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

 Indian Dalits leave Hinduism in droves in blow to ruling BJP

Nikkei Asia ^

Posted on 2022-11-06, 

NEW DELHI -- Recent mass conversions to Buddhism by Indian Dalits have underscored anew the fears and frustrations of a community of about 200 million people considered to be at the bottom of the traditional Hindu caste system.

"We refuse to be punished any longer," said Ramji Lal, 34, who attended a conversion event in New Delhi on Oct. 5. He was one of a crowd of around 8,000, according to organizers, who made a point of leaving Hinduism. Such conversions are seen as a protest by people commonly known as "untouchables" due to their descent, leading to a life of exclusion and often abuse.

On Oct. 14, in the southern state of Karnataka, more than 100 Dalit men and women did the same, throwing pictures of Hindu deities into the Krishna River to renounce their faith.

Converting to Buddhism is not new for Dalits. Indeed, the Karnataka event came on the anniversary of social reformer B. R. Ambedkar's public conversion to Buddhism in 1956, a move that continues to reverberate generations later. "If you continue to remain within the fold of Hinduism, you cannot attain a status higher than that of a slave," Ambedkar said in a speech 20 years before he made the change, according to a collection of essays and speeches published on the Indian Ministry of External Affairs website.

In 2013, organizers of a conversion event in the state of Gujarat claimed that 60,000 people abandoned Hinduism at once, local media reported at the time.

The trend stands out given the Hindu nationalism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, and raises further questions about the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) record on human rights, which is already under scrutiny for alleged discrimination against Muslims, an accusation the BJP denies.

The BJP appears to have mixed views on such conversions, but after the Oct. 5 event in the capital, parliamentarian Manoj Tiwari tweeted that the event was "anti-Hindu," and criticized a Delhi legislator and minister from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for attending. The Delhi BJP chief urged the AAP, which runs the capital territory government, to sack the minister, Rajendra Pal Gautam, "for his attempt to stoke communal tensions and spread hatred along religious lines within the country."

BJP & the Hindu Right: Are Dalits as Much a ‘Common Enemy’ as Muslims?

The ‘othering’ of the Dalits, like that of Muslims, helps the right-wing consolidate its traditional base.

HARISH S. WANKHEDE

Published: 14 Jun 2022, 


Many have suggested that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has improved from being an upper-caste party. The post-2014 BJP has emerged as an umbrella organisation that ‘allows’ Dalit-Bahujan sections to become an influential part of its political mobilisation. The BJP has influenced sections within the Dalits by executing smart socio-cultural strategies. Further, by invoking Babasaheb Ambedkar as a nationalist icon and by promising that the government will follow the constitutional mandate in defence of social justice policies, the right-wing has built an effective connection with Dalits.

However, the rise of caste atrocities and the growing police action against Dalit activists demonstrate that Hindutva lacks sincerity in dealing with the Dalit agenda. Instead, by raking sentimental issues against Ambedkarite Dalit activists, a systematic public antagonism is manufactured against them.
Snapshot

In the same way as Muslim issues help Hindutva forces form communal ‘unity’, the ‘othering’ of the Dalits at the social level helps the right-wing consolidate its traditional base.

The current BJP regime uses Ambedkar as only a symbolic artefact, divorcing him from his radical and revolutionary ideas.

The Hindu right-wing projects conscious Dalit agents as the ‘social other’.

Expecting that a Hindutva-driven regime will facilitate a sensitive discussion about Dalit problems and class concerns is wishful thinking.

For the Hindutva camp, the idea of a robust Dalit who possesses a strong socio-political consciousness and is ready to challenge the conventional authority, as Ambedkar did, will always be a threat.

Was Congress More Sensitive to Dalit Issues?

The Dalit movement is inspired by Ambedkar’s social thoughts and political ideas. His writings and speeches on a caste-based social order, Hindu religion, patriarchy and classical Sanskrit texts open a rational and serious debate to understand the precarious conditions of the untouchables in India. Ambedkar is known not only for his reformist zeal that challenged the caste system, but also for his radical transformative thoughts. He envisaged a complete destruction of the base structure over which the Hindu caste citadel has been erected.

