I am an American Sikh.
But I grew up in India and was witness to its deeply entrenched system of caste discrimination. Unfortunately, the same happens here in the US, on the basis of race and skin color. Equally sadly, quite a few Indians who now live and work in the US, have brought their caste biases here with them.
And that is why I think that the new 19-foot tall ‘Statue of Equality’, of Babasaheb Ambedkar at the Ambedkar International Centre (AIC) at Accokeek, Maryland, is a good idea. Since I live in nearby Delaware, I made the two-hour drive to Accokeek for the statue’s unveiling.
I’m glad I went.
A 19-foot tall statue of B R Ambedkar during its inauguration, in Maryland.
(Photo: PTI)
An Unforgettable Incident From 1982
Contrary to some assumptions, I discovered during my school days itself, that caste discrimination is pervasive even among Sikhs, despite the fact that our Gurus strongly preached against it. It’s nearly impossible for a non-Jat Sikh to become a chief minister of Punjab. Jat Sikhs are the dominant caste. Even Punjabi pop songs that don’t mention or allude to the idea of being a ‘Jat’ are rare.
A morning from 1982 is unforgettable for me.
I was a seventh-grade student at one of India’s finest boarding schools in Nabha, Punjab. I was visiting my uncle who owned farmland nearby, and was with my older cousin who was operating a tube well to water their paddy fields. My cousin signaled to a young Dalit girl who was working in the fields. She came over to us. Next, as if the two had rehearsed this scene several times before, they silently entered the bricked enclosure that sheltered the mechanism of the tube well.
“Keep looking …no one should come to this side …for ten minutes,” my cousin told me while pushing the wooden planks of the room door shut.
At the time, I was old enough to know what would happen in those “ten minutes,” but I didn’t understand the reasons behind the depraved sexual exploitation until much later - the fields were, and for many in Indian villages, still are, the only places to defecate in the morning, where toilets and sewage are lacking. More so, for the poorer lower castes.
The tube wells owned by bigger farmers were also convenient for washing laundry and large utensils. Lower caste women submitting to sexual exploitation would be able to access the fields and the tube wells. It also increased their chances of being hired to work on the farms.
The Unveiling of Ambedkar’s Statue
Almost 40 years later, in faraway USA, a fellow Delaware Sikh American whom I expected to come along to the landmark unveiling of Ambedkar’s statue, called me early that morning to say he couldn’t accompany me. “Why,” I asked. “I don’t want to be among these low castes,” he told me, wearing his casteism brazenly on his sleeve.
However, I was able to take another friend along - a Hindu Brahmin, Surinder “Shinda” Sharma - to Accokeek. A couple of the organisers of the event were pleasantly surprised to see a ‘Brahmin’ turn up, which is actually a sad comment on how caste biases exist among our diaspora Indians as well.
Despite the heavy rain that also ‘graced’ the occasion, the turnout did exceed the organizers' expectations. Finding a parking spot was a struggle. The large shamiana and chairs for the audience fell short. But many of us were happy to brave the weather in our raincoats.
Despite the heavy rain that also ‘graced’ the occasion, the turnout did exceed the organizers' expectations.
(Photo: Author)
Bravo to Professor Gaurav Pathania, the event’s host, who likened the showers to a blessing from God for Babasaheb—who was denied drinking water at many places because of his caste. Hearing him mention reminded me of the “No peon, no water” story about Ambedkar’s childhood.
The organisers of the event.
(Photo: Author)
At school, apart from being seated apart from upper caste students, Dalit students like young Bhimrao, were also not allowed to touch the drinking tap water. A peon would turn on the tap, and he would have to drink without touching the tap. And if the peon missed school for some reason, then on that day, Dalit students had to manage without drinking water.
Accokeek resonated with slogans of “Jai, Jai, Jai, Jai Bhim” before and after the unveiling. The rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the participants, who danced and sang even as the ground below their feet turned slushy.
The rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the participants, who danced and sang even as the ground below their feet turned slushy.
(Photo: Author)
Indian Diaspora in the US: The Ugly Realities of Caste Inequality
I am a software entrepreneur and have benefited from the USA’s robust democratic institutions and transparent business climate. But subtle casteism still prevails. There are Dalits in the workforce of several tech companies, but in the upper management, very few. Even today, the most successful Indian executives in America, are Brahmins.
Is it an accident that Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), Sunder Pichai (Google and Alphabet CEO), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe CEO), Arvind Krishna (IBM CEO), Indira Nooyi (former PepsiCo CEO), Vikram Pandit (former Citigroup CEO) — are all Brahmins? Ajay Banga, the former Mastercard CEO and current World Bank president, is no Dalit.
The list is long.
Most Indians in America are upper caste, and while they are not all Brahmins, they are mostly non-Dalits. In 2003, only 1.5 percent of Indian immigrants in the United States were Dalits or members of lower castes, according to the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2022, Time magazine reported, ‘The ugly realities of caste inequality and discrimination also shape the lives of South Asian communities in the diaspora. In the US, two recent lawsuits have exposed the pervasiveness of caste dynamics far beyond the borders of South Asia.’
One of those lawsuits was against a technology behemoth, Cisco Systems, where a Dalit subordinate was allegedly harassed and discriminated against by his two high-caste managers.
The other case was against the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) Trust, by Dalits who were brought from India on ‘R1 visas’ meant for religious workers, but then allegedly forced into underpaid, exploitative construction work on a Hindu temple in New Jersey.
Some argue that upper caste members are more qualified and ‘better’ at work. But is the comparison fair or even logical? Haven’t the centuries of deprivation and subjugation played an undermining role in Dalits’ lives and capabilities? Greater access to quality education and job and business opportunities have an enabling role.
And that applies to all people. If not, then why has no Indian citizen won a Nobel Prize in science or economics since 1947? Only Indians who migrated to the US and the UK have. Har Gobind Khorana (Medicine), Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar (Physics), Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Chemistry), Amartya Sen (Economics), and Abhijit Banerjee (Economics) are the examples that come to mind.
The only Pakistani (ironically, many in Pakistan didn’t consider him Muslim because he was an ‘Ahmadi’) to get a Nobel Prize was Mohammed Abdus Salam, but only after his immigration to the UK.
Unfortunately, in the US too, upper caste power is coming in the way of Dalits' access to legal safeguards and protections. No wonder, California’s governor vetoed a bill passed by both chambers of the legislature saying that statutes for them already exist.
Really? How then, does caste-based discrimination continue to thrive in America?
According to NPR (National Public Radio), which reported on the findings of a ‘Caste in the United States” survey in 2018 – 66 percent of Dalits “have faced workplace discrimination in the US, due to their caste”. 41 percent have experienced discrimination in education because of it. And 25 percent say they've faced physical assault — all in the United States.
Undisputedly, like America needed the famed Statue of Liberty at one time to inspire freedom at home and abroad, it badly needs a Statue of Equality now. Who can embody that inspiration than our Babasaheb Ambedkar?
(Charanjeet Minhas is a US based Tech Entrepreneur, running his own companies – Tekstrom and Qualitree Inc. He is also Chairman of the Delaware Sikh Coalition, and Secretary of Delaware Interfaith Power and Light, which is a multi-religious community response to Climate Change. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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