In late January, California State University added caste to its non-discrimination policy. With more than 437,000 students and 44,000 employees statewide, it is the largest academic institution to do so. But it is not alone. Brandeis University was the first to take this step in 2019. University of California, Davis, Colby College, Colorado College, the Claremont colleges, and Carleton University followed suit. In August 2021, the California Democratic Party added caste as a protected category to their Party Code of Conduct. And in December 2021, the Harvard Graduate Student Union ratified its collective bargaining agreement, which included caste as a protected category for its members.
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What is caste? How is caste discrimination expressed? And why are protections against caste discrimination an urgent issue in the U.S.?
Caste is a descent-based structure of inequality in which privilege works through the control of land, labor, education, media, white-collar professions and political institutions. Some seventy years after independence from colonial rule, the specter of casteism continues to haunt South Asia. The unequal inheritances of caste shape every aspect of social life, from education to marriage, housing, and employment. Caste discrimination still plagues all South Asian societies, including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. To this day, oppressed castes are subject to stigma on the basis of perceived social and intellectual inferiority, and often consigned to the most exploitative segments of the labor market. This is especially true of Dalits, which is the broad term for the community that occupies the bottom rung of the caste ladder and suffers the unique stigma of untouchability. Dalits continue to face pervasive violence, humiliation, and exclusion. The coronavirus pandemic has only amplified the practice of ‘untouchability’ through the segregating and shunning of stigmatized groups.
The ugly…
Source : time
