The city of Seattle, in the US, recently passed a law that bans discrimination based on caste. Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, an Indian-American, was the driving force behind the legislation. Discrimination based on caste is a centuries-old social evil in India. In an exclusive interaction with WION's Manas Joshi, Sawant explained how the issue is fast becoming a concern in the US where there are thousands of Indian Americans.

WION: Is casteism so bad in the US that a legislation was required to specifically tackle it?

Kshama Sawant: What we've observed in the United States is that as number of South Asian immigrants went up, as it reached a certain threshold, the issue of casteism and oppression became more pervasive. If you look at statistical data that was available to us from two different sources, one study was from Equality Lab while the other was from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, both studies had different methodologies but they reached similar conclusions that caste discrimination is quite pervasive in the US.

If you look at organisations where the caste discrimination is happening, it runs a spectrum. You name it, and the corporation is there. Dalit (lower caste) workers from Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco have said that they have experienced caste discrimination.

The type of discrimination ranges from very serious instances where you are actually denied raises or promotions to things like being kept out of meetings or being made a target of derogatory remarks. All of these things are happening.

WION: How do you see caste and race in American context? Are existing laws against racism in US enough to tackle casteism?

Kshama Sawant: I don't think that they are enough. The law we passed in Seattle has not only made it first city in the US to pass such a law, it made Seattle first city in the world outside South Asia to legally ban caste-based discrimination.

Fundamentally, racial discrimination is no different than caste-based discrimination or discrimination based of gender.

WION: Seattle City Council was not unanimous during passage of this law. The result of the voting was 6-1. Who could be against legislation that seeks to promote equality?

Kshama Sawant: I am glad that you asked this question, and in this way. Who are against it? It was a quite clear demarcation as to who was for it and who was against it. One councilmember voted against it. And if you look at her track record of voting, it's not that she voted in alignment with the right wing on just this issue, she is generally conservative and pro-big business on most issues.

WION: Tell us about your life before America. You grew up in Mumbai...

Kshama Sawant: We grew up in working class/ middle class family. We were not well-off but we were also not poor. My earliest memories growing up were filled with anger and outrage about the overall economic and social situation I observed around me. And it was not just a feeling but also an intellectual process for me thinking that surely human society can achieve better than this.

WION: Leaders of South Asian heritage have been getting greater representation in politics of Western countries lately. Is Kshama Sawant a rising star? What next for Kshama Sawant?

Kshama Sawant: I wouldn't think of my personal career as being of any importance. However, your question is important. By December this year, I will have served in Seattle Council for 10 years, a whole decade. We have won four elections, despite the opposition from big business including Amazon and Jeff Bezos themselves. We have shown that this is possible in one city. We need to share these ideas nationally and globally. This year I am not running for a re-election. We are launching a national movement called Workers Strike Back.

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us <a href="https://www.wionews.com/content-contribution-registration-form">here</a>.

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The city of Seattle, in the US, recently passed a law that bans discrimination based on caste. Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, an Indian-American, was the driving force behind the legislation.