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‘Family iIn Safe House Due to Threats’: Dalit Scholar Fighting Google on Caste

Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism has been upheld as a ‘revolutionary’ act. He pledged that the new converts will offer an agnostic distancing and critical inquiry towards social rituals, Hindu Gods and Brahmin priests. In his writings and speeches, Ambedkar courageously reprimanded and dissected Hindu religious legends and thoughts to test their applicability in building social ethics. He elevated the stature of the former ‘untouchables’ and helped them become robust political agents, inspiring them to claim their economic and political rights fearlessly.

Importantly, the nationalist elites of the Congress viewed Ambedkar’s critical inquiry as a righteous approach to examining the social virus that has contaminated the Hindu order.

Ambedkar’s prominent role in the making of the Constitution suggests that the political elites were keen to understand caste problems and wanted to eliminate the brutal practice of untouchability.

How Dalit Radicals Joined the Mainstream

The post-Ambedkar social and political movement heralded Ambedkar’s radicalism and offered it a new life. The last political party that Ambedkar formed, the Republican Party of India, used secular or Buddhist symbols to mobilise vulnerable castes and communities and was critical of Dalits that retain allegiance to Hindu rituals and customs. The Dalit Panthers’ movement in the late 1970s published a revolutionary manifesto that denounced the hegemony of social elites over social and political spheres and challenged religious scriptures for dehumanising the lower castes. The arrival of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in north India further elevated the critical stance towards the Hindu social order and belittled the authority of the social elites.

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A Dalit Man's 20-Year Struggle for a Gate and a Road in Punjab Village


In various social and political spheres, the Dalit movement highlighted their precarious social conditions, issues of caste discrimination and economic exploitation, and staged a rational and radical opposition. Even though Congress regimes were apprehensive of Dalit critics, they refrained from issuing criminal warrants or bracketing them as the ‘enemy camp’. Instead, many popular Dalit radicals joined mainstream political parties (not only Congress but also the Shiv Sena – the revolutionary poet Namdeo Dhasal had joined the Sena).

What Is Hindutva’s Dalit Agenda?

But the current Hindutva-driven regime has not shown a similar sensitivity. It uses Ambedkar as only a symbolic artefact, divorcing him from his radical and revolutionary ideas. Today, Dalit protests are often condemned as uncivil, criminal or even ‘anti-national’. The arrest of scholars and social activists like Anand Teltumbde underlines the growing hostility of the state towards Dalit activism. Recently, police booked a Dalit faculty member of Lucknow University for hurting religious sentiments. Similarly, professor Ratan Lal of the prestigious Hindu College at the Delhi University was arrested for a satirical social media post on the Gyanvapi mosque row.

Also Read
‘Bhimti Hai Kya? Kaat Daalo’: The Anti-Dalit Side of Delhi Riots


The right-wing is insensitive when it comes to dealing with Dalit socio-political claims. It hardly offers a crucial road map to ensure substantive Dalit participation in state institutions, or to execute policies that examine the problems of caste atrocities. Instead, it often defends the perpetrators of caste violence and legitimises the use of coercive state actions when the Dalit protests in rage.

In April 2018, 14 people belonging to marginalised communities died due to police action while participating in protests to defend the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The state’s antipathy towards Dalit tragedies is further visible in the Rohith Vemula case, the Una flogging case, the Bhima-Koregaon protest movement and the Hathras rape-murder case.

Further, the recent arrest of legislator Jignesh Mevani on flimsy grounds only underlines the fact that the BJP regime has developed a vengeful psyche against Dalit issues and activists.

Hindutva proponents often demean Dalit-Bahujan voices as irreligious or see them as contempt against the Hindu civilisational ethos. The Hindu right-wing projects conscious Dalit agents as the ‘social other’. In the same way as Muslim issues help Hindutva forces form communal ‘unity’, the ‘othering’ of the Dalits at the social level helps the right-wing consolidate its traditional base.

