by VIJAY PULI
On March 8, 2023, the Toronto District School Board ( TDSB) made history by passing the first ever resolution in Canadian legislative history accepting the reality of caste discrimination and vowing to combat it. The resolution was introduced by board trustee Yalini Rajakulasingam and represents a profound acknowledgement by Canada’s largest school board of the suffering of caste-oppressed parents.
As a Dalit in Canada, I am relieved that the pain of my people will finally be recognised in Toronto. The TDSB will now ask the Ontario Province Human Rights Commission to “provide a framework” to address caste discrimination in public education.
This historic move now positions Dalit Canadians to break a long silence that has enveloped the issue of caste. Ontario could become the first province in Canada to recognise caste discrimination. To me, and every caste-oppressed Canadian like me, this really matters. That this comes just weeks after the Seattle City Council in the United States embraced similar legislation gives me even more hope that the days when caste discrimination could be ignored in North America are coming to an end.
Caste negatively affects more than 1.9 billion people worldwide, including 2.5 million South Asian Canadians, crippling our quality of life. It determines who and where we worship, where we live, our choices and advancement in education and career, even personal relationships — in essence our entire lives.
Dalits, who sit at the bottom of this hierarchy, are branded “untouchable” and sentenced to a violent system of caste apartheid with separate neighbourhoods, places of worship and schools. And while caste might have roots in South Asia, it is also alive in Canada and is haunting our communities and schools in Toronto and beyond.
Al Jazeera for more