The city of Seattle, in the US, recently passed a law that bans discrimination based on caste. Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, an Indian-American, was the driving force behind the legislation. Discrimination based on caste is a centuries-old social evil in India. In an exclusive interaction with WION's Manas Joshi, Sawant explained how the issue is fast becoming a concern in the US where there are thousands of Indian Americans. WION: Is casteism so bad in the US that a legislation was required to specifically tackle it? Kshama Sawant: What we've observed in the United States is that as number of South Asian immigrants went up, as it reached a certain threshold, the issue of casteism and oppression became more pervasive. If you look at statistical data that was available to us from two different sources, one study was from Equality Lab while the other was from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, both studies had different methodologies but they reached similar conclusions that caste discrimination is quite pervasive in the US. If you look at organisations where the caste discrimination is happening, it runs a spectrum. You name it, and the corporation is there. Dalit (lower caste) workers from Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco have said that they have experienced caste discrimination. The type of discrimination ranges from very serious instances where you are actually denied raises or promotions to things like being kept out of meetings or being made a target of derogatory remarks. All of these things are happening. WION: How do you see caste and race in American context? Are existing laws against racism in US enough to tackle casteism? Kshama Sawant: I don't think that they are enough. The law we passed in Seattle has not only made it first city in the US to pass such a law, it made Seattle first city in the world outside South Asia to legally ban caste-based discrimination. Fundamentally, racial discrimination is no different than caste-based discrimination or discrimination based of gender. WION: Seattle City Council was not unanimous during passage of this law. The result of the voting was 6-1. Who could be against legislation that seeks to promote equality? Kshama Sawant: I am glad that you asked this question, and in this way. Who are against it? It was a quite clear demarcation as to who was for it and who was against it. One councilmember voted against it. And if you look at her track record of voting, it's not that she voted in alignment with the right wing on just this issue, she is generally conservative and pro-big business on most issues. WION: Tell us about your life before America. You grew up in Mumbai... Kshama Sawant: We grew up in working class/ middle class family. We were not well-off but we were also not poor. My earliest memories growing up were filled with anger and outrage about the overall economic and social situation I observed around me. And it was not just a feeling but also an intellectual process for me thinking that surely human society can achieve better than this. WION: Leaders of South Asian heritage have been getting greater representation in politics of Western countries lately. Is Kshama Sawant a rising star? What next for Kshama Sawant? Kshama Sawant: I wouldn't think of my personal career as being of any importance. However, your question is important. By December this year, I will have served in Seattle Council for 10 years, a whole decade. We have won four elections, despite the opposition from big business including Amazon and Jeff Bezos themselves. We have shown that this is possible in one city. We need to share these ideas nationally and globally. This year I am not running for a re-election. We are launching a national movement called Workers Strike Back. You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here. WATCH WION LIVE HERE ×

Exclusive: Meet the Indian-American behind anti-caste discrimination law in Seattle

Poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas of the Aam Admi Party finds himself in the midst of another controversy.&nbsp; Last week, social media was abuzz with his viral clip saying, &ldquo;There was no casteism earlier. One man came and started agitation for the reservation and altered our social fabric&rdquo;.

Since Kumar&rsquo;s reference to this &ldquo;man&rdquo; was ambiguous.&nbsp; It was construed to be a reference to&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;B. R. Ambedkar. Many of his followers took exception to this and criticised Vishwas. Without naming Kumar Vishwas,&nbsp;AAP&rsquo;s Ashutosh tweeted that any criticism of&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar is condemnable. Ashutosh&#39;s tweet further fueled suspicion that Kumar was indeed talking about Babasaheb.

This forced Kumar Vishwas to clarify his position on 3rd December that he did not in any way mean to demean Dalit&nbsp;uddharak&nbsp;Parampujya Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, and the reference was to former Prime Minister V. P. Singh, particularly, his 1990 agitation for the Mandal Commission. He went on to add that vested interests within his party are creating this issue because he has asked the AAP to go back to its basics &mdash; hinting at internal party coterie who became active to eliminate him politically.

Casteism existed much before Mandal Commission

Kumar Vishwas&rsquo; clarification was bizarre. Let&rsquo;s &nbsp;assume for a moment that he didn&rsquo;t imply&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar. The bigger problem actually doesn&#39;t lie with his ambiguity. What he said originally in his Jaipur speech started with &nbsp;&mdash; &ldquo;Hamare Brahman&nbsp;bahul&nbsp;gaon me&nbsp;safai&nbsp;ka&nbsp;kaam&nbsp;karne&nbsp;wali Lakshmi amma mere&nbsp;dadi&nbsp;ke&nbsp;saath&nbsp;shadi&nbsp;hoke&nbsp;aayi&nbsp;thi. Woh&nbsp;meri&nbsp;ma ko&nbsp;aur&nbsp;meri&nbsp;chachi&nbsp;ko&nbsp;jara&nbsp;sa&nbsp;bhi&nbsp;ghoonghat&nbsp;niche&nbsp;reh&nbsp;jay&nbsp;sau&nbsp;galiyaa&nbsp;sunati&nbsp;thi&nbsp;aur koi problem&nbsp;nahi&nbsp;hoti&nbsp;thi&rdquo; (In my Brahmin-majority village, the women sweeper who came with my married Grandma used to scold her for not covering her head with saree, there was no issue that time, with lower caste criticising upper caste).

