A new bill introduced Wednesday in California’s state Senate could be a historic win in the fight against caste discrimination in the United States. If signed into law, it would make the state the first to explicitly name caste as a protected category.
State Sen. Aisha Wahab, who represents Fremont, San Jose and other South Asian American hubs in Northern California, said she has been aware of casteism’s negative impact for much of her life. The caste system has dominated in South Asia for centuries, stratifying society into immovable social classes that impact work, marriage and daily life.
Though discrimination based on caste is now illegal in India, it’s still present in the lives of Dalits, those born at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. And as Indians have settled in other parts of the world, the caste system has followed them.
“The more diverse California becomes and the United States becomes, we need to protect more people in the way the American dream was originally supposed to,” Wahab told NBC News. “Our laws need to expand and cover more people and go deeper.”
With stories of pervasive caste discrimination coming out of places like Silicon Valley, Wahab says a bill like this would ensure companies are taking accountability for the way Dalit employees are treated. It would carve a path to preventing issues like wage theft, social exclusion and harassment in the office, she said.
“More and more people are sharing their personal stories of discrimination,” she said. “This is a civil rights bill, this is a workers bill, this is a women’s rights bill.”
In order for the bill to pass and eventually be implemented, Wahab foresees pushback. As Hindu nationalism becomes more prominent in India and the diaspora, some born into privileged castes argue that passing protections for Dalits is anti-Hindu. But the bill is relevant across communities and religions, the senator said, and she’s ready to push it forward through any pushback that…
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