Caste-based Discrimination

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to combat caste-based discrimination in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by paying two short tributes. The first is to the late Lord Avebury, who died in February. Eric fought persistently for human rights in all forms, not least against caste-based discrimination. We miss his tenacious refusal to be deflected from this goal. The other person is Dr Ambedkar, the 125th anniversary of whose birth has been celebrated this year. Dr Ambedkar was the architect of the Indian constitution with its fundamental principles of equality and justice and which outlawed caste-related untouchability.

Perhaps I may make two clarifying points. First, what we are concerned about is discrimination in the public sphere. If people have deeply ingrained beliefs about who their children should or should not marry, we may have views about it but the law has no locus. The law is concerned with what happens in public. It exists to ensure that there is no discrimination in the areas of employment, education and the provision of public goods and services. Secondly, we are concerned with caste as a social phenomenon, which has affected all religions from the Indian subcontinent, including Christianity and Islam. Sadly, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, has had to withdraw his name from this debate. He was going to speak forcefully about his experience of caste-based discrimination among Muslims of Pakistani origin in Bradford.

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 amended Section 9(5) of the Equality Act 2010 to provide that the Government,

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

The word used is “must”, with no equivocation or qualification, and what we are talking about is an Act of Parliament passed by both Houses.

In July 2013 the Government introduced a timetable which set out a series of steps, including a public consultation, which was to lead to the implementation of this Act in the summer of 2015. As part of the process Ministers approved a feasibility study to be conducted into if and how it might be possible to estimate the extent of caste-based discrimination in Britain. A consortium conducted the research in the autumn of 2014. The consortium’s report was due in November 2014, but it is yet to be published. My first question to the Minister therefore is: why has this research not been published? The question posed by the Government was clear enough. Is it or is it not possible to estimate the extent of caste-based discrimination in the UK? If it is possible, why has this not been carried out? If it is not possible, or if there is a downside to doing so, we need to hear the reason for that. In either case, there is no good reason to stop the process there or to refuse to go into a public consultation. It is not necessary to know the extent of caste-based discrimination in the UK to put into effect the clear decision of both Houses of Parliament. Even if caste-based discrimination in the public sphere were not extensive, it exists and Parliament has made it clear that it should be made illegal.

I took steps myself to interview someone who had experienced discrimination in employment and I found his case entirely convincing. When we have raised these issues in the past, the Government have repeatedly cited the Tirkey v Chandhok employment tribunal case as a reason for non-implementation of the legislation so far. In that case the tribunal noted that caste-based discrimination can constitute unlawful race discrimination in certain contexts and that caste should be an aspect of race as defined by Section 9(1) of the Equality Act 2010. However, the judge made it clear that he was dealing only with the facts of that case and was not making any more general point about caste and the law.

As the Equality and Human Rights Commission commented, the tribunal judgment,

“means that not all victims of caste discrimination will find remedy under the existing law. While it is helpful to have an EAT decision that the Act is capable of providing protection against caste discrimination, the judgment results in the position that each case in which caste discrimination is alleged will have to be considered on its own facts. While caste discrimination can be found to constitute unlawful race discrimination under the Act, this will not necessarily be so in all cases. Thus, the legal position remains unclear”.

It goes on to urge:

“In our view it is both necessary and desirable for the Government to implement Section 9(5) of the Equality Act 2010, in order to clarify that the Act’s prohibition of race discrimination and harassment includes protection against discrimination and harassment based on caste”.

I think the Minister, as well as the whole country, would find it quite intolerable if issues of discrimination on the basis of gender, race or religion were left simply to employment tribunals with no statute law to back them up. Why should discrimination on the grounds of caste be regarded as different? It is expensive and difficult for an individual to pursue a case via a tribunal in this way. Why should they be asked to do this when the law is quite clear on race, gender, religion and sexuality? Furthermore, as we know with all the other protected characteristics—gender, race, religion and sexuality—the law has had a hugely powerful educative effect. It cannot completely change what goes on in people’s minds and we still get instances of sexist, racist or homophobic abuse, but no one would deny that the law has brought about a fundamental change for the good in this area.

I have in my possession a letter from a women who wrote to me to say:

“My first experiences have been from an early age about being constantly asked what caste I am. I can only explain that it makes me feel like an outcast if you don’t conform to society’s ways of thinking. If you stand up against caste and explain there is no caste you are frowned upon and regarded as you have something to hide and that you’re probably from a so-called lower caste. I have been asked this question about my caste constantly at school, social events, Sikh temple and amongst friends. It’s an evil that is embedded in most Sikhs and no matter what an individual’s understanding of human rights and discrimination, they will still have the burning desire to ask the question and instantly form a negative or positive opinion of that person dependent on one’s caste. My daughter has been asked the same question in a religious education class at her secondary school … I hope this has given you a little insight as to how caste is a menace in society and people of all walks of life find it acceptable in their minds to enforce this form of discrimination”.

This is despite Sikhism being, in principle, totally opposed to the caste system, as the noble Lord, Lord Singh, has consistently stressed. We are dealing with a social phenomenon which has, sadly, permeated whole religious communities.

If the taunting of that woman’s children had been anti-Semitic or racist, the law would have stood behind attempts by the teachers or the community to outlaw that abuse. At the moment it does not, and it should. This is a matter of deep seriousness to the hundreds of thousands of Dalits in this country, who see their fellow citizens protected from discrimination on other grounds in a way they are not. It is for them and for organisations such as CasteWatch that I urge the Government to do their constitutional duty, as they are being urged to by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Those who are discriminated against find it totally intolerable that the clear will of both Houses of Parliament is being frustrated in this way and that, as will be stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, we remain in clear breach of our international obligations on this issue. I beg to move.