He continued that today any comment against another community will meet with violence. Firstly, to say that casteism did not exist earlier during his grandma&rsquo;s days is beyond absurd. For caste system has been dominating our social sphere for thousands of years, in the descending order of reverence and ascending the scale of contempt, as&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar had himself put it.

The Scheduled Castes and Tribes were outside the Varna system. But Kumar Vishwas seems to like that model. In his so-called Brahmin-majority village, where was the Scheduled Caste community located? Which caste traditionally did menial jobs and were denied human rights and dignity and which caste was revered just because of their birth in that caste?&nbsp;

Has&nbsp;Mr&nbsp;Vishwas heard of untouchability? If it did not exist, as per Vishwas, what was&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar&rsquo;s anti-untouchability fight for?

Mr&nbsp;Vishwas is clearly lying about the existence of caste system in the pre-Mandal era. And how does&nbsp;Mr&nbsp;Vishwas use his caste privilege? He proudly boasts of dropping his Brahmin surname Sharma since &ldquo;he doesn&rsquo;t believe in castism&rdquo; but he doesn&rsquo;t forget to routinely mention his &lsquo;Proud Brahmin Ancestry&rsquo; in his public appearances. For instance, while contesting in the Amethi Constituency against Rahul Gandhi in 2014, Kumar Vishwas said at a Public Rally &ldquo;I am a descendant of Chanakya and Chand Bardai, who defeated great empires. I left my job because I am a Brahmin and a Brahmin knows how to survive with begging.&rdquo;

Social commentator Vidya Bhushan Rawat says &ldquo;Kumar Vishwas uses all the Brahmanical narratives to build his case. The entire narrative and &lsquo;history&rsquo; that he speaks of is nothing but Sangh Parivar version of our history. Like them, he also narrates&nbsp;the mythologies in such &lsquo;courageous&rsquo; way that they look &lsquo;history&rsquo;.

Lakshmi, the sweeper who came as dowry along with Vishwas&rsquo; Grandma

The second and most objectionable element of Kumar Vishwas&rsquo;&nbsp;defence&nbsp;is the sweeper women who, as he recalls, used to &quot;scold his grandma&rdquo;. This&nbsp;safai&nbsp;ka&nbsp;kaam&nbsp;karne&nbsp;wali&nbsp;(cleaning lady) who came along with his Grandma as dowry was one of the most&nbsp;stigmatised&nbsp;social practice of that time. Along with dowry (cash, furniture, land, vehicle etc), there was a custom of bringing in a helper or sweeper of low caste as a dowry who used to work as a bonded labourer.

These would be mostly the people from Mehter (Scheduled Caste) community. How can a society where only people from particular caste alone do the cleaning for generations be called as a good society?&nbsp;

Former India Today (Hindi) Editor Dilip Mandal says &ldquo;How did Vishwas&rsquo; family get a Maharani in dowry? Did they consider her some kind of furniture? His irritation is that it is difficult to get SC women in dowry for cleaning anymore. How in the world is he calling the earlier era as a golden period?&rdquo;

For Mr Vishwas, the subjugation at the hands of Brahmins and Savarnas is acceptable but any assertion by lower caste is called caste-conflict? How insane!&nbsp;Mr&nbsp;Vishwas does not hesitate to use his caste privilege that he got from his generations but does not want second generation Dalit OBCs to get the facility of reservations.