The Mirage of 'Subaltern' Hindutva

The post-Ambedkar Dalit movement belongs to the rich heritage of non-Brahmanical traditions and upholds the modern constitutional values of social justice. Dalit-Bahujan thoughts supplement Buddhist principles, herald the egalitarian teachings of Guru Nanak, Kabir and Chokha Mela, and find inspiration in the radical ideas of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Periyar and Ambedkar. This school of thought offers alternative sources of knowledge and dynamic liberal perspectives that enrich the democratic fabric of new India. It is this transformative ideological spectrum that has consistently been critical of the ruling socio-political elites for keeping Dalit-Bahujan masses poor, alienated from power and undignified in social relationships.

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‘Can’t Build a Nation on Caste’: What Ambedkar Meant By Equal Representation



For Hindutva proponents, the Dalit-Bahujan ideological school is a bête-noir that shall be clamped down by coercive and violent means. Though the BJP has embraced the Dalit constituency to expand its social base, it remains just a political strategy that has little impact or care for changing the conditions of these groups.

Expecting that such a Hindutva-driven regime will facilitate a sensitive discussion about Dalit problems and class concerns is wishful thinking. For the Hindutva camp, the idea of a robust Dalit, who possesses a strong socio-political consciousness and is ready to challenge the conventional authority, as Ambedkar did, will always be a threat.

(Dr. Harish S Wankhede teaches at Centre for Political Studies, JNU, New Delhi. He writes on identity politics, Dalit questions, Hindi cinema and the new media. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

SEE 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DALITS 

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).

INDIA
Radical Socialist Statement on Hathras Caste Atrocity 

and the Babri Masjid Verdict

Monday 12 October 2020, by Radical Socialist

On the 14th of September, a 19 year old woman of the Valmiki caste,was gang-raped and brutally assaulted by four Thakur men in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. Her spine was broken, and her tongue cut out. Days later, she died in a hospital from the severe injuries sustained during the attack. The police and local administration have protected the accused upper caste men with characteristic alacrity. The police burnt her body in the middle of the night, without any of her family members present. Immense pressure is being brought to bear on her family members in the hope of silencing them.

Yogi Adityanath’s regime claims that no rape has occurred, and has even hired a PR firm to push this disingenuous narrative. The Sangh Parivar’s disinformation machinery is working overtime to frame the victim’s death as an ‘honour killing’, and paint her family as the ‘real’ perpetrators. Upper caste groups and political figures have rallied around the accused, declaring them ‘innocent’ and openly threatening those calling for justice. BJP’s Rajveer Pahalwan, former MLA from Hathras, hosted one such gathering at his house, which was attended by members of the RSS, Bajrang Dal, Karni Sena, Rashtriya Savarna Sangathan, Kshatriya Mahasabha. The shifting of the case to the CBI, which has a notorious pro-BJP record, is further cause for alarm.

This case forces us to confront once again not only the cultures of cruelty and violence that pervade the lives of Dalits, women and minorities in India, but also the impunity afforded to upper caste men by the nexus between dominant caste lobbies, state institutions and the ruling political regime. Figures from the National Crime Records Bureau indicate that every day three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, two Dalit houses are burnt and eleven Dalits are beaten. Public discussion in India is dominated by an upper caste commonsense that runs the spectrum from outright devaluation of Dalit lives to purported caste-blindness. The social power of upper castes is based on a disproportionate control over land or other assets, and proximity to political power through their caste networks. There can be no doubt that this Hathras rape and murder, like countless other atrocities, is the consequence of the relations of caste domination to which Dalits continue to be subject, with little respite. Describing the victim as ‘India’s daughter’ is a jaundiced, even if in some instances well meaning, attempt to downplay the centrality of caste.

