> Step up enforcement of existing laws so you can deal not only with caste-ism, but also sectarian strife among other groups. Shia or Sunni, Catholic or Protestant, Orthodox or Reformed, etc.
That's a pretty good point that nobody here has raised yet
If there was a way to ensure basically that people didn't discriminate against people of their own broad religion who were of a different sect, and that such a law would automatically cover caste discrimination by people of upper caste background against people of lower caste background (whether or not either claim to profess any specific religion termed Hinduism), that would certainly be better.
There are a couple issues with this in practice, however, and this suffers even more strongly from the conceptual problem that discrimination between a Shia and Sunni or between a Catholic and Protestant, etc., is almost certainly already covered under religious discrimination, whereas caste apparently isn't.
A big part of the problem with this bill is that we actually don't seem to have a clear answer on the latter question--it seems like almost everyone is kind of just assuming that caste is or isn't already covered by existing law based on their preferences. Doesn't seem to be a lot of definitive caselaw either way.
From that perspective, it's pretty reasonable for Newsom to veto it for now until the situation becomes more clear (though it's probably the case that his move was driven more by political calculation than wise leadership).