and death of the young Dalit woman [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

5 Oct 2020

India’s federal investigators will take over the probe into the alleged gang rape and death of a young Dalit woman that has sparked nationwide outrage and days of protests.

A special team of the Uttar Pradesh state police that has been investigating the incident will soon be handing over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a spokesman for the police said on Sunday.

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The 19-year-old – who belongs to a marginalised group formerly known as “untouchables” – was assaulted in a field outside her village in the northern Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district on September 14.

She was severely injured and died two weeks later at a hospital in the Indian capital, New Delhi.

The attack on the teenager was the latest case highlighting sexual and other forms of violence against India’s 200 million Dalits, who are on the lowest rung of the caste system and have historically faced discrimination despite laws to protect them.

Four village men, who belong the privileged and influential Thakur community, have been arrested in connection with the crime.

Five senior police officers, including the district police chief, have been suspended over the investigation amid criticism of law enforcement’s actions – including the cremation of the woman’s body in the middle of the night against the wishes of her family.

Local authorities barricaded the village after the cremation to block opposition politicians and media from meeting the victim’s family. The decision was reversed on Saturday after widespread criticism.

Meanwhile, a controversy has erupted over a government forensic lab report that backs the Uttar Pradesh police’s claim that the young woman was not raped.

Doctors who treated the woman, however, reject the report, saying the samples had been sent to the lab 11 days after she was assaulted.

Priyanka Gandhi, leader of India’s main opposition Congress party, with her supporters during a protest over the death of Dalit rape victim, in Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi [Reuters]The woman’s death has sparked protests by members of Dalit communities, rights activists and opposition political parties across India.

The decision to hand the investigation over to the CBI was announced by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister’s Office late on Saturday soon after opposition Congress party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi visited the victim’s family in Hathras.

Uttar Pradesh is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also runs the federal government.

The incident came months after four men were hanged for the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi, a case that shook the nation.

An average of nearly 90 rapes were reported in India every day last year, according to data by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), but large numbers are thought to go unreported.

In 2019, more than 500 Dalit women were raped in Uttar Pradesh alone, according to the NCRB data, while the nationwide figure for the same year was more than 3,500.

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Dalit youth and five of his friends stoned to death in Nepal because of his love for an upper-caste girl

Discrimination is criminalised, but Nepal's caste system is crippling

Posted 31 May 2020

Children in Shikharpur, Nepal. Image via Flickr user Linus Mak. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Despite the country's multiculturalism, minority groups in Nepal — known as Dalits or untouchables — are often subjected to various forms of discrimination, which ranges from hate speech and abuse to rape and murder.

Most recently, on May 24, two Dalit boys, Nawaraj Bishwakarama (BK) and Tika Ram Sunar, were found dead on the banks of the Bheri river in the Jajarkot district of Southern Nepal. Three other bodies of Ganesh Budha, Sandip BK and Lokendra Sunar were found later and another youngster, Govinda Shahi is still missing. An inter-caste love relationship was deemed to be the major reason for their tragic deaths.

A love story gone wrong

Nawaraj, a 21-year-old from Jajarkot who loved playing sports and wanted to join the police force, was born into a Dalit family. He fell in love with Sushma Malla, an upper-caste, 17-year-old girl. Once her family learned about their relationship, Nawaraj and his family received frequent warnings to keep away from her, and on one occasion, he was reported to the police.

Sushma's family wanted to marry her off with someone from her own caste, so she reportedly asked Nawaraj to rescue her before they did. On the night of May 23, Nawaraj — accompanied by 18 friends — headed to Sushma's village of Soti, in the Rukum district, so that the two could elope. Upon their arrival, they were chased, stoned and beaten. In an attempt to save themselves, some of them jumped into the nearby river and managed to escape, but Nawaraj and five of his friends didn’t survive the fall. Five bodies have been recovered so far, one still missing, and other members of the group were handed over to the police and were released later.

One survivor told to media:

Nawaraj was badly beaten up by the crowd. All his body parts, including his head, were seriously injured. He wasn't able to move and he was thrown into the river, he was not in a condition to even swim [so he] could survive.