Upper castes loyalties structure and pervade virtually all mainstream political formations in India, and cover ups of this sort are a matter of routine. What is distinctive under the ruling-BJP is the sheer brazenness of the cover up, and the stridently unapologetic tenor of the upper caste backlash. This points to the reactionary character of Hindutva: it is an elite revolt, a ‘rebellion’ of Hindu India’s upper caste, upper class elite against the concessions — sometimes significant, often meagre, and always hard-won — forced by liberation movements. Recent attempts to dilute the SC-ST atrocities act, and end caste-based reservation are two examples. While the Sangh Parivar claims Dalits as its own (after all, how else could upper castes, around 26% of the population claim to speak as a ‘majority’?), it is committed to maintaining them in a position of social, political, economic and ritual subordination. The logic of the Sangh Parivar’s programmatic commitment to communalism is laid bare — the demonisation and brutalisation of India’s Muslim minority has a unifying function for the construction of the ‘Hindu’ body politic.

Elsewhere in UP, a CBI special court acquitted all the current accused in the conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid. That criminal act, carried out on December 6 1992, was given a stamp of legitimacy by the Supreme Court last year, when it ordered the construction of a temple on the site where the mosque once stood. In doing so the court signalled that it too now participates in the process of consolidating Hindutva hegemony. The BJP’s mass mobilisation around the Ram Mandir — explicitly aimed at bringing down the mosque — was directly responsible for weeks of violence preceding the demolition. Following the demolition, Hindutva stormtroopers led riots in cities across the country. Numerous commissions, not least the Liberhans and Srikrishna commissions, have established this. The leadership of the Sangh Parivar has explicitly, repeatedly and with great pride claimed their responsibility for these acts. For a court to now declare them innocent, after 28 years of a wishy-washy non-investigation, is a travesty.

The political aims of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement have been ticked off one by one: a belligerent and communal nationalism, given ideological cohesion by a loose Brahminism, articulated through an extreme centralisation of power, over a citizenry denied any opposing political voice. The Hathras case is a manifestation of this same reactionary backlash, unafraid to stand in the light. The current political opposition, on whose account must rest decades of inaction and complicity in caste and communal violence are junior partners in this revolt. The media has proven more than willing to amplify the voices of those in power, and to silence the voices of the marginalised. The police and other branches of the executive are now fully paid up participants in this ‘rebellion’.

We confront a Hindutva political movement that controls state power. To end this brutality and discrimination progressive and democratic forces must recognise that we have to build social power to counter it. The times demand that all progressive and democratic forces come together to lift us out of this crisis. This is the only way to win equal rights and inclusive democracy for every citizen today. Political opposition to Hindutva must be a principled one. All opportunistic political formations, including Dalit formations allied with or hoping to ally with the BJP must realise that they are contributing to the growth and legitimation of this upper caste rebellion.

9 October 2020

Attached documents
radical-socialist-statement-on-hathras-caste-atrocity-and_a6852.pdf (PDF - 356.5 kb)
Extraction PDF [->article6852]

India
The Significance of 5th August and Prospects for the Future
The Struggle Against Dalit Oppression in India
Authoritarianism & Lockdown Time in Occupied Kashmir and India
Covid-19: Asian contrasts and lessons
Indo-Nepal relationship under the cloud of Hinduvta
Women
Capitalism Made Women of Color More Vulnerable to the COVID Recession
Situation of Garment Factory Workers in Katunayaka – COVID-19 Update
Globally, the pandemic hits women
Women’s Agenda in Turkey: Top Issue Is Gender Based Violence
Working Women in Lebanon


Radical Socialist
A radical left organisation in India, and Permanent Observer of the Fourth International.
- 2020 International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

CASTEISM IS FASCISM

How India's caste system works, and why it's generating US controversy

Cities like Seattle have pursued bans on caste-based discrimination

Associated Press

Caste is an ancient system of social hierarchy based on one’s birth that is tied to concepts of purity and social status. Its history, evolution and current state are complicated.

A move to outlaw caste-based discrimination in Seattle has thrust this complex — and often misunderstood — system into the spotlight. If the Seattle City Council votes Tuesday to approve an ordinance that will include caste in its anti-discrimination laws, Seattle will become the first city in the United States to outlaw such discrimination.

