Schrodinger’s Oppressed
I generally enjoy reading letters. Many of my friends share my Victorian sentiments and will frequently send me touching hand-written missives on artfully aged paper. One even has her own wax sealing kit.
Today, however, I read a letter which I emphatically did not enjoy. Thankfully, it was not penned by any of my friends. It was, instead, apparently written by a number of California State faculty members, and shared on Twitter by none other than the Hindu American Foundation.
Scarcely a week ago, Cal State universities made the groundbreaking decision to include caste as a protected identity subject to anti-discrimination measures. In other words, casteism will officially not be tolerated on Cal State campuses. When I read that announcement, I was nothing short of ecstatic. I’ve written about some of the appalling sentiments I’ve heard firsthand from privileged-caste South Asian Americans, and am truly glad that at least one set of institutions is taking a step toward making life safer for oppressed-caste South Asian diaspora.
But these sentiments, apparently, are not shared by every diaspora South Asian. In response to this measure, some faculty members wrote this indignant letter, accusing CFA leadership of “overreaching” and caving to the demands of an “anti-Hindu” organisation. Their argument can be summed up as casteism doesn’t exist amongst the diaspora, so calling it out as a form of discrimination is unnecessary – and will in fact backfire on Hindu students and faculty by singling them out.
I have not identified with the religion of my birth for a number of years now, but I was raised Hindu. I was a Hindu college student. And in the politest of terms, I think there’s more meat between a crocodile’s teeth than there is in the argument set forth in that letter.
Let’s break it down:
- The letter claims that adding caste as a protected identity is an “overreach”. It’s a pretty, but vague, word to use. Why is a measure condemning casteism, a recorded form of discrimination, an “overreach” while similar condemnation of racism is just fine? I very much doubt the overwhelmingly non-white authors of this letter would argue against race being a protected category – so what makes protecting oppressed-caste people an overreach?
- The letter claims that “Hindu faculty” would be targeted by this law, but never really specifies how they might be targeted beyond a mention of “racist stereotypes”. What kind of discrimination would a measure against casteism cause? What kinds of racist stereotypes could it possibly generate? In fact, wouldn’t there be Hindu students and faculty who belong to oppressed castes and would directly benefit from this law? Do the authors of this letter have a genuine concern or are they referencing the idea that privileged-caste people might actually be called out for their biases?
- What do they mean by “racist stereotypes”? Is a statement like “White people in America generally enjoy privileges based on their social status” a racist stereotype? What about “most white Americans grew up with subconsciously racist ideas due to their privilege”? The Indian American community has been quite vocal about our status as brown people, as immigrants, as outsiders in white America. Many of us would tend to agree with the earlier sentences. So how is that different from caste? Why is it “racist” against privileged-caste Hindus to acknowledge that we have caste privilege and cannot wield that as a weapon against people who don’t?
- The letter references a study done by Johns Hopkins and UPenn as proof that casteism doesn’t exist in the diaspora. I took the liberty of looking through that study, and on the very second page it states:
“Roughly half of all Hindu Americans identify with a caste group. Foreign-born respondents are significantly more likely than US-born residents to espouse a caste identity. The overwhelming majority of Hindus with a caste identity – more than eight in ten – self-identify as belonging to the category of General or upper caste”.
Page 3:
“To some extent, divisions in India are being reproduced within the Indian American community.”
The study also refutes a central implication of the letter, that only Hindus are associated with caste. On page 19, the study points out that many caste designations are present within Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and Buddhist communities. Not all of those protected by the law are Hindu, and cracking down on caste discrimination doesn’t paint a target across Hindu backs as the letter insinuates.
The survey acknowledges some difficulties in reporting exact statistics about caste – it only asked Hindu respondents for their caste identities, and points out that some people might be sensitive about stating their castes, so the number of oppressed-caste people in the diaspora could be much higher than actually reported. But its general consensus is that quite a lot of the diaspora is quick to state their caste – and those who do are overwhelmingly caste-privileged. That’s what the letter shared by the HAF conveniently leaves out: we don’t see a lot of caste discrimination firsthand because a lot of us are privileged in that regard, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
This is where the letter truly fails in its writers’ goal of presenting their view as the reasonable, anti-racist one. Even if only a minority of the diaspora experiences caste-based oppression, that is not licence to turn a blind eye to said discrimination, as it suggests. No obfuscating frippery about “anti-Hindu racism” can disguise the core of bigotry, the blatant fear of losing a hitherto unthreatened privilege, which runs through the letter. It’s appalling. It’s revolting.
Much like Schrödinger’s famous cat in a box, privileged-caste South Asians exist in two different states at once: both the victims and perpetrators of discrimination. So how can we, who are so vocal about being treated as lesser than white Americans, use the same arguments used against us by racists? How can we not condemn discrimination wherever we see it?
I hope CFA leadership frames that letter in a dustbin and sticks to its intent. And I hope that over time, more Indian Americans will rise up in support of destroying archaic, cruel ideas of caste-based superiority couched in “defences” of Hinduism.
– Aditi Ramaswamy