After the incident, police arrested Dambar Bahadur Malla, Sushma's father and ward chair of the local municipality, along with fifteen others in connection with the incident.
Protests over the murders

Various human rights organisations and Dalit leaders have been pressuring the government to take immediate action on the case and provide justice to the victims’ families:

Although protests and discussions are ongoing in different parts of the country, many fear that this case will soon be forgotten, like so many others in the past. One Twitter user explained:

रुकुमको घटना एउटा जघन्य अपराध हो।नवराज बिक संगै गएका भागेर ज्यान बचाएका २ साथीहरुको बयान सुन्दा आङ जिरिङ्ग हुन्छ।उनका साथीहरूको कुरा सुनिसकेपछि,दलित भएकै कारण नवराजको ज्यान लिइएको बुझ्न कठिन हुने छैन।तर्क/कुतर्कले नबराज र साथीहरूको जीवन अब फिर्ता हुने छैन।https://t.co/gtxd78MgDx

— Rabi Lamich2ane (@hamrorabi) May 26, 2020

Rukum's incident is a heinous crime. It is heartbreaking to hear the statements of two friends who ran away with Nawaraj BK, who escaped from the crowd [in order] to save their own lives. After listening to his friends, it will not be difficult to understand that Nawaraj was killed because he was a Dalit. The lives of Nawaraj and his friends will not be returned by any logic/gossip.

The criminalisation of caste-based discrimination is only on paper
Despite laws to the contrary, caste-based discrimination is a festering sore in Nepalese society, as Dalits face continuous social prejudice and violence.

On May 23, 2020, one day after a 12-year-old Dalit girl from the western Rupandehi district was forced to marry her upper-caste rapist, she was found hanging from a tree. Preliminary police investigations suggest that she had been raped and murdered.

Every year in Nepal, many cases of inter-caste marriage are reported. In 2016, for example, 18-year-old Ajit Mijar married his upper-caste girlfriend Kalpana Parajuli. Five days later, his body was found hanging. By the time his family arrived on the scene, the police had already buried him, and — without any investigation — declared his death a suicide.

According to the Article 18 of Nepal's Constitution, caste-based discrimination is criminalised — but while the country announced itself as an untouchability-free nation in 2006, the Act only came into effect in 2011 and is not enforced. Most cases of caste-based discrimination are swept under the carpet, the police often fail to investigate reports of violence against Dalits, and perpetrators often go unreported or unpunished.

Journalist Ajay Das tweeted:
संविधानबाट ‘दलित’ शब्द हटाए विभेद अाफै हट्छ भनेर कुतर्क गर्ने केही महान विचारकहरूले ‘गरिबी’ शब्द शब्दकाेशबाट हटाए विपन्नता पनि हट्छ र समृद्धि अाउँछ भनेर तर्क गरे अनाैठाे नमाने हुन्छ। #Nepal #Dalit
— Ajay Das (@ajaydas09) May 29, 2020

Some great thinkers, who speculate that removing the word ‘Dalit’ from the constitution will eliminate discrimination itself, argue that removing the word ‘poverty’ from the vocabulary will also remove poverty and bring prosperity.

Entrepreneur Shiwani Neupane challenged the media not to shun their responsibility:

I hope the Nepali media will continue to follow on the story of lynching of innocent Dalit boys in Nepal till justice is served. There is no space for impunity and that should be clear to everyone. I beg the media to not set this aside and move to the next news cycle. Please.
— Shiwani Neupane (@ShiwaniNeupane) May 30, 2020
Changing a culture

Dalits remain one of the most underprivileged groups in Nepal, prompting the successful social entrepreneur and human rights activist Bishnu Maya Pariyar, who came from a low-caste family, to return to Nepal and produce a documentary, “Untouchable”, on the discrimination that she faced growing up:

The caste system is categorised in a hierarchical arrangement, with Brahmins (priests) at the top, followed by Kshatriya (warriors and princes), Vaishya (farmers and artisans), and Shudra (shoemakers, tailors, metal workers, and servants). A fifth element varna categorises those deemed to be entirely outside its scope, including tribal people and untouchables such as Dalits.

According to a comprehensive 2011 census report, Dalits made up 13.6 per cent of the total population (approximately 3.6 million people), but some researchers estimate that the number could be more. The census is conducted every 10 years in Nepal; the government is currently preparing for new census data collection.
The caste system has played an influential role in Nepal’s social, economic, and political landscape. Most higher caste people are in positions of leadership, while Dalits are held back economically, socially, culturally and politically. In some parts of Nepal, Dalits are still not allowed to use public taps, temples, or shops.

Though such incidents — which range from social exclusion to murder — are still prevalent nationwide, they are usually felt most strongly in conservative regions like Western Nepal, although the cities exhibit the underlying prejudice in subtler ways.