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.

SEATTLE BECOMES FIRST US CITY TO BAN DISCRIMINATION BASED ON CASTE

The word "caste" has its origins in Latin (castus), which means chaste or pure. Caste made its way into the Indian lexicon with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1700s who first used the word "casta" with reference to the social hierarchy in the Indian subcontinent.

How Did the Caste System Originate?

References to a societal hierarchy can be found in the millennia-old Rig Veda where a hymn describes the origin of all life from the Purusha or "supreme being." A verse states that the four categories (varnas) of Hindu society came from this infinite being. The Brahmins (priest class) appeared from the being’s head, the Kshatriyas (warriors) from his arms, the Vaishyas (business class) from his thighs and the Shudras (laborers) from his feet. The hymn does not go into details about these categories or which is superior or inferior.

The varna system initially served to classify individuals on the basis of their attributes and aptitude. However, with time, it evolved into the caste system where a person’s occupation and status in society became determined by birth. Those who were outside the system became known as the outcasts or untouchables, and later as the Dalits.

The term "jati" appears in almost all Indian languages and is closest to the word "caste" because it is related to the idea of lineage. There are more than 3,000 jatis in India. Each region in India has its own ranking of jatis. However, in every region, the Dalits are at the bottom of the hierarchy and over the centuries, have faced discrimination. Members of the Dalit community have also historically performed tasks such as manual scavenging, the dangerous and inhumane practice of removing human waste by hand from sewers. The practice continues in many parts of the country even though the Indian government banned it in 2013.

Jati also occupies a significant role within the arranged marriage system where parents look for partners for their children within their caste. This is common in diaspora communities where online matrimonial sites can be filtered by caste.

India's caste system has long been a decider of social status in the tremendous South Asian nation. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan, File)

Is Caste Exclusive to India or Hinduism?

While the concepts of varna and jati are referenced in Hindu texts such as the Manu Smriti and the Bhagvad Gita, caste divisions are not exclusive to India or Hinduism. Caste can be found in other countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and in the diaspora worldwide, and in faith communities including Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs. Dalits who have converted to Buddhism, Christianity, Islam or Sikhism still report experiencing segregation and exclusion from places of worship and burial or cremation sites across the region.

COURT: INDIAN CANDIDATES CAN'T USE FAITH, CASTE TO GET VOTES

Is Caste a British Construct?

Under British rule, the caste system, which had previously been more fluid, was made more rigid with use of the census, which classified the entire nation into categories and schedules, said Ananya Chakravarti, associate professor of history at Georgetown University who focuses on South Asia and Latin America.

"While the British by no means invented caste, they did play a part in fixing these caste identities in perpetuity," she said. "As an institution, caste has had a very long life, way before Europeans showed up."

The British also introduced elements of affirmative action in India, which has provided marginalized groups with representation in education, employment, government programs, scholarships and politics. Based on constitutional provisions, central and state governments are allowed to set "reserved quotas or seats" in colleges, workplaces and government agencies for disadvantaged groups such as Dalits. The system of reservations has been the source of animosity between castes, with upper-caste Indians claiming that such programs and policies are antithetical to a merit-based system.

Are Race and Caste the Same?

Chakravarti cautions against equating race and caste, particularly in the U.S. where both are present. She gives the example of BAPS, a prominent Hindu sect, which is facing a lawsuit in New Jersey accusing the organization of forcing hundreds of low-caste workers to labor at temple sites across the U.S. under dangerous conditions for as little as $450 a month.

"In this case, all those involved in the case are the same race," Chakravarti said. "So race does not adequately cover the question of caste."

Cornel West, professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary and scholar of African American studies, says he feels kinship with Dalit activists, calling casteism and racism "institutionalized forms of hatred."

"We have no other alternative but to fight both morally, intellectually and politically," he said.

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.