V. P. Singh Did not fight for Reservation, He implemented it

Kumar Vishwas is probably unaware that V. P. Singh did not agitate for reservation. He actually implemented the Mandal Commission Report which was catching dust for years. It was&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar who made provision for reservation in the Constitution. Without the constitutional provisions done by him in the form of article 340, the OBC reservation would also have not been possible.

The timing of this controversy couldn&rsquo;t be more relevant. 27th November&nbsp;was the death anniversary of former Prime Minister V.P. Singh. This was around the same time that Kumar Vishwas video started getting viral. V. P. Singh was born in an upper caste royal family of Manda in Uttar Pradesh. But his incessant effort towards uplifting the Bahujan society was not just a talk. Along with implementing Mandal Commission, he ensured that portrait of Babasaheb was installed in the central hall of parliament. Imagine the bias, Architect of the Constitution did not even find a place in the central hall until 1990 where all other Savarna leaders thronged the wall.

Kumar Vishwas has&nbsp;harboured&nbsp;hatred towards former Prime Minister V. P. Singh for long. With Mandal commission and SC-ST provision, the Bahujan concept emerged and monopoly of only a few castes over everything was challenged. Today, classrooms in the highest educational institutions are most diverse, paving way for all-round development. But reservation is still cursed by the Savarnas, first by questioning the merit of the students getting admission and, lately, by questioning why only rich among the&nbsp;backwards&nbsp;was enjoying the benefits.

Many in Savarna leadership of AAP, including Arvind Kejriwal himself hold the view that reservation should be only to be taken once by a family. Is reservation poverty alleviation program? How naive is this logic? Does he even read the Constitution? Anna Hazare even went to the extent declaring reservation as the biggest threat to India and country may break apart. Really? Having a diverse workforce or classrooms breaks unity?

Those who use &ldquo;Economic Criteria&rdquo; to hide their hatred towards backward communities getting represented in some level, cannot fathom that those who used to come as dowry are now competing with them. And how much truth is there in the charge that those who have taken benefits are now rich? OBC reservation is actually only for non-creamy layers so there is no question of rich people &lsquo;grabbing&rsquo; it in the present context.

A pilot study done in 2011 had reiterated that Dalits were most underprivileged sections of the population and the easiest marker of poverty. This was 50 years after the policy of reservation came into effect, clearly indicating social status does impact the economic&nbsp;behaviour&nbsp;of the community.

Without this basic social understanding, V. P Singh, Constitution and&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar himself come across as villains to some. Reservation is nothing but affirmative actions and representation enshrined in our Constitution. There are many Savarnas like Kumar Vishwas in all walks of life who think reservation alone has divided the society and created resentment against those availing it.&nbsp;

When the kids themselves find first time in the college that somebody else has &lsquo;got the seat ahead of them despite getting lower marks&rsquo; it does not help. Common Savarna kids then start&nbsp;harbouring&nbsp;hatred of the system that &lsquo;create this inequality&rsquo; which in essence is actually a level playing field. Savarna dominated media&rsquo;s one-sided debate on reservation adds fuel to their fire. Now that a study has dismissed notion that reservation impacts efficiency, and if anything it only improves it, all we need is a compassionate and logical look towards the affirmative action policy and benefits of diversity.

Politicians like Vishwas cannot profess to rever Dr Ambedkar on one side but hate his idea of affirmative action on the other &mdash;especially when most of India&rsquo;s important areas, such as the judiciary, business houses, media, top bureaucracy, academia are still devoid of OBCs SC ST and minorities.

V. P Singh or reservation policy did not create casteism, it merely attempted to create an equal representation of our extremely biased society. Kumar Vishwas of the world should truly come out of not just their surname but their caste&nbsp;mould.

(Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Politicians like Kumar Vishwas cannot profess to rever Dr Ambedkar on one side but hate his idea of affirmative action on the other, especially when most of India?s important areas are still devoid of OBCs SC ST and minorities.

Poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas of the Aam Admi Party finds himself in the midst of another controversy. Last week, social media was abuzz with his viral clip saying, “There was no casteism earlier. One man came and started agitation for the reservation and altered our social fabric”. Since Kumar’s reference to this “man” was ambiguous. It was construed to be a reference to Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Many of his followers took exception to this and criticised Vishwas. Without naming Kumar Vishwas, AAP’s Ashutosh tweeted that any criticism of Dr Ambedkar is condemnable. Ashutosh's tweet further fueled suspicion that Kumar was indeed talking about Babasaheb. This forced Kumar Vishwas to clarify his position on 3rd December that he did not in any way mean to demean Dalit uddharak Parampujya Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, and the reference was to former Prime Minister V. P. Singh, particularly, his 1990 agitation for the Mandal Commission. He went on to add that vested interests within his party are creating this issue because he has asked the AAP to go back to its basics — hinting at internal party coterie who became active to eliminate him politically. Casteism existed much before Mandal Commission Kumar Vishwas’ clarification was bizarre. Let’s assume for a moment that he didn’t imply Dr Ambedkar. The bigger problem actually doesn't lie with his ambiguity. What he said originally in his Jaipur speech started with — “Hamare Brahman bahul gaon me safai ka kaam karne wali Lakshmi amma mere dadi ke saath shadi hoke aayi thi. Woh meri ma ko aur meri chachi ko jara sa bhi ghoonghat niche reh jay sau galiyaa sunati thi aur koi problem nahi hoti thi” (In my Brahmin-majority village, the women sweeper who came with my married Grandma used to scold her for not covering her head with saree, there was no issue that time, with lower caste criticising upper caste). He continued that today any comment against another community will meet with violence. Firstly, to say that casteism did not exist earlier during his grandma’s days is beyond absurd. For caste system has been dominating our social sphere for thousands of years, in the descending order of reverence and ascending the scale of contempt, as Dr Ambedkar had himself put it. The Scheduled Castes and Tribes were outside the Varna system. But Kumar Vishwas seems to like that model. In his so-called Brahmin-majority village, where was the Scheduled Caste community located? Which caste traditionally did menial jobs and were denied human rights and dignity and which caste was revered just because of their birth in that caste? Has Mr Vishwas heard of untouchability? If it did not exist, as per Vishwas, what was Dr Ambedkar’s anti-untouchability fight for? Mr Vishwas is clearly lying about the existence of caste system in the pre-Mandal era. And how does Mr Vishwas use his caste privilege? He proudly boasts of dropping his Brahmin surname Sharma since “he doesn’t believe in castism” but he doesn’t forget to routinely mention his ‘Proud Brahmin Ancestry’ in his public appearances. For instance, while contesting in the Amethi Constituency against Rahul Gandhi in 2014, Kumar Vishwas said at a Public Rally “I am a descendant of Chanakya and Chand Bardai, who defeated great empires. I left my job because I am a Brahmin and a Brahmin knows how to survive with begging.” Social commentator Vidya Bhushan Rawat says “Kumar Vishwas uses all the Brahmanical narratives to build his case. The entire narrative and ‘history’ that he speaks of is nothing but Sangh Parivar version of our history. Like them, he also narrates the mythologies in such ‘courageous’ way that they look ‘history’. Lakshmi, the sweeper who came as dowry along with Vishwas’ Grandma The second and most objectionable element of Kumar Vishwas’ defence is the sweeper women who, as he recalls, used to "scold his grandma”. This safai ka kaam karne wali (cleaning lady) who came along with his Grandma as dowry was one of the most stigmatised social practice of that time. Along with dowry (cash, furniture, land, vehicle etc), there was a custom of bringing in a helper or sweeper of low caste as a dowry who used to work as a bonded labourer. These would be mostly the people from Mehter (Scheduled Caste) community. How can a society where only people from particular caste alone do the cleaning for generations be called as a good society? Former India Today (Hindi) Editor Dilip Mandal says “How did Vishwas’ family get a Maharani in dowry? Did they consider her some kind of furniture? His irritation is that it is difficult to get SC women in dowry for cleaning anymore. How in the world is he calling the earlier era as a golden period?” For Mr Vishwas, the