Written byBenju Lwagun

NEPAL HAS HAD MAOIST GOVERNMENTS, AND HAS A MILITANT MAOIST PARTY, IT WAS A KINGDOM, IT IS A CASTE BASED CULTURE, A FASCIST CULTURE AS WE SEE FROM THE CONTINUED SLAVERY OF THE DALITS

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/HINDUISM

INDIA
Comrade RB More: Bridge Linking Dalit and Communist Movements

The struggle for liberation from untouchability and the class struggle can learn to come together through lessons from his life.

Subhashini Ali 15 May 2020


The month of April is filled with memories of Phule and Babasaheb and narratives of their birth, life, writings and struggles. Then comes May, which brings reminisces of comrade Ramchandra More, who fought for the Dalits in the tradition of Phule and participated in the great revolutionary movements of Babasaheb. He died on 11 May 1970.

Comrade More was born in 1903 in a part of the Konkan which was the birthplace of all the Mahar caste members who, like Babasaheb Ambedkar’s father, were soldiers and freedom fighters. This section of Dalit society, having joined the army in large numbers, had been able to access some education. Permanent jobs, followed by assured post-retirement pensions provided the members of this section considerable strength, and social respect too. Many of them were associated with the social reform movements of their time: they met Jyotiba Phule, they visited Shahuji Maharaj, and they worked to spread both egalitarian literature and ideas.

It was in this society and in this environment that Comrade More was born, with an instinctive desire to struggle for self-respect. This desire, once it arose, very soon became an indelible part of his attitude and demeanour. He was uniquely talented. At a young age, took a three-day walk to Alibaug. It is during this journey that he experienced for the first time the implications of being an “untouchable”. Because he was not allowed to enter the dharamshalas that fell along the way, he had to spend the nights with animals.

In Alibaug, he took the entrance test of the English school at Mahad. He was the only Dalit to appear in that examination, but he scored the highest marks and also earned a stipend. The difficult circumstances in which he took the test included not only the fatigue and humiliation of the journey, but also the misery of having lost his father just a few days ago. Yet he was denied admission in the school, because its landlord said that if an “untouchable” was allowed to enter, he would vacate the entire school altogether. Incidentally, several decades later, during the Mahad Satyagraha, members of the very same landlord’s family also opposed the attempt of the Dalits to drink water from the Mahad Tal under Babasaheb’s leadership.

Comrade More sent a postcard to a newspaper against this injustice. As a result, the school had to admit him, but he had to get his education from outside the class, sitting near the window.

Mahad was also a market hub for all the nearby villages. Comrade More used to interact with the Mahars, the other Dalits and poor agricultural labourers and farmers who came there from far-flung areas. He became well-acquainted with every aspect of their lives. With his efforts, a tea shop operated by a Mahar was opened, where all untouchables got drinking water, which they were earlier denied. This shop became their base. Here he would meet people, write down their requests and get all the information about their problems. After some years, this tea shop took the shape of a small hotel, where people could spend the night.

In 1923, a very important decision was taken at this base. A resolution had been passed in the Bombay Legislative Assembly to make all public places accessible to the “untouchables”. To implement this, on the very next day, Comrade More decided, along with all the people gathered at this base, that a big convention for the rights of untouchables would be organised at Mahad, which would be presided over by Babasaheb. After this, Comrade More went to Bombay and invited Babasaheb, but it took a long time to persuade him. During this time, he became very close to Babasaheb and began assist him with his publication-related work, and got a good hold over the craft of journalism.

Meanwhile, in his own village Dasgaon, Comrade More successfully got hundreds of untouchables together to drink water from the village lake which was always forbidden to them.

In the end, Babasaheb’s program for Mahad was set for March 1927 and Comrade More was its chief organiser. He visited all the villages in the Konkan belt and mobilised thousands to join Babasaheb’s program. On that day, when thousands of Dalits reached Mahad’s Chavdar Tank under Babasaheb’s leadership and people lined up to touch its water, they were fiercely attacked—but they had already touched its water. The Savarnas proved this when they carried out a “purification” ritual of this water.

Nine months later, on 25 December 1927, Comrade More and his comrades announced another Satyagraha. As Babasaheb left for Mahad from Bombay taking the water route, workers of the Samata Sainik Dal saluted him in farewell. It is Comrade More who had founded this historical party. This gives an indication of his position in the Dalit movement of the time. It is this party’s members who confronted the tyranny of the Savarnas in the Dalit colonies. It is believed that the irritation this party caused was one reason why the RSS was established in Nagpur.

