Caste Discrimination

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea, and I thank the Minister for allowing me to ruin her afternoon. I am sure she had other things that she would have preferred to be doing.

Why are we having this debate? I went to the Brandon Street gurdwara in Gravesend a few months ago, and I was amazed by the strength of feeling over a petition on caste discrimination. Since then, I have been around the country with my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who is the Prime Minister’s diaspora champion, and I visited Leicester, Southall and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller). I did not realise that quite so many people in the UK suffer because of “traditional”—if that is the right word—caste systems originating in south Asia.

According to a survey on one of these castes, published by the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance, 58% of Dalits—that is to say the untouchables, the Chamars, or whatever else people want to call them—believe they face discrimination because of their caste. Much more interestingly, 80% believe that the police would not understand caste discrimination if it was reported to them. Some Dalits are being ignored for promotion. They are victims of humiliation or harassment and sometimes they face being fired.

Is there a form of hidden apartheid within our shores? After some brave and necessary moves by our Home Secretary to outlaw such things as forced marriage, can we really continue to excuse ourselves for not putting people who practice this casteism on the wrong side of the law?

There has been a timeline to this. In November 2009, the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance published its report, “Hidden Apartheid—Voice of the Community”, highlighting lower-caste experiences of caste discrimination. Between April 2009 and April 2010, during parliamentary debates on the Equality Bill, Dalit organisations sought to persuade parliamentarians to include caste as a new protected characteristic.

On 1 October 2010, the Equality Act 2010 came into force. The caste power found in section 9(5)(a) of the Act allows amendment by ministerial order

“to provide for caste to be an aspect of race”.

In December 2010—I am halfway through these dates now, by the way—an independent research report asked for by the last Government was published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. It suggested that caste discrimination and harassment were falling outside the Act. The coalition Government are still considering that report.

In August 2011, Amardeep and Vijay Begraj, a married couple—he had been working in a solicitor’s firm as a manager, and she had been working as a solicitor—came before the courts. The argument was that he, and I think she, as well, had been fired because their union, being from different castes, had not been approved of. The Home Secretary then publicly considered whether to add the caste system to the equality law.

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[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

Order. Two Members are standing.

[Mr Holloway]

I was so interested in what my hon. Friend was saying—that is what happened there. I am sorry, Dr McCrea.

[Mark Reckless]

My understanding was that the Government had given a commitment that it would bring in this order, so why has it not happened?

[Mr Holloway]

The Government will tell us in a moment, which is part of the reason why I have called this debate.

On 1 March, the Minister present made a statement. She announced that the Government were thinking of taking an educational approach to this and would use Talk for a Change. However, the NIESR criticised that, saying that it only raises awareness and does not assist people being discriminated against by their employer, nor by such things as day care centres.

The Government then asked the Equality and Human Rights Commission to review and make recommendations. In April 2013, the Minister was asked to sign the ministerial order and on 29 July, the Government published their caste discrimination legislation timetable. It will run up to and beyond the 2015 general election. On 5 February, the Begraj tribunal was abandoned, because the judge recused herself when she was told by a third party that a witness in the case had had their home smashed up by an unknown group. On 28 February, the EHRC published its two reports on the matter and called on the Government to add in the necessary protections on caste.

Let me just give a brief outline of caste in the UK. According to the 2011 census, about 4.5 million in this country are of south Asian origin. Of those, about 20% are from the untouchables, the Chamars, the Dalit community—I think it is about 860,000 people.

What is the Hindu caste system? Who are these 1 million Dalits in the UK and where do they fit in? Imagine a pyramid and at the very top, there are the gods, and then there are four castes. The top caste, the elite, are the Brahmins; these are the people who traditionally were the priests. Then there are the Kshatriyas; they are just below the Brahmins and were traditionally the warriors and the kings. Below them, there are the Vaishyas, who were the merchants and the farmers. Below them, at the bottom, there are the Shudras, who were the servants. Below even them, by this narrative, right at the very bottom—sometimes not even included in pretty pyramids like the one I have here in my notes—are the Dalits. They are known to some as the handlers of filth, or the untouchables.

