Caste discrimination has shed its cloak of invisibility, says Annapurna Waughray
I last wrote for NLJ in 2007 highlighting the lack of official recognition of caste discrimination in UK law. I argued that the Equalities Review—the overhaul of the UK’s equality framework which culminated in the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010)—provided an ideal opportunity to bring caste within the ambit of discrimination law (see “Caste: invisible discrimination?”157 NLJ 7263, pp 348-349). In the event, the Labour government decided not to add caste to the list of protected characteristics in the Equality Bill, citing as the main reason the lack of evidence of caste discrimination in spheres covered by discrimination legislation.
Moving forward, in November 2009 the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance, a non-governmental organisation, published Hidden Apartheid: Voice of the Community, a report highlighting lower-caste experiences of caste discrimination in the UK in legally protected spheres (employment, education, provision of services and so on). The report’s title referred to the comparison between caste and the practice of untouchability in India, and apartheid, made by Human Rights Watch and other non-governmental organisations, and notably in 2006