After the 25th December session, the crowd marched towards the Mahad Tal again. It was attacked once more. But that day Babasaheb gave the most compelling evidence of his resistance by publicly setting the Manusmriti afire. By holding a religious scripture responsible for a grossly inhumane crime such as untouchability, Babasaheb posed a major challenge to the populist movements of the day. It was now an imperative for the liberation movement in India to accept and acknowledge his movement.

Comrade More spent most of his time in Bombay with Babasaheb, helping him with his work. He used to stay in the workers’ chawls and had many conversations and discussions with those who lived with him—especially the workers in the cotton factories. He had a keen interest in cultural activities and actively participated in them. This strengthened his relations with all the workers’ communities.

At the same time, through members of the left unions, he became acquainted with the leaders of workers as well. He started participating in union activities; distributing pamphlets, writing on the walls, preparing for strikes, and so on. His experiences of class struggle came not from a book but from the lives of people just like him. To transform these experiences into practice and thought, he held long debates and discussions with Marxists such as SV Deshpande, BT Ranadive and RM Jambhekar. The caste oppression which he had knowledge about from the moment he was born now took the form of the flame that emanates from the furnace of class struggle.

Working with Babasaheb, he acquired this new knowledge with full force and, after a deep study of the Communist Manifesto, in 1930, decided to join the Communist Party. He informed Babasaheb about it. Instead of being angry, he encouraged Comrade More to pursue this path, but also told him that he was worried whether the organisation he is joining will give him the respect he deserves. Until the end, Comrade More remained a communist. In 1964, he decided to join the CPI(M). The same year, he sent a letter to the party leadership, in which he mentioned a few things: that Dalit society is the largest, most oppressed and exploited part of the working class. That only by fighting the social exploitation of this section, which is a moral and ethical duty, can the Communist Party attract them to its movements in large numbers.

These words of Comrade More in his letter have become very relevant in a new way today. Now at the Center and in many states there are governments inspired by the RSS, which had announced in 1950 itself that it upholds the Manusmriti as justice and law and not the Constitution written by Babasaheb. In the wake of this misguided thought process, governments, under direction from the RSS, are making all-out attacks on Dalits, labourers, women and the minorities. Bringing those sections and communities that are victimised by these attacks together is the duty of the communist movement, which has always brought about radical changes in society.

To achieve this, the communist movement will have to participate in the social and cultural campaigns striving for Dalit rights and support the organisations that run them. It will have to demonstrate its full vigour, so as to instil the confidence and desire in these movements to join hands with the communist movements. A movement to overcome untouchability and social oppression will require continuous proof of being prepared to suffer and face martyrdom.

That the government is carrying out attacks on the workers and working classes is clearly evident. The concerted attacks against Dalit rights and Dalit self-respect are no less obvious. Behind these attacks stands Manu-wad, the justification of inequality which prescribes terrible punishments for the Dalits and opposes their equal status. Financially too, there are constant attempts to weaken Dalit communities. Manu-wad desires to remove the Dalits from the field of education and deny them employment opportunities. That is why Dalits are being deprived of many rights and entitlements, their judicial protection against atrocities is being neutralised.

To push any segment of society back, it is necessary that its talented heroes are forcefully riven from it. This has also been happening. Rohith Vemula, who had sought to fashion a new path for the liberation of Dalits was institutionally murdered; Anand Teltumbde has vanished from sight, pushed behind bars. Both of them had sought to bring the struggle for liberation from oppression, including untouchability, and the class struggle closer. Both these streams of thought flow at a considerable distance from each other. Yet, somewhere, their goals also cleave to each other today. What is needed is a strong bridge between these two movements. Surely Comrade More’s life struggle and his guidance can become that bridge.

After becoming the closest warrior to Babasaheb, he became a Communist and remained one all his life. He never parted from his struggle against caste oppression, and decided to become a Communist only to fight it effectively. No one can deny the truths of his life. There is a need to learn from them and use them.

Recently, LeftWord Books published the English translation of More’s biography, Memoirs of a Dalit Communist: The Many Worlds of RB More, written by Comrade Satyendra More. It will soon be available in other languages, including Hindi.

The author is a former Member of Parliament and vice president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA).

Ambedkar's Children: Annihilating Caste In Western Academia

Claiming their rights, reclaiming identities, occupying spaces, and taking charge of their own leadership, Outlook speaks with three Dalit scholars studying abroad, who shared how caste operates in the western educational spaces and talk about their journey in a casteist society.

Supporters and opponents of a proposed ordinance to add caste to Seattle's anti-discrimination laws.

