Mentioned in the article was one person who tried to address this by banning discrimination "on the basis of ancestry, including caste" which seems to me to be a completely reasonable adjustment.
That seems weak.
One should not (and legally may not) discriminate on the basis of being Indian, which is a South Asian phenomenon. One should not discriminate on the basis of having Native Hawaiian ancestry, which is a Hawaiian phenomenon. And one should not discriminate on the basis of how many of someone’s ancestors happen to have been slaves in America, which is an American phenomenon (although there are surely analogues elsewhere).
edit: SE -> South.
But IMO it's fine, because banning discrimination based on ancestry in general is better than banning discrimination on the basis of ancestry only when caste is involved.
Mrs. McCoy shouldn't be able to discriminate against Mrs. Hatfield on the basis of last name either.
The bill has already been modified to use that verbiage.
"Eventually, Wahab agreed to place caste under “ancestry” rather than list it as a standalone category"
So it seems that those still opposed to the bill are not satisfied with that amendment.
Discrimination based on ancestry shouldn't be allowed regardless of whether it's on a short timeframe (caste) or a long timeframe (race).
What we're seeing now is what happens when people in positions of nonzero power who are used to getting to discriminate, are told not to. We saw the same thing in the American south when people were told they had to stop discriminating against people of African ancestry.
https://www.hinduamerican.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/HAF...
They claim:
"We share the admirable goals of protecting civil rights and eliminating all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including based on caste. As such, the question is not whether we deal with allegations of caste discrimination, but how. If and when caste discrimination allegations emerge, they should be adjudicated under the existing protected class of ancestry, just as the state of California did in California Department of Fair Employment Housing v. Cisco Systems, Inc."
In https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u0jxQY_cLti2XP3nEw0d9OBa... they state:
"There is only one legal case on the issue of caste-discrimination in the United States to date. It involves an allegation of caste-based discrimination in the US."
and give some facts related to that case.
I am reading between the lines so. Would be a stretch to speculate about the caste make-up of said association?
>In 2010, HAF issued a report titled "Hinduism: Not Cast in Caste" alleging that Christian missionaries were able to push their proselytizing agenda only because of the prevalence of caste discrimination in India; it went to argue that caste cannot be considered to be an intrinsic definitional aspect of Hinduism—due to a lack of theological sanction in its most sacred texts—and urged for reforms led by Hindus themselves. This led to a flutter in conservative Hindu circles of India and the next year, HAF toned down their report; they cautioned against the trend of passing resolutions against caste discrimination adopted by various global organizations and held caste to be an internal affair of a sovereign India. HAF has since portrayed castes as occupational guilds which had brought stability to premodern India before being reified under British colonialism; it has vehemently opposed drawing parallels between caste-discrimination and racism, and even any depiction of the caste-system as a rigid birth-determined pyramid of hierarchy.
They started off fighting against the caste system, until the elites in India told them no. Ever since, they've minimized the impact the caste system had and still has -- not just in India.
Japan comes to mind, e.g. the Burakumin aka Japanese Untouchables
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin
> Burakumin (部落民, 'hamlet/village people', 'those who live in hamlets/villages') is a term for ethnic Japanese people who are believed to be descended from members of the pre-Meiji castes which were associated with kegare (穢れ, 'defilement'), such as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, and tanners...Due to severe discrimination and ostracism in Japanese society, these groups came to live as outcasts, in their own separate villages or ghettos. After the caste system was abolished, the term burakumin came into use to refer the former caste members and their descendants, who continued to experience stigmatization and discrimination.
South Asian, not South-East Asian.
It is unfortunately too late to edit the original post :(