Support our journalism by subscribing to Scroll+. We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HINDUISM 

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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The Slatest for Sept. 21: 

Why Hindu Nationalists Are Freaking Out Over a California Anti-Discrimination Bill

Slate Staff
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

If you’ve seen any media coverage of California’s anti-caste discrimination legislation, you might think the bill was shrouded in controversy. But there’s more to the story, Nitish Pahwa writes—many of the measure’s opponents have ties to established Hindu nationalist political organizations in India. Pahwa explains how this backlash is one manifestation of the growing influence of Hindu nationalist politics in the U.S.

Plus, ICYMI: Molly Olmstead unpacks Vivek Ramaswamy’s puzzling embrace of both Hindu and Christian nationalism.

A Historic Anti-Discrimination Bill in California Sparked Backlash. But the Controversy Isn’t What It Seems.

Nitish Pahwa
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Seattle City Council, Nikhil Patil/Getty Images Plus, Wallentine/Getty Images Plus, and California State Senate.


Earlier this month, the California Assembly passed S.B. 403, the first state bill in the country to include caste under the scope of anti-discrimination law. The bill has been sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has until Oct. 14 to officially sign it. Newsom has not said whether he supports the legislation—but if he does give it his signature, it won’t be thanks to how American media has covered the measure and the supposed controversy around it. Along the bill’s path to this monumental point, local and national outlets have chosen to amplify bad-faith actors and parrot reactionary institutions and talking points.

Coverage of the bill created the perception that it was met with significant backlash in California, the state with the largest South Asian American population, over fears that the bill would engender anti-Hindu discrimination. But that’s less a grassroots phenomenon and more a manifestation of the growing influence of Hindu nationalism in American politics—driven in part by activists and groups with direct links to the Sangh Parivar, the India-based Hindu nationalist network that paved the ideological route to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule.

Hindu nationalism, also known as Hindutva or “Hinduness,” arises from a core belief that the Indian subcontinent belongs to Hindus and Hindus only—the hundreds of millions of Muslims, Jains, Christians, Buddhists, and members of other religious groups with millennia-spanning roots in the region need not apply. This ideology has manifested itself most flagrantly in the reign of Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, which has censored Indian textbooks and records to erase the subcontinent’s vibrant history of non-Hindu civilizations, granted carte blanche to fundamentalists who’ve visited violent attacks upon Muslims and Dalits, enacted policies that strip civil rights from Muslims, and scrubbed the Indian internet of anti-Modi dissenters.

U.S.-based Hindu nationalists seek to dismiss any criticisms of Modi, his party, and their fundamentalist visions of Hinduism as constituting a form of “Hinduphobia.” And they’re opposed to anti-castetist policy like the one pending in California, as many of the most conservative Hindus benefit from the system. (More on that in a moment.)

Casteism is also promoted stateside through the international branches of the very extremist organizations that helped the Bharatiya Janata Party come to power. Just a few examples among many: the Hindu American Foundation, a 20-year-old nonprofit that emerged from the Islamophobic Vishwa Hindu Parishad group that is a Sangh Parivar member; the World Hindu Council of America, which is designated as an overseas branch of the VHP; and the Coalition of Hindus of North America, whose leaders are affiliated with the VHP and the United States Hindu Alliance—the latter of which was formed by former volunteers with the Sangh Parivar’s century-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh group.

One might think that journalists who interact with such Hindutva-network organizations in the course of their reporting would make note of those unseemly, barely hidden ties. Yet U.S. media outlets tend to be troublingly blasé about this context, often characterizing these groups as concerned activists or good-faith opposition. Coverage of the California anti-caste-discrimination legislation in Politico, ABC News, the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Sacramento Bee, and Cal Matters has included input from representatives of the aforementioned groups without any indication of their association with India’s international Hindutva cells; at most, they’re identified as opponents of organizers against the legislation.

To better understand what’s going on here, it’s worth taking a step back to look at how caste is recognized in the modern era—and why it’s become a flashpoint beyond the Indian subcontinent.