 AP
UPDATED: 04 MAR 2023 

In September 2022, the US embassy in Delhi stated that it issued more than 82,000 student visas to Indians, a record-breaking number even surpassing that of China. However, Dalit, Adivasi, and OBC students comprise a minuscule percentage of these Indian students studying abroad.

As Seattle became the first city in the United States to ban all forms of caste-based discrimination on February 21, 2023, a global Ambedkarite movement caused ripples across India and overseas. A new generation of Dalit academicians and scholars have broken the glass ceilings and entered the western academia space, making the 'abroad return' tag no longer exclusive to the Indian upper caste and brahmins.

Caste and class have operated in alliance and shaped the dynamics of socio-economic-political dynamics in India. An ancient birth-based hierarchy system in India, often defended by its proponents as an occupation-based hierarchy, caste is an evil social practice, embedded in the ancient Hindu texts like Manusmriti, Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Dharma Shastra etc.

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Claiming their rights, reclaiming identities, occupying spaces, and taking charge of their own leadership, Outlook speaks with three Dalit scholars studying abroad, who shared how caste operates in the western educational spaces and talk about their journey in a casteist society.

A Young Dalit Feminist And A Seasoned Ambedkarite

Referring to frequent caste and sect-based battles across India in the recent past, 22-year-old Nidhi Kanaujia says that the Seattle caste discrimination ban plays a poignant role in the western context as it gives more legal visibility to the issue of caste. A student at the University of Goettingen, Germany, Kanaujia is pursuing her master's in Modern Indian Studies.

"I feel there is no mechanism in my University to address the experiences of caste discrimination, unlike India where you have redressal cells or some system into place." She, however, makes it a point to add that these systems obviously fail in their purpose in India but have largely been missing altogether in the west.

She calls herself a 'first generation learner', a young Dalit woman, who wouldn't ever dream of pursuing higher studies abroad, given her caste and class position in India, had it not been for the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation Scholarship. Nidhi says that the degrees of caste discrimination in a first-world country vary from her horrific encounters in the Indian academic spaces. She shares episodes of sheer caste blindness with her fellow mates in their regular conversations, who come from upper-caste upper-class backgrounds.

Nidhi adds that a lot of students at the university and even outside are resistant to the idea of talking and discussing caste, something that does not concern or affect them. At one point, speaking of caste practices she says, "The comfort of some comes with the discomfort of many." Nidhi also highlights how students living abroad work as daily wage earners in order to support themselves, yet they would never do the same in India as their caste and class entitlement does not allow them to work as a cleaner, labourers, caregivers; etc.

Lastly, she mentions that the Centre for Modern Indian Studies in her university is currently planning to come up with certain caste guidelines, which she hopes would prove effective in combatting caste discrimination.

Academician and a student at the Teachers' College (TC) at Columbia University, Vikas Tatad is the only Dalit student in his school which comprises around 7,000 students including around 40 to 50 per cent of South and East Asian students. "When I first came to the university, I looked for Dalit Adivasi and OBC students, only to find that there were none at TC," Tatad says. He feels no sense of belongingness with his fellow Asians and Indians who celebrate Holi, Diwali, and other popular Hindu festivals but take no cognizance of Ambedkar Jayanti, a day that marks the foundation of Dalit and non-Savarna pride. "We the rejected people of India was a movement that began with Ambedkar who will continue to stay relevant for another thousand years."

Caste is not "our" problem but that of the Brahmins and the UCs (Upper Castes), he says emphasizing that it is time that the non-Savarnas should now be in power. Tatad was elected the chairperson for the University Policy and Rules Committee which recently was asked to formulate and review a policy on harassment and discrimination. "There were multiple categories enlisted in the policy but caste." Upon his suggestion, two days ago, the committee is in the process to adopt caste as a protected category.

Tatad does not mince his words when he talks about Indians who have migrated abroad and carry their caste identities with them. The young scholar, whose journey entails from the slums of Siddharthnagar in Amravati to Columbia University, also the alma mater of his ideal, Ambedkar, calls the upper caste Indian diaspora in the US and abroad protesting against the Seattle Caste discrimination ban a "sick" lot. "They can only be cured with the medicine of Ambedkar's ideals," he says. For him, Ambedkar is a humanist, liberal, and democrat whose position must be advanced internationally as an academician, responsible for the conscious liberation of the marginalized.

Caste And Queerness

Based in Germany at present, Aroh Akunth is a Dalit transfeminine writer-performer and student at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies at the University of Göttingen. Speaking with Outlook, Aroh says that India constitutes around 17 per cent of the world population, while the Dalits are about 17-20 per cent of the Indian population, which makes the Dalits one of the world's largest segregated populations. However, the recognition of this aspect is bleak and the reparations are slow.

