In a historic overseas win for the South Asian anti-caste movement, the city council of Seattle-USA on Tuesday became the first elected body in the States to outlaw Caste based discrimination. The City Council added Caste to its anti-discrimination laws in a major move that will prohibit businesses in Seattle from discriminating based on caste with respect to hiring, tenure, promotion, workplace conditions, or wages. Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, one of the people involved in drafting the legislation, had said in January that this law will also prohibit housing discrimination based on caste in rental housing leases, property sales, and mortgage loans.
Calls to end caste discrimination have been growing louder among the South Asian diaspora in the United States and the supporters of the ordinance, which was approved by a 6-1 vote, feel that without such laws, people who are subjected to oppression or discrimination based on Caste in the US will have no protection.
Following the approval of the ordinance, Dalit activists and groups took to social media, welcoming the move.
“Love has won over hate! Caste Oppressed communities and our Allies turned pain to power as Seattle is the first city in the country to add caste as a protected category,” said Equality Labs, a Dalit Civil Rights organisation, which also played a role in drafting the legislation, along with Maya Kamble from the Ambedkar Association of North America, and Karthik of the Ambedkar King Study Circle.
Indian Americans are the second-largest immigrant group in the U.S. According to data from the 2018 American Community Survey (ACS), which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 4.2 million people of Indian origin residing in the United States.
The Seattle city ordinance used the Equality Lab’s caste survey which associates the social ill to be "established in Hinduism''. While the ordinance itself does not mention the word Hindu, the connection with the caste survey has become a point of contention. Groups opposing it feel that it will malign a community that is already facing the brunt of discrimination.
However, Kshama Sawant, the only Indian American in the city council said that the ordinance does not single out any one community and that Caste discrimination crosses national and religious boundaries. “The fight against the Caste system is connected to the fight against all forms of oppression,” said Kshama, who went on to add that it’s not something only people from other countries face. “Caste discrimination is faced by South Asian Americans and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including the tech sector in Seattle,” she added.
In January last year, the California State University system, which is one of the largest university systems in the US, added caste as a protected category in its non-discrimination policy. Many other institutions in the US, including Harvard, UC Davis, Colby College, Brandeis University, and others, have also added caste bias to their non-discrimination policies.