by SINTHUJAN VARATHARAJAH
The recently activated Section 9(5)(a) of the Equality Act 2010 prohibits caste discrimination in the UK, where B R Ambedkar, an icon of the anti-caste struggle, spent formative years as a student at the London School of Economics between 1916 and 1923. PHOTO/Flickr/Liits
The long struggle to outlaw caste-based discrimination in the UK finally succeeds.
Migration has always been a social enterprise, fundamentally tied to socio-economic networks that define individuals’ opportunities and mobility. Immigration to Britain from the Subcontinent reached its peak in the decades following Partition, bringing with it Southasian cultural beliefs and modes of social organisation. Since the majority of the new Southasian diaspora were of ‘high’ caste origin, and since their numerical superiority generated a commanding preponderance in terms of community representation and leadership, the social milieu they created on British soil resembled the one they had left behind, which had traditionally and historically excluded most Dalits and other ‘low’ castes. Those Southasians who had hoped to escape the prejudices that had defined and restricted their lives in the Subcontinent found that caste-based discrimination had followed them to their new homes.
As the Southasian community established itself, growing in both size and prosperity, stories surfaced of harassment and discrimination in schools and at work, in public and in private life. Some Southasian restaurants recruited along caste lines; ‘upper caste’ healthcare workers refused to treat Dalits; ‘upper caste’ employees resisted the promotion of ‘low-caste’ colleagues; inter-caste marriages led to feuds and harassment; Dalit students were bullied at school by other Southasian children. Far from dying out, such incidents continue to be reported to this day. Today, among the UK’s 3.7 million British Asians – British citizens of Southasian descent – the country’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates there to be between 50,000 and 200,000 Dalits, though other estimates place the numbers even higher. These numbers do not include the tens of thousands of other members of ‘lower castes’, who are also subject to discriminatory behaviour, though not necessarily to the same degree.
The anti-caste movement in the UK was formalised in the late 1990s with the establishment of organisations such as the Dalit Solidarity Network (DSN) and CasteWatch UK, although informal networks of concerned individuals and organisations had existed for decades. The issue gained some public interest in early 2003 after BBC Radio 4 aired a programme titled ‘Caste Divide in Britain’, but that attention was not sustained. The movement took an important step forward in 2008, when numerous anti-caste organisations came together under the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance (ACDA) to better coordinate their efforts. Ever since, the ACDA has actively lobbied British political parties and worked to spread awareness about caste discrimination and prejudice in the UK.
But the debate on caste discrimination only came to larger national attention in 2010, when the British Parliament attempted to streamline existing discrimination laws in Britain. The Equality Act 2010 outlawed discrimination in the public sphere along the lines sex, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity. Dalit and ‘low caste’ activists lobbied to add caste to the list, but were unsuccessful. Instead, their efforts were partially recognised in Section 9(5)(a) of the Act, which included caste as one of the characteristics defining race. That amendment was drafted but remained unactivated pending further deliberation, and the government retained the power to legally define race solely along lines of colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origin. In practice, caste-specific discrimination could still not be challenged legally.
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