The politics of caste is entrenched in the politics of identities, associated with one's birth and essentialism of it. In sense of the 'intersectionality' of caste and queer identities in academic disciplines and pedagogy, Aroh observes that the possibilities it brings are yet to be explored and are very much based on what a lot of Dalit activists have already done. "It's going to be exciting to change the way we see the world and experience it."

Acknowledging that the scope of caste and queerness, through the Dalit queer lens, is quite unexplored and unlimited as far as its potential is concerned. They believe that the mainstream academic spaces in some time will begin to operate from the perspective of critical caste studies. Aroh also notes that, unlike the critical race theory, critical caste studies are still developing. They also added that this late development is the possible result of where it is located and because of how cruel probably the system is, hence taking much more time to be addressed.

"But there is hope in the western academia that once political caste studies take the centre stage, especially in studies dealing with South Asia or the human condition. This will give us a better engagement, or better shift in academia, which is how one can tell the academia has progressed so far," Aroh says.

Explained: What's Seattle Caste Discrimination Ban, What Are The Implications And What Led To It?

The Seattle City Council in Washington state of the United States became the first in the country last month to specifically ban caste-based discrimination. Here is all you need to know about the law.

Kshama Sawant speaks at abortion rights rally Photo by AP/PTI

UPDATED: 03 MAR 2023 

Last month, Seattle became the first city in the United States to ban caste discrimination.

The Seattle City Council passed an ordinance by a vote of 6:1. After the vote, caste became one of the categories along with others like race and gender which cannot be the basis of discrimination in Seattle city in Washington state of the United States.

Caste is a social system in which people are put into a social hierarchy on the basis of their birth. Certain castes classified as lower have been historically marginalised and discriminated against in the caste system. The caste system traces its roots to South Asia and has reached the West with migration.

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Here we explain what the Seattle law is, why the law was made, and what led to its making.

 
What’s the Seattle caste discrimination law?

The Seattle City Council passed an ordinance banning caste discrimination in the city on February 21. The law includes caste in the list of protected categories, which refer to the grounds on which persons cannot be discriminated against in Seattle.

The law addresses caste discrimination in workplaces and public spaces such as in housing and transportation sectors, as per a statement by Kshama Sawant, the Seattle Councilmember behind the law.

“The legislation will prohibit businesses from discriminating based on caste with respect to hiring, tenure, promotion, workplace conditions, or wages. It will ban discrimination based on caste in places of public accommodation, such as hotels, public transportation, public restrooms, or retail establishments. The law will also prohibit housing discrimination based on caste in rental housing leases, property sales, and mortgage loans,” said Sawant in a statement before the bill was passed into law.

The law also gives a formal definition of caste. The law defines caste as “a system of rigid social stratification characterized by hereditary status, endogamy, and social barriers sanctioned by custom, law, or religion”, according to a document on the Seattle Council’s website.

Besides making caste a protected category in Seattle, the law also makes provision for sensitivity training and outreach programs that are aimed towards increasing awareness of caste discrimination with the idea of preventing it. The law also makes provisions for recruiting consultants to train the Council’s staff.

“To prevent discrimination, appropriate communication and education about the new protected class are important. Appropriate media and public information regarding caste discrimination will increase public support, and compliance, and will inform the public of their rights regarding this new law…We want to ensure that community members – and business
owners in particular — are adequately informed and provided the education to prevent possible law violations,” said a memo circulated by a Council official.

While making a case for further allocation of resources for the implementation of the law, the Council official in the memo said that without education, they would be bogged down by investigation instead of carrying out prevention.

“Without adequate resources, businesses will not be aware of this new protection. As the law requires, we will investigate every claim of discrimination we receive. However, since prevention through education, training and outreach would not be possible, we may incur an increase in investigation cases resulting in longer case processing times,” said the memo.
What’s the idea behind the Seattle caste ban law?

Even though caste discrimination has roots in South Asia, it has been exported to the West with the large diaspora and persons of South Asian heritage there.

There are around 5.4 million South Asians in the United States, according to the group South Asian Americans Leading Together. At around 4 million, Indian Americans are the second-largest ethnic minority in the United States. In such conditions, the issues plaguing the Indian and South Asian societies are bound to be carried to the United States.

The Seattle law acknowledges caste discrimination in Seattle and elsewhere. Council member Sawant has also spoken about the prevalent caste discrimination in the United States.

