Organisations term move ‘biased’

Seven U.K. organisations backing efforts to bring caste discrimination within equality law have written to the government criticising the decision to hold a consultation on the issue, as well as “serious shortfalls” in the structure of the consultation, which they warn is “biased” against bringing in legislation.

The organisations, which include the Anti-Caste Discrimination Alliance, Dalit Solidarity Network and National Secular Society, said there is “clear evidence of caste discrimination amongst the South Asian diaspora in the U.K.”

‘Pretext to not act’

The letter to the Education Secretary Justine Greening warns that the consultation in its current form “substantially disadvantaged those taking the stance that legislation is necessary to protect the rights of actual and potential victims of discrimination”. It also criticises the consultation for being so technical that only specialist lawyers and campaigners would be able to contribute to it.

“Parliament has directed that legislation against caste discrimination be enacted and the UN has declared that the government has a treaty obligation to legislate,” Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, told The Hindu. “A consultation on whether to legislate is therefore illegitimate and it is a pretext to give opponents an opportunity to express their views, which the government will seize on to justify not legislating,” he said. “The consultation is shamelessly biased to encourage a response opposing legislation.”

At the end of March, the government published details of a long-awaited 16-week public consultation on whether caste should be introduced as an aspect of race in anti-discrimination legislation. The government said that while there was “no place” for any form of prejudice and discrimination based on a person’s origins it wanted to be careful ‘not to create or entrench any notion of caste consciousness or caste-based practices into British society, which may prove counterproductive or divisive.” Section 9 of the Equality Act 2010, amended by Parliament in 2013, requires the government to introduce secondary legislation to make caste an aspect of race, and caste discrimination a form of race discrimination but allows for further consultation.