Caste in the diaspora: Young Indian Americans grapple with an inherited hierarchy

By Rajiv Shah 

A few days back, I happened to attend an interesting conversation among a group of young Indian Americans in Los Angeles. The theme proposed a deceptively simple proposition: can caste travel with people who leave India? The answer, the discussion made clear, is that it can—and that for a younger generation of the Indian diaspora, caste is not a subject safely confined to family histories, Indian villages, or the pages of social reform literature.

Sitting in a cozy, well-spread-out, open-air coffee house in a housing locality, the group—which included college students, teachers, engineers, all working in the world's most well-known entertainment capital—was given a typed discussion note titled “Savarna behaviours – habits, privileges, and unconscious biases,” developed by Dipti Baranwal, who appeared to be the chief organiser.

I didn't know any of the dozens of participants, but went there after receiving an email alert from a diaspora group called Hindus for Human Rights, in order to find out what young Indians—some settled in the US temporarily, others permanently—thought about caste. The "invitation" specifically said: "HfHR Los Angeles is back. Join the chapter for an open discussion of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s 'Annihilation of Caste', examining how caste dominance appears in everyday life and how we can disrupt and unlearn it." 

In fact, I was the odd one out among them—retired, though still trying to remain active as a blogger and journalist. All the others were young, full of energy, and struggling to carve out futures for themselves.

The note prepared by Baranwal—social media tells me she teaches English in a Los Angeles school—made for interesting reading: it asked participants, most of whom appeared mainly to belong to traditionally privileged castes, to examine not merely overt prejudice but the less visible habits through which privilege can reproduce itself.

It begins by defining “Savarna behaviors” as “the social habits, privileges, and unconscious biases of people belonging to India’s upper-caste groups.” It argues that such behaviours can “reinforce systemic inequality while maintaining an outward appearance of neutrality, modernism, or progressive values.”

The note appeared to pose an important question to the participants: what does caste look like when it is transported into an American setting, where the vocabulary of discrimination is more commonly framed around race, ethnicity, gender, or class? The participants were asked to discuss in groups their personal experiences related to caste bias, even as the exercise offered some uncomfortable answers.

Among the twelve behaviours the note identified as found among Indian Americans were: “Not seeing or knowing about caste,” “Assuming that your experience is normal and everyone is just like you,” “Insisting that your intentions are more important than how you affected someone,” “Speaking dominantly,” and “Exceptionalizing yourself: I do that but it's because...”

Perhaps the most revealing part was the note's advice on listening. “Listen more than we speak,” it urged. “Do not speak first.” Participants were asked to notice “who has already engaged in conversation” and not to interrupt, and to pay attention even to something as physical as whether “your back is turned to someone” or whether you are blocking somebody's path.

The underlying idea was that privilege is not always a declaration of superiority. Sometimes it is simply the unquestioned expectation that one's own way of occupying a room, a conversation, or an institution is the normal way.

The youngsters discussed the note at length. They spoke about how their families in India—and in some cases in the US—looked at caste, especially regarding Dalits. While a few of them agreed that there was a bias in their families, others said that in the US they rarely discussed or recognised caste as an issue or a form of discrimination.

Thereafter, one of the more active participants, holding a copy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste in her hand, began to tell us about the book—which featured a lengthy introduction by the well-known Indian English author Arundhati Roy. She quoted Roy to illustrate the differences between Mahatma Gandhi and Ambedkar.

Ambedkar's seminal book was originally meant to be a 1935 speech at a Jat-Pat Todak Mandal in Lahore, but it was cancelled after its organisers objected to its radical critique of Hindu scriptures. Ambedkar subsequently published it himself. The annotated edition used for the discussion carries Roy's lengthy introduction, which, we were told, deliberately places Ambedkar's arguments alongside the political and intellectual career of Gandhi.

The discussion became more complicated—and more interesting—when Gandhi entered the room. Some participants pointed to Ambedkar's profound disagreements with Gandhi over caste. They noted that Ambedkar did not believe untouchability could be separated from the larger structure of caste, whereas Gandhi, for a considerable period, distinguished between caste and varna and believed that the latter could be retained while untouchability was eradicated. Ambedkar's position was considerably more radical: the hierarchy itself had to go.

