I interviewed Seattle Councilwoman Kshama Sawant on the first ever law on Caste Discrimination in the U.S. She dives deep into why the law was needed, the controversies around the law and what is next for caste related bill in the US.
Kshama cites the study of Equality labs that has become basis of many such studies that state that caste could possibly be a factor that could lead to discrimination. The documents submitted by Kshama for the passage of Bill range from UN reports to Reports about caste discrimination in India and news articles. But the Equality labs report that Carnegie research called skewed, is the only source that can point to Caste Discrimination in the US. It is used in 3 supporting documents that validate the case for Caste based Discrimination in the US. There is no contact for Equality labs on their website. They have not issued any statement either.
On asking Kshama about why Indian organizations in the US opposed her ordinance, she claims that those organizations are associated with Right Wing ideology and could have ties to right wing organizations of India. She goes on to talk about Prime Minister Modi, RSS, Gujarat riots and Capitalism in explaining why people opposed her ordinance.
She goes on to state that the current Seattle anti-discrimination law as a whole already prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion or nationality. So adding the caste won’t impact any dominant group.
Kshama cites supports from various Dalit, Muslim, Sikh and Black organizations that allowed for, what she calls her movement to win. She talks about possible lawsuits and the idea that this Bill should be implemented nationwide.