This really is happening in the UK. After lunch, we were looking on Twitter. People can have a look themselves. They should look for “Brahmin for life”, “Jat for life” and “Brahmin boys look out for each other”. There are even dating websites. There is nothing wrong with that, but what about www.brahminmatrimony.com or this from www.asiansinglesolution.com? X is an

“Attractive, down to earth, caring, Hindu Brahmin girl with strong values and morals”.

As previously mentioned, 80% of the Dalits in the survey said that they did not believe that the police would understand if caste-based discrimination was reported to them.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend called for this debate. Does he share my concern at what I would characterise as the nonchalant, “Who cares?” ignorance of discrimination being pursued by the current Government’s policy in this regard? Somehow they believe that the discrimination that he has just spoken about will magically end at the workplace—that somehow because there is discrimination protection outside, we do not need to have any protections inside the workplace. Does he not think that that is nonchalant?

[Mr Holloway]

I will come on to that, and I know that the work that the Minister is doing also applies to it.

There has been recent court action. There was the successful case of Tirkey v. Chandok, in which the claim for caste discrimination was allowed. However, these are just what I think are called first instance decisions and are not binding. According to Swan Turton Solicitors, there was a conflicting ruling in an earlier case, Naveed v. Aslam, in which the tribunal rejected any claims for caste discrimination. It was stated that the reason was that the Government still had not exercised their power to amend section 9(5)(a) of the 2010 Act.

The simple fact is that at present, if a person in the UK is harassed because of their caste in places of employment or education or where they receive public services such as health and social care, there is no legislation in place to protect them. Let us not overstate this, but in the past few weeks I have repeatedly come upon people who have said, for example, that they feel like they are looked down on by members of what would be traditional castes. People have told me of their disapproval of inter-caste marriage. I have heard anecdotes about some people not having had the choice of marrying the person whom they would like to marry. I have even heard about people who have not felt welcome at certain places of worship.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I know that he is very well respected in the south Asian community in his constituency, which neighbours mine. Will he comment on what I have found? I do not know whether my experience is similar to his own. I am talking about just how shocking the caste system and discrimination within it can be. We see classism existing in every community, but this goes way beyond that to create a great deal of friction between different groups of people. Most concerns come from within those communities themselves.

[Mr Holloway]

That is a great point. What my hon. Friend is talking about is the fact that in our areas we have a lot of Sikhs, and of course among the central tenets of the Sikh faith are tolerance, equality and so on. I know that the Sikhs, certainly on our shared patch, are working on it, but this occurs far more widely across the south Asian communities in our country.

What is the reason for saying that we need some sort of legislation? It is as I have suggested. In the area of employment, there is the example of a manager of a bus company in, I think, Southampton who had to deal with a demand from someone that his shifts be changed so that he would not have to work with someone of a lower caste. Twenty per cent. of Dalits felt that they had been informally excluded from social events, informal networks and so on.

In the area of health, the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance reported a few cases. One related to an elderly woman who was being looked after. Her carer, who was from a “higher” caste, found an icon indicating that the person she was looking after was from a lower caste, and the son of the bedbound woman found that his mother had not been washed for a number of days. We have had examples of physiotherapists refusing to treat people of lower caste. In the area of marriage, we have heard of the Begraj case. We have heard of people feeling unable to marry outside their caste.

What could legislation do? It could send the message that castes have never existed in Britain and really should not. It would protect people in workplaces, schools, hospitals and so on.

The Government’s commitment on these issues has been welcomed by victims of caste discrimination and forms just one part of the wider reforms being put forward. The Home Secretary has outlawed forced marriages, which are, as she rightly put it,

“a tragedy for each and every victim”.

Female genital mutilation is also illegal in this country. I am not sure, therefore, that we can necessarily use the argument that we might upset certain people in the south Asian community.

I forewarned the Minister of these three questions. First, the Government have published a timetable for caste discrimination legislation. Why does it run up to and beyond the 2015 general election? Secondly, will the Government involve the relevant groups and communities in their preparation of the public consultation document? It would be very good to see the involvement of some of those groups in that consultation. Finally, in plain English, when will the consultation document be published; does the Minister expect any further delays?

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

The Minister will start her winding-up speech at the latest at two minutes past 5. She will have 10 minutes in which to wind up the debate.