Caste is a hierarchical system of group stratification with roots tracing back to Hinduism as practiced in ancient India. In the Vedic Hindu period of Indian society, caste consisted of four distinct social classes: Brahmins, the top rank that encompassed highly respected religious and spiritual leaders; Kshatriyas, the bureaucrats and warriors who stood second only to the Brahmins; Vaishyas, who were artists, merchants, and farmers; and Shudras, the bottom-level workers. The post-Vedic era would also characterize many Shudras as Dalits, or “untouchables,” who do not hold claim to any caste and are all but unrecognized in casteist society. One could recognize a person’s class status from their family name, ancestry, and religious devotion. While the caste system existed throughout Hindu and Indian civilization, spanning all its empires, it was not always recognized under the word caste—a term that originated from Portuguese, thanks to settlers who came to India in 1498—and it took on varied and ever-changing forms, all quite different from the modern incarnation most Indians are familiar with.

It took the British Empire’s rule-by-division to formalize casteism in Indian common law, as the colonists divided their Indian subjects by arbitrary castes in each 10-year census, granted jobs only to members of higher castes, and imposed legal penalties upon lower-caste populations. As Indians agitated for freedom from the Brits in the early 20th century, a dynamic anti-casteism movement led by Dalit scholar B.R. Ambedkar ensured that India’s post-independence constitution forbid caste-based discrimination while enshrining affirmative action programs for disenfranchised lower-caste Indians. Of course, this wasn’t enough on its own, and higher-caste Indian communities have long spurned or even violently attacked Dalits along with other lower-caste populations—a grisly trend that has only escalated under current Prime Minister Narendra Modi (who comes from a lower-caste background himself, a fact he invokes in speeches to deny that casteism still exists).

Not only are Hindu nationalists loath to part with the privileges afforded to them by the casteist system—wealth, societal status, and political advantages—but they genuinely view many Dalits and lower-caste individuals as an “unclean” people unworthy of basic human rights. In India, the most bigoted Brahmins will fence themselves off from Dalits in any way possible, forcing them into poverty-wage jobs with horrific conditions, and not even allow them the basic dignity of sharing common spaces or utensils with higher-caste Indians.

Of course, it’s difficult to boil down the complex, millennia-spanning history of caste, and it’s only recently that the United States has come face-to-face with the concept. During the summer of anti–police brutality protests spurred by George Floyd’s murder, Americans newly introduced to sociopolitical concepts like systemic racism and mutual aid likewise got their first glimpses of casteism. In June 2020, the United States registered its first-ever caste-discrimination lawsuit when the state of California sued Cisco Systems under the 1964 Civil Rights Act after some of its employees were alleged to have denied workplace opportunities to lower-caste Indian American employees based solely on their caste. (The suit is ongoing.)

The anti-Dalit taunts included in the lawsuit underscored how some Brahmins—who, because they have the means to emigrate and travel, make up the bulk of Indian American immigrants—might prefer that this segregation be universal. They’d also prefer to promote the image that their lives in the United States are the result of bootstraps effort, rather than what essentially amounts to birthright privilege, as a CUNY anthropology professor recently wrote in the Indian Express.

In August of that year, Pulitzer-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson published the acclaimed book Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents, which compared the U.S.’s history of racism to India’s more vicious forms of casteism; despite some criticism from lower-caste scholars, the book was a bestseller and has inspired an upcoming Ava DuVernay film. In the years since, caste has only entered the public consciousness more in America: There have been allegations of casteist workplace environments fostered by Silicon Valley’s South Asian workers and executives, emerging scholarship on casteism’s worldwide presence, anti-caste-discrimination policies adopted at colleges like the University of Michigan and Rutgers, a successful Seattle City Council ordinance to ban casteist discrimination, and even an appearance in the 2024 GOP primary, with the Ron DeSantis campaign singling out Vivek Ramaswamy’s high-caste background as a potential attack line.

Yet the extremists promoting anti-anti-casteism are presented by U.S. media as concerned citizens instead of foot soldiers for a grander and more insidious movement. What’s more, their statements to the press convey Hindu fundamentalists’ common propagandistic talking points time and time again with no pushback or fact-checking, and their well-known, ruthlessly organized methods of flooding social media and politicians’ offices with rampant disinformation are framed as grassroots protests.

