The Seattle City Council passed an ordinance on Feb. 21 to apply anti-discrimination laws to castes.
The ordinance passed 6-to-1 and, following the signature of Seattle City Council President Debora Juarez, goes to Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell for his sign-off. Were it to get Harrell’s signature, Seattle would become the first city in the United States to ban discrimination against castes.
The ordinance would prohibit caste-based discrimination in the workplace, in housing and in places of accommodation, including public transportation, public restrooms, hotels and retailers.
Kshama Sawant, a 50-year-old Indian American socialist, proposed the measure. Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., became the first university in the United States to prohibit caste-based discrimination, doing so in 2019.
“Caste discrimination doesn’t only take place in other countries. It is faced by South Asian American and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including in the tech sector, in Seattle and in cities around the country,” said Sawant, who is both the only Indian American and Socialist Alternative on the Seattle City Council, in a press release ahead of the vote.
Although caste discrimination was outlawed in India in 1948, it still exists in Indian culture. Those at the bottom of the Indian system are called “Dalits,” which translates in Sanskrit to “broken.” Sawant was raised as a Brahmin, which is the highest level of the hereditary pyramid.
During a Jan. 24 rally in favor of the act, Sawant explained that “caste discrimination occurs in the form of social segregation, economic depravation, physical and psychological abuse and violence.”
Equality Labs, a Dalit civil rights group, applauded the measure ahead of the vote. The group’s founder and executive director, Thenmozhi Sounderarajan, a Dalit, said in Sawant’s press release that “this act is the necessary first step to ensure the rights of all Seattle citizens.”
However, Nikunj Trivedi, president of the Coalition of Hindus of North America, expressed opposition to the act before the vote.
“The understanding of Hinduism is poor in this country,” he told The Associated Press. “Many people believe caste equals Hinduism, which is simply not true. There is diversity of thought, belief and practice within Hinduism.”
Trivedi lamented that the act is based on “a heavy reliance on anecdotal reports.”
“How can people who know very little or nothing about caste adjudicate issues stemming from it?” he said.
Hindu American Foundation executive director Suhag Shukla told the AP ahead of the vote that the measure “singles out and targets an ethnic minority and seeks to institutionalize implicit bias toward a community” and is therefore unconstitutional.
“It sends that message that we are an inherently bigoted community that must be monitored,” she said.