subjugation at the hands of Brahmins and Savarnas is acceptable but any assertion by lower caste is called caste-conflict? How insane! Mr Vishwas does not hesitate to use his caste privilege that he got from his generations but does not want second generation Dalit OBCs to get the facility of reservations. V. P. Singh Did not fight for Reservation, He implemented it Kumar Vishwas is probably unaware that V. P. Singh did not agitate for reservation. He actually implemented the Mandal Commission Report which was catching dust for years. It was Dr Ambedkar who made provision for reservation in the Constitution. Without the constitutional provisions done by him in the form of article 340, the OBC reservation would also have not been possible. The timing of this controversy couldn’t be more relevant. 27th November was the death anniversary of former Prime Minister V.P. Singh. This was around the same time that Kumar Vishwas video started getting viral. V. P. Singh was born in an upper caste royal family of Manda in Uttar Pradesh. But his incessant effort towards uplifting the Bahujan society was not just a talk. Along with implementing Mandal Commission, he ensured that portrait of Babasaheb was installed in the central hall of parliament. Imagine the bias, Architect of the Constitution did not even find a place in the central hall until 1990 where all other Savarna leaders thronged the wall. Kumar Vishwas has harboured hatred towards former Prime Minister V. P. Singh for long. With Mandal commission and SC-ST provision, the Bahujan concept emerged and monopoly of only a few castes over everything was challenged. Today, classrooms in the highest educational institutions are most diverse, paving way for all-round development. But reservation is still cursed by the Savarnas, first by questioning the merit of the students getting admission and, lately, by questioning why only rich among the backwards was enjoying the benefits. Many in Savarna leadership of AAP, including Arvind Kejriwal himself hold the view that reservation should be only to be taken once by a family. Is reservation poverty alleviation program? How naive is this logic? Does he even read the Constitution? Anna Hazare even went to the extent declaring reservation as the biggest threat to India and country may break apart. Really? Having a diverse workforce or classrooms breaks unity? Those who use “Economic Criteria” to hide their hatred towards backward communities getting represented in some level, cannot fathom that those who used to come as dowry are now competing with them. And how much truth is there in the charge that those who have taken benefits are now rich? OBC reservation is actually only for non-creamy layers so there is no question of rich people ‘grabbing’ it in the present context. A pilot study done in 2011 had reiterated that Dalits were most underprivileged sections of the population and the easiest marker of poverty. This was 50 years after the policy of reservation came into effect, clearly indicating social status does impact the economic behaviour of the community. Without this basic social understanding, V. P Singh, Constitution and Dr Ambedkar himself come across as villains to some. Reservation is nothing but affirmative actions and representation enshrined in our Constitution. There are many Savarnas like Kumar Vishwas in all walks of life who think reservation alone has divided the society and created resentment against those availing it. When the kids themselves find first time in the college that somebody else has ‘got the seat ahead of them despite getting lower marks’ it does not help. Common Savarna kids then start harbouring hatred of the system that ‘create this inequality’ which in essence is actually a level playing field. Savarna dominated media’s one-sided debate on reservation adds fuel to their fire. Now that a study has dismissed notion that reservation impacts efficiency, and if anything it only improves it, all we need is a compassionate and logical look towards the affirmative action policy and benefits of diversity. Politicians like Vishwas cannot profess to rever Dr Ambedkar on one side but hate his idea of affirmative action on the other —especially when most of India’s important areas, such as the judiciary, business houses, media, top bureaucracy, academia are still devoid of OBCs SC ST and minorities. V. P Singh or reservation policy did not create casteism, it merely attempted to create an equal representation of our extremely biased society. Kumar Vishwas of the world should truly come out of not just their surname but their caste mould. (Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Opinion: Why caste-based reservation is anathema to many

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