As such, spokespeople for the larger Sangh Parivar footprint that includes the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America are granted free rein to push dubious talking points, including: 1) that modern casteism’s colonial origins mean that it has nothing to do with Hinduism as practiced past or present, which is a blatant falsehood; 2) that legislating against casteism unfairly singles out Hindus and is thus discriminatory against Hindus as a whole, even though the stateside battles around casteism involve high-caste Hindu Americans already discriminating against lower-caste Hindu Americans, and even though casteism is also practiced by some devotees of other religions like Islam and Sikhism; 3) that caste discrimination just doesn’t happen in the U.S.—which, as we saw from the Cisco lawsuit, is an easy-to-dismiss lie.

Of course, the coalitions opposing anti-caste-discrimination laws have constitutional free speech rights like anyone else, and mainstream journalists have a responsibility to look at issues from multiple angles. But in soliciting Hindu nationalist opinion and excluding even basic aspects of the movement’s broader context, as outlined above, writers do a disservice to readers likely to be unaware of domestic casteism and Hindu nationalism’s widespread influence.

Even if intrepid readers take it upon themselves to look up groups like VHP, they may be more likely to come upon such organizations’ self-professed advertising, which will cover for their more nefarious missions through buzzwords like “service” and “human rights.” One particularly egregious example: A July story in the local outlet the Los Altos Town Crier noted that S.B. 403 “draws opposition,” featuring quotes from one such opponent, Richa Gautam, who’s identified as a “founder and executive director” for “an alliance of human rights organizations” as well as a separate “organization that challenges caste” (a rather ambiguous phrase). The story neglects to note that Gautam has aligned herself with the World Hindu Council of America, that she’s often spouted Islamophobic rhetoric, and that her own “human rights” record is rather dubious, considering she was fired in 2018 from the blockchain company Tech Mahindra after she was found to have harassed a gay employee over his sexuality. (Many Hindu nationalists tend to be homophobic.)

This sort of thing has been commonplace in U.S. media for a while now. You can look to last year’s Wall Street Journal op-ed from the Hindu American Foundation’s executive director, who referred to Brown University’s anti-caste-oppression policy as “discriminatory.” Or to the Religion News Service articles produced with funding from the Guru Krupa Foundation, a charity with ties to the Sangh Parivar outfit Ekal Vidyalaya. Or other outlets that unabashedly spread concern over a supposed epidemic of anti-Hindu hate crimes in the U.S., even though such incidents remain rare, and are far outnumbered by acts of Islamophobia and anti-Sikhism.

There are a few instances of real anti-Hindu discrimination in the U.S., like bans on yoga and Sanskrit chants in public schools, bigoted remarks from conservatives like Ann Coulter, and the occasional vandalism that hits a Hindu temple. But Hindu nationalist orgs are not primarily devoted to combating such acts. Rather, they seek to characterize any critiques of Hindu nationalism and/or the Modi regime as being “Hinduphobic,” in essence equating them with actual anti-Hindu incidents.

This applies to the hullaballoo around California’s anti-caste-discrimination law that has followed it at every step of the process, from its consideration in the California state Senate to an Assembly-level compromise that involved removing a detailed history of casteism’s South Asian origins from S.B. 403, and from the barrages of online attacks directed against the bill’s supporters to the Sangh Parivar affiliates now calling on Newsom to veto the legislation. (This also takes attention away from the Dalit activists who are going on hunger strikes until the bill is signed, a way of demonstrating how existential this is for lower-caste Indian Americans.)

The California bill is a civil rights triumph that passed with overwhelming support in both the state Senate and Assembly, carries plenty of public favor with both social justice groups and everyday constituents, and addresses a real, indisputable issue afflicting the South Asian diaspora today, especially in the Golden State. But you wouldn’t know that from the repeated media emphasis on vague notions of “divisiveness” and “conflict.”