In early 2020, Prem Pariyar was nearly at a breaking level over focused harassment, discrimination and exclusion by the dominant caste group’s college students at his alma mater, the California State College (CSU) in East Bay, the US.
Pariyar, 38, who’s a Dalit, instructed Al Jazeera he tried to report the matter to the college administration. However there was not a lot the authorities may do as caste was not part of the establishment’s non-discrimination coverage.
The Dalits, previously known as “the untouchables”, lie on the backside of South Asia’s complicated caste hierarchy and have confronted socioeconomic oppression by the hands of the privileged castes for hundreds of years, particularly in India.
The caste system has denied Dalits and fewer privileged castes entry to schooling and employment throughout South Asia. India launched “quota” in universities and authorities jobs as a part of its affirmative motion plan for the oppressed communities.
The types of discrimination have even reached the US which has a big Indian diaspora. Pariyar stated it had change into troublesome to outlive on the CSU campus as a Dalit pupil.
“My South Asian colleagues tried to silence me once I talked about my experiences,” Pariyar instructed Al Jazeera.
However for him, silence was not an choice.
In October 2020, Pariyar organised a digital convention on the intersection of race, caste and psychological well being in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic at CSU East Bay’s Division of Social Work.
After listening to the experiences of the Dalit college students within the convention, the division added caste as a protected class towards discrimination in its mission assertion.
However little did Pariyar know that the talk stirred by the digital convention would lead to a coverage that might strengthen safety for Dalit college students within the nation’s largest four-year public college system that boasts of 485,550 college students and 55,000 school and workers.
In a shock announcement on January 1, the CSU system added caste to its non-discrimination coverage, prohibiting caste-based discrimination or bias throughout its 23 campuses.
“That is very private to me and a historic win for caste-oppressed folks within the US,” Pariyar instructed Al Jazeera.
“This coverage will educate folks about invisible caste discrimination as properly. It should assist to create a welcoming setting for Dalit college students throughout the nation,” he stated.
‘A civil rights victory’
The addition of caste safety at CSU is the end result of years of campaigning by a coalition of Dalit teams within the US.
Neha, a 37-year-old Dalit from India who goes by her first identify, graduated from CSU Northridge in 2014, the place she stated she was often subjected to caste discrimination and insults.
She remembers how Indian college students on the campus have been “determined” to know her caste. She stated one in all her associates belonging to a privileged caste stopped speaking to her when she got here to find out about her caste, which was later adopted by her exclusion from group initiatives.
“This was the explanation why we fought to have safety for caste-oppressed college students,” Neha instructed Al Jazeera. “It’s a civil rights victory. Now no pupil has to face the fears that I went by means of.”
Kirthi, a 19-year-old California Polytechnic State College pupil, comes from a dominant caste household. She says caste was a “thriller” to her rising up as a result of nobody wished to “confront the uncomfortable and horrifying actuality” of caste discrimination.
“After I discovered in regards to the privileges that I’ve, and in distinction the oppression that caste-oppressed folks face to get to the place I’m, it felt like an ethical obligation to unlearn these unconscious notions I had about caste and did every part that I may to get the coverage applied that might defend the caste-oppressed folks,” Kirthi instructed Al Jazeera.
Sarah Taylor, professor and chair on the Division of Social Work, CSU East Bay, says the addition of caste to non-discrimination coverage gives an “alternative to interact in dialogue” and lift consciousness in regards to the “oppression that has impacted” many members of the group.
“Caste discrimination is going on in our state. It needs to be part of the lens our college students, workers, school and group draw on when they give thought to intersectional identities, experiences and oppressions,” Taylor instructed Al Jazeera.
Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit American activist and govt director of Equality Labs civil rights organisation, considers the addition of caste protections at CSU programs a “watershed second” for the group.
“It has given braveness to many caste-oppressed folks within the US and all over the world to proceed to return out, share their tales and struggle for his or her rights, wherever they might be,” Soundarajan instructed Al Jazeera.
Opposition by Hindu teams
Some CSU school members and Hindu organisations within the US have opposed the addition of caste as a protected class. Practically 80 CSU school members wrote to the CSU Board of Trustees, calling the transfer a “misguided overreach” and stated it might “single out” and “goal” Hindu school of Indian and South Asian descent.
In one other letter, the Hindu American Basis (HAF), a right-wing group, castigated the CSU system for implementing an “ethnically antagonistic coverage” and stated it was “arbitrary and pointless”. The group stated it’s contemplating authorized avenues to get the choice rescinded.
#Breaking: Greater than 80 @calstate school ship blistering letter to Cal State Chancellor @josephlcastro and Board of Trustees strongly opposing coverage change that can discriminate towards and goal ONLY Indian & different South Asian school. https://t.co/RiFCnuStLK
— Hindu American Basis (@HinduAmerican) January 21, 2022
However the CSU system has rejected the HAF claims and stated its resolution to particularly identify caste within the interim coverage displays the system’s dedication to inclusivity and respect.
“We respectfully disagree with the place that the parenthetical addition of caste, which was included together with color and ancestry, to offer extra clarification to the prevailing classes of race and ethnicity in our discrimination coverage will trigger discrimination,” Michael Uhlenkamp, the CSU system’s senior communications director, instructed Al Jazeera.
Over the past 20 years, some Hindu teams within the US have made a number of makes an attempt to erase caste from faculty textbooks, particularly in California.
In 2016, teams resembling HAF, Dharma Civilization Basis (DCF) and Uberoi Basis for Spiritual Research (UFRS) proposed the deletion of “Dalit” and “untouchable” phrases from textbooks utilized by sixth and seventh grade college students in California’s colleges.
Claiming that caste doesn’t have origins in Hinduism and is generally a “colonial assemble”, the teams took robust objection to the readings on the historical past of the South Asian caste system.
Delaware-based UFRS – which is run by Ved Nanda, who can be the president of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the sister organisation of India-based far-right Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) – has actively funded the efforts in search of erasure of caste from US textbooks.
In line with Kind 990, the doc that tax-exempt organisations within the US file with the Inside Income Service (IRS), the UFRS between 2013 and 2019 gave $165,000 to the HAF, principally for the “curriculum reform”.
Dolly Arjun, a Dalit American activist with the Boston Research Group (BSG), believes the backlash by the Hindu teams is barely going to change into extra intense with the rising recognition of caste discrimination throughout the Indian diaspora.
“Many dominant caste networks have been mobilising tens of millions of {dollars} in direction of obfuscating the fact of caste discrimination within the US,” Arjun instructed Al Jazeera.
In 2020, the California Division of Honest Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit towards know-how large Cisco Techniques Inc for discriminating towards an Indian American worker as a result of he was a Dalit.
The division accused Cisco managers belonging to privileged Hindu castes of subjecting the Dalit worker to discrimination and later retaliation when he complained towards the therapy. The swimsuit is at present pending earlier than a California courtroom.
In Could 2021, one other federal lawsuit was filed in New Jersey towards Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, also called BAPS, for allegedly exploiting Dalit staff from India to assemble and run its temples throughout the US.
The criticism accused BAPS of forcing Dalit labourers to work for greater than 12 hours a day and paying simply one-tenth of the state’s minimal wage.
For Pariyar, the win on the CSU system has accelerated the caste fairness civil rights motion within the US. He’s optimistic that it might push different US universities to deal with caste discrimination on their campuses.
“Although the dominant caste folks don’t assist caste protections insurance policies, greater than 329 million People will assist it and assist us construct a safer academic setting for caste-oppressed college students,” he instructed Al Jazeera.