“With over 167,000 people from South Asia living in Washington, largely concentrated in the Greater Seattle area, the region must address caste discrimination, and not allow it to remain invisible and unaddressed…Caste discrimination doesn’t only take place in other countries. It is faced by South Asian American and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including in the tech sector, in Seattle and in cities around the country,” said Sawant in a statement.

Explaining the uniqueness of caste discrimination, a legislative document notes, “Unlike some other groups subject to oppression from dominant identities where the marginalised identity is clear from visible markers (ie. race or gender), caste does not have visible markers (analogous to sexual orientation), so exposing discrimination may require self-identification that can itself expose those individuals to further discrimination.”

Another document noted that the existing legal or anti-discrimination provisions might not cover caste discrimination.

“Lower caste individuals and communities can suffer discrimination based on their caste identity, and it is not clear that existing protections against discrimination based on characteristics like race, religion, national origin, or ancestry are sufficient…This legislation will allow those subject to discrimination on the basis of caste a legal avenue to pursue a remedy against alleged discrimination,” said the document.
The force behind the Seattle law

While the main driver behind the Seattle caste discrimination law was Councilmember Sawant, a number of organisations working in the field of Dalit and minority rights were also included in the making and promotion of the bill made into law last month.

Sawant described the Seattle caste discrimination law as an “extraordinarily historic victory” of the oppressed castes across the world. She is an Indian-American economist and a socialist politician. She is 49.

Sawant migrated to the United States in the late 1990s. Her profile on the Seattle Council's website notes she is part of the international socialist movement.

Sawant alleged to PTI that caste discrimination is prevalent in some of the major tech giants.

Sawant told PTI that she was able to achieve this historic feat despite tough opposition mounted by a group of Indian-Americans, whom she described as “right-wing Hindus”, resistance from the tech companies, and almost no cooperation from the Democrats.

She said, “So this is an absolutely earth-shattering victory because this is the first time outside South Asia that the law has decided that caste discrimination is not going to be invisible eyes, but instead it's going to be codified in the law that it is illegal.”

Organisations such as Equality Labs, Ambedkar International Center, and Ambedkar King Study Circle, were part of the drafting process. Equity Labs noted that several organisations like the Indian American Muslim Council, National Academic Coalition for Caste Equity, and Ravidassia and Sikh gurdwaras from throughout the Northwest USA helped bring the law.

“The ratification of the ordinance to ban caste-based discrimination in Seattle is a first in history and a culmination of years of Dalit feminist research and organizing that has broken the silence about caste oppression in our communities. We have finally found ways to initiate healing from this violent caste system in our diasporic networks and in our homelands — through the protection of this powerful ordinance,” noted Equity Labs in a statement.

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California sues Cisco for bias based on Indian caste system

By TALI ARBEL July 1, 2020

 In this Oct. 3, 2018, file photo, the Cisco logo appears on a screen at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York's Times Square. California regulators have sued Cisco Systems for discriminating against an engineer at the company's headquarters because he is a Dalit Indian. India’s caste system has long placed Dalits at the bottom of a social hierarchy. California's lawsuit says Cisco broke the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — California regulators have sued Cisco Systems, saying an engineer faced discrimination at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters because he is a Dalit Indian.

India’s caste system long placed Dalits at the bottom of a social hierarchy, once terming them “untouchables.” Inequities and violence against Dalits have persisted for decades after India banned caste discrimination.

The engineer worked on a team at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters with Indians who all immigrated to the U.S. as adults, and all of whom were of high caste, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing .

The “higher caste supervisors and co-workers imported the discriminatory system’s practices into their team and Cisco’s workplace,” the lawsuit says.

It says Cisco’s treatment of the employee, who is not named, violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act.

The Civil Rights Act bans employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The lawsuit notes the employee is Dalit Indian, and that he is darker-complexioned than non-Dalit Indians.

“It is unacceptable for workplace conditions and opportunities to be determined by a hereditary social status determined by birth,” said DFEH Director Kevin Kish.

Two men who were Cisco supervisors and higher-caste Indians, Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella, are named in the suit for discriminating and harassing the employee. The employee received less pay and fewer opportunities, and when he opposed “unlawful practices, contrary to the traditional order between the Dalit and higher castes, Defendants retaliated against him,” the lawsuit says.

Cisco did not steps to prevent this discrimination, the suit says.

