California, April 28, 2023 (PPI-OT):A bill that would outlaw caste discrimination in California has cleared its first big legislative hurdle. Historic bill aims to ban in the state the prejudice based on caste system, practiced for centuries in India. The state’s Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Tuesday in favor of the legislation, sending it on to the next committee for consideration. If passed, the bill could make California the first state in US to make caste bias illegal by adding it as a protected category in the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

State Senator Aisha Wahab, the first Muslim and Afghan American elected to the state legislature, introduced the bill last month. Tuesday’s hearing showed just how contentious the issue has been in the South Asian community. “We’ve hit a nerve and exposed a form of discrimination many never even knew existed,” said Wahab, D-Hayward, who told the committee members that she has received death threats after proposing this legislation.

Practiced for centuries in the Indian subcontinent, caste is an exclusionary system within the Hindu religion that divides people and determines their access to resources. Unlike class, caste is an ascribed status; there’s no mobility to move upwards. Generally, Brahmin communities are in the highest social order, whereas the Dalit community is at the bottom. Because of the fast-growing South Asian diaspora, caste has also manifested as a burning issue in the US. A 2018 survey conducted by Equity Labs – a leading US-based Dalit organization – found that two out of three workers reported facing caste prejudices at their workplace in the US. Several instances of discrimination against Dalit students and employees in elite universities and tech companies like Google with large South Asian populations have exposed the problem.

In February, Seattle became the first city in the US and the first jurisdiction outside South Asia to ban caste-based discrimination. And in 2020, Brandeis University became the first university in the US to ban caste-based discrimination, followed by Harvard University, California State University, the University of California, Davis, and Brown University.

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