Seattle Becomes First US City To Pass 'Anti-Caste' Resolution; Advocacy Groups Fear It Singles Out Hindu Minority

Seattle on Tuesday (21 February) became the first US city to include 'caste' as a protected category under the city’s non-discrimination policy.

The resolution moved by Kshama Sawant, an Indian-American socialist, was approved by the Seattle City Council by six to one vote.

“It's official: our movement has won a historic, first-in-the-nation ban on caste discrimination in Seattle! Now we need to build a movement to spread this victory around the country,” Sawant, who is the member of Seatttle city council, said soon after the resolution was voted.

The results of the vote could have far-reaching implications on the issue of caste discrimination in the US as Hindu organisations have alleged that the resolution singles out Hindus, which are already a minority in the US, for additional legal scrutiny.

Hindu American Foundation (HAF), an advocacy group for Hindus, said that caste discrimination is wrong, violating core Hindu principles of the divine oneness of all beings but singling out of Hindus and South Asian communities in the resolution was problematic.

"Though caste discrimination has been presented by Councilmember Sawant and her supporters as being rampant in the US, the only authoritative survey on discrimination against the Indian and South Asian community here, done by the Carnegie Endowment, has found that incidents of caste discrimination are rare," , said in a statement.

Furthermore this survey, specifically rebuked the findings and methodology of a survey by Equality Labs upon which Sawant based her resolution, it added.

“Throughout our two decades of existence, HAF has maintained that caste discrimination is wrong, violating core Hindu principles of the divine oneness of all beings. At the same time, we maintain that the singling out of South Asians and addition of ‘caste’ to non-discrimination policy violates the very policies it now amends," said HAF founder and executive director Suhag Shukla.

"The City of Seattle has voted to treat South Asians in a manner that no other ethnic or racial community is treated under the guise of non-discrimination. It has voted yes to discriminating against ethnic minorities, repeating the ugliness of nativists in the state nearly a century ago," she added.

In the statement, HAF's attorneys contended that in passing this resolution, Seattle is now in violation of the "US Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process that prohibit the state from treating disparately people on account of their national origin, ethnicity, or religion, and implementing a vague, facially discriminatory and arbitrary category".

The foundation said that it was investigating all avenues of response to the "facially discriminatory policy" and will also be closely monitoring the implementation of it as that too will be discriminatory given its applicability to only certain ethnic groups in the Seattle city. 

Earlier, another hindu advocacy group, Coaltion of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) had urged the Seattle city council to vote "no" on the proposed caste resolution, saying that proposal was based on "falsehoods and unproven allegations by hate groups such as Equality Labs".

"This ordinance peddles bigotry and singles out the South Asian community by using racist, colonial tropes of “caste” and ensures that our community is subject to special scrutiny, thus denying our rights to freedom of religion and equal protection," the CoHNA said in a statement.

It further alleged that the groups that pushed for this ordinance have called for an "open dismantling of the Hindu religion".