The suit says that Iyer told other workers that the employee was Dalit and enrolled at India’s prestigious Indian Institute of Technology through affirmative action. The employee contacted Cisco human relations, wanting to file a discrimination complaint against Iyer, and then Iyer took away his responsibilities and made other changes that reduced the employee’s role and made him feel isolated from his coworkers. The suit says Iyer disparaged the employee to coworkers and said they should avoid him.

After Iyer stepped down, Kompella replaced him, and the suit says Kompella “continued to discriminate, harass, and retaliate” against the employee, including by “giving him assignments that were impossible to complete under the circumstances.”

The lawsuit says that Cisco investigated and did not “substantiate any caste-based or related discrimination or retaliation” against the employee.

Cisco Systems Inc., a major supplier of computer networking gear that makes the internet work, said in a statement that it is committed to an inclusive workplace.

It said it has “robust processes to report and investigate concerns raised by employees,” which it followed in this case, and that it is in compliance with all laws and its own policies. The company said will defend against the allegations in the complaint.

Cisco spokeswoman Helen Saunders declined to say if Iyer and Kompella were still at Cisco, referring a reporter to LinkedIn.

HINDUTVA IS RACISM, CASTISM, SEXISM
Bodies of teenage Dalit sisters found hanging from tree in India

Rifat Fareed - Yesterday 

There is uproar in India after the bodies of two sisters belonging to the marginalised Dalit community were found hanging from a tree in the northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Police suspect the two girls, aged 15 and 17, were gang raped and murdered in the Lakhimpur Kheri district. Six accused men have been arrested, they said.

Sanjeev Suman, the police chief in Lakhimpur Kheri, told reporters the two minors, residents of Tamoli Purva village in the district, were lured to a nearby field on Wednesday afternoon and allegedly raped by the accused.

“The men allegedly strangulated them with their scarf and hung them from a tree. The investigation is on,” he said.

Police identified the six accused as Chhotu, Junaid, Sohail, Hafizul, Karimuddin, and Arif. They said Chhotu is the victims’ neighbour and had introduced the two sisters to the rest of the men a few days ago.

Dalits, formerly referred to as the “untouchables”, fall at the bottom of India’s complex caste system. For centuries, they have been victims of discrimination and persecution by privileged caste groups despite laws in place for their protection.

Ram Gautam, the uncle of the girls and a construction worker in Lakhimpur Kheri, said the family is waiting for a postmortem report.

“We are shocked. The younger one was a high school student and the older one was a school dropout,” he told Al Jazeera.

On Wednesday, the residents of Tamoli Purva village blocked roads in protest against the gang rape and killing of the two Dalit sisters.

Uttar Pradesh is considered one of the most unsafe Indian states for women. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that crimes against women in India’s most populous state increased by 15 percent in 2021 compared with the previous year.

The NCRB data also shows that there was a 45 percent increase in reported rapes of Dalit women between 2015 and 2020 in India.

In 2020, a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang raped and murdered in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district. The incident sparked weeks of protests and outrage after the police were accused of forcibly burning the victim’s body in the dead of the night. A Muslim journalist on his way to report the crime was arrested.

In October last year, a similar incident was reported in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha district where a teenage rape survivor was murdered by the accused neighbour and her body hung on a tree. In the same state’s Badaun district in 2014, the bodies of two cousins were found hanging from a tree.


Women from various organisations protest in New Delhi against the alleged gang rape of a Dalit teenager in Uttar Pradesh state [

File: Money Sharma/AFP]© Provided by Al Jazeera

Opposition leaders and activists are demanding answers from the state government led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also heads the federal government.

Senior Congress Party leader Priyanka Gandhi said the Lakhimpur Kheri incident was “heart-wrenching”.

“The relatives say that those girls were abducted in broad daylight. Giving false advertisements in newspapers and TV every day does not improve law and order. After all, why are heinous crimes against women increasing in Uttar Pradesh?” she asked in a tweet.

In response, Himanshu Dubey, the media incharge of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, told Al Jazeera there is “zero tolerance for crimes” in the state.

“The criminals have been nabbed. In Uttar Pradesh, no matter who the people are behind a crime, the government is tough against them,” he said.

New Delhi-based feminist and activist Kavita Krishnan said Uttar Pradesh since 2017 is being ruled by an “aggressive Hindu supremacist ruler whose rule has emboldened criminals, especially those who indulge in violence against oppressed caste, women and minorities”.

The state is ruled by the BJP’s Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-clad Hindu monk known for his anti-Muslim hate speech and policies.

“Generally, it (state) has great lawlessness because he (chief minister) is someone who has made no secret of his contempt for the idea of respect for women’s rights and women’s equality,” Krishnan told Al Jazeera.

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