Roy's account also opened the uncomfortable question of Gandhi's early views on race in South Africa. Roy was cited as saying that Gandhi's pronouncements about Black Africans, untouchables, and the labouring classes remained insulting for much of his adult life. That observation led some of the youngsters to question the uncomplicated image of Gandhi that many Indians, including those abroad, inherit.

However, I tried to sound a different note, stating Roy was basically a litterateur, and not an expert, adding, she has changed her views over time on Gandhi. I suggested it wasn't correct to turn the historical relationship between the two men into a simple morality play. Gandhi and Ambedkar were adversaries on fundamental questions, but they were not simply personal enemies.

Gandhi publicly defended Ambedkar's right to publish and be heard after the Lahore conference withdrew its invitation. In Harijan, Gandhi described Ambedkar as a man who had “carved out for himself a unique position in society” and argued that no reformer could afford to ignore his address.

Someone even highlighted Gandhi's allegedly patriarchal mindset, referring to his personal life. I recalled that he has been frank in publicly admitting this—very unusual for any political leader.

I cited the extent to which some Dalits go in their hatred toward Gandhi, referring to a blog I had written where I mentioned the instance of a well-known Valmiki grassroots leader who, in a social media post, publicly justified the murder of Gandhi by Nathuram Godse. It's another matter that this leader later regretted his action.

I said that Gandhi held Ambedkar in high esteem, and that but for his intervention, the latter would not have headed the Constituent Assembly, which drafted the Indian Constitution. I also asked: name another national freedom leader who fought untouchability as Gandhi did—not even Jawaharlal Nehru or Sardar Patel.

To me, Gandhi's campaign against untouchability has always appeared genuine; it appealed to millions of dominant-caste people during the freedom movement. I have the example of my mother, Vanlila Kinariwala (Shah after marriage), a freedom fighter who was banished from her home for refusing to repent her decision to go and have meals with those regarded as untouchables. Gandhi's conviction against untouchability wasn't very far from Ambedkar's—that untouchability could not be destroyed without destroying the caste order that sustained it. Gandhi and Ambedkar therefore offer something more useful to a young audience than competing saints: they offer a history of argument.

Hasn't that history acquired a new urgency among Indian Americans? I have wondered this during my trips to the US since retiring from The Times of India in 2013, during my interactions with NRIs. After all, caste has become increasingly visible within debates about the Indian diaspora in the United States.

One recent turning point was the California litigation involving Cisco, in which the state alleged caste-based discrimination against a Dalit engineer—a participant in the group discussion pointedly referred to the incident. Cisco denied the allegations and said its investigation had not substantiated caste-based discrimination. The case nevertheless brought the vocabulary of caste into an American workplace conversation that had previously been framed largely through race, national origin, and ethnicity.

The issue subsequently entered American local politics. In February 2023, Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste explicitly to its anti-discrimination protections. The city's ordinance identifies caste discrimination as something that can manifest in employment, education, and housing. This was followed in September 2023 by the adoption of an ordinance protecting against discrimination based on caste and indigeneity.

California then became the centre of a much larger argument. Senate Bill 403, sponsored by Senator Aisha Wahab, passed the California Senate 34–1 and subsequently passed the Assembly 50–3 after being amended to treat caste as a form of ancestry. Supporters argued that explicit recognition was necessary because caste discrimination was not always captured clearly by existing law; opponents thought the legislation was unnecessary and risked stigmatising South Asians or particular religious communities. Governor Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed the measure, saying existing protections based on ancestry and national origin were sufficient.

There is also a broader international dimension to this issue. Dalit organisations and leaders have for decades sought to place caste within the international human-rights framework, sometimes explicitly drawing parallels with racial discrimination. At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, Dalit activists argued that caste discrimination was analogous in its effects to racism and should be treated as an international human-rights concern.

The argument has since acquired an institutional foothold at the United Nations. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination's General Recommendation 29 holds that discrimination based on “descent” includes discrimination against communities affected by caste and analogous systems of inherited status. Dalit advocacy organisations have argued that while caste and race may be distinct social phenomena, they produce comparable forms of exclusion. The International Dalit Solidarity Network explicitly says that caste is “distinct from the concept of race,” while arguing that both can produce political, economic, and social exclusion—and that caste discrimination therefore belongs within the international human-rights system.