The so-called anti-caste discrimination legislation is making its way through the Californian state legislature. The latest news is that the state Senate has approved it and next is approval by the assembly which should be a cakewalk in a liberal state. A liberal Governor will then take a call. No prizes for guessing which way.
A lot of hand wringing and breast beating is going on among sections of the Hindu community over this bill. I do respect both sides – the ones championing it and the ones opposing it. Obviously, at least some among the former have genuine concerns driving them and similarly, the latter is driven by a genuine fear of side effects. And the real intentions of the proponents.
However, every time a Hindu or Hindu organisation says something against the bill, the left liberals must be chuckling in delight and rubbing their palms or back-slapping each other. As if George Soros will give another $1m to their NGO or PAC to spend on Chianti or family. Why? Because they got you in the very trap they wanted you in. They are very happy to see you twist yourself into a pretzel opposing the move without sounding casteist while they happily throw abuse at you.
Instead, we must look carefully at the real motives of the fringe left and the bigger picture. We must separate the wheat from the chaff and the agendas of the manipulators and the manipulated.
Dalit groups are going along with the fringe left without realising the real agendas and objectives of the largely upper-caste Stalinist Indian left. Just as African Americans are forced to support the loony left-woke elite, which is mostly rich whites. A lot of damage will be done before realisation dawns. A few blacks (or Dalits and OBC) that challenge this powerful elite cabal are attacked as “Sarkari” or its American equivalent and face even more abuse than others.
Coming to the agendas of the Indian left that choreographs these moves, the key objective is the denial of the protective umbrella of being a minority to Hindus anywhere in the world – an intellectual equivalent of declaring them wajib-ul-qatl (or fit to be killed). The result is, anyone can commit any atrocity against Hindus, spin it as anti-Hindutva and the left-liberal establishment will provide support services. This trick was tried in London and now even Kashmiri terrorist groups are calling themselves “Anti-Hindutva fascists” to legitimise their murders and try to get liberal endorsements. Woke lingo has become the lingua franca of the jihadists and throat slitters.
While Hindus are denied minority rights simply because they are the majority here in India, Muslims enjoy protection as a minority everywhere even where they are majority simply because they are a minority in the West. Even the mildest genuine criticism is banned, blacked out or cancelled. Even on matters that concern human rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ, FGM etc., the left establishment will shut out anyone that comments. Even if it is done by well-meaning Muslims like Tarek Fatah (Om Shanti Fatah saheb, you were a brave hero!) trying to reform their own community.
The bizarre aspect of this protective umbrella is that even if Islamist groups commit atrocities where they ARE majority – such as ISIS crimes versus Yazidis, or Pakistan’s pogrom on its Hindu or Sikh minority, talking about them is banned by liberals as it would “offend” minority in North America!
Indian left’s anti-Hindu hate is now programmed into mainstream Western liberal SOPs.
What has this got to do with USA and the SB403?
Simple – kicking up a storm over caste and filling columns help them continue this illogical and inhuman policy of regarding Hindus as the “majority” even in communities where they are not and hence stay silent on any atrocities.
In addition to this, with the rise of woke left in the USA and the smell of dollars flowing from its powerful patron saints like George Soros driving agendas, the Indian left has recalibrated its position. Shrill anti-Americanism has been set aside in favour of woke priorities on pronouns etc (read my earlier article on Kavita Krishnan). Open worship of rapist savages, despots and mass murderers in the left pantheon has given way to pro-Ukraine noise and anti-Russian propaganda. “Amadher chairman” Xi Jinping may have been told, please wait while we make our moolah, we can get back to serving you later. In any case, the woke destruction of American social and corporate life and its competitiveness suits China.
As you very well know, to continue its dominance over economic and social affairs, the largely white elite left of the US (and other Western countries) has adopted meaningless verbiage and pointless symbolism as a powerful weapon. California left is also driving a move to provide reparations for all black residents! You can safely bet not a cent will be paid – just a lot of noise and media coverage. That’s enough.
Yet another objective behind this BLM, caste, reparations empty noise is to use them as levers to take control of media including social media and effectively censor any non-left voice of their choosing. Just declare them as “hate” and ban them. No other explanation or proof needs to be provided. This is how Twitter was run by the left Gestapo. It is exactly what Stalin, Mao or PolPot did only updated with the latest woke rhetoric. This cancel culture and dictatorship in universities, media etc. has reached crazy heights and is being challenged but it is a long battle.
This is the political and cultural landscape in which SB403 is being pushed and by now it should be obvious as to why.
By cleverly shifting the narrative to caste, they are killing many birds with one stone – shut you up and not let you talk about Hinduphobia. Putting you on the defensive. Monopolising the victim card. Making their own silent approval of anti-Hindu atrocities, be it rapes and forced conversions in Pakistan or grooming in London a non-issue and a sin to discuss. More importantly, split the Hindus so that we will be attacking each other presenting an easier target and not tackling common community issues.
It is exactly this trap that Hindus risk falling in by raising their voice against SB403. It is exactly why I said this is exactly what they want you to do! Now that’s four exactly in one para!
As I mentioned earlier, this pointless virtue signalling will amount to nothing of value.
Of course, this lead to a lot of frivolous lawsuits and abuse of process – much like what is happening in India. A lot of the ambulance chasers in the legal fraternity will now start chasing Indian Americans to see if the caste issue can be worked into any lawsuit so they can get 50% or whatever it is of a much higher amount. Let us ignore that for now.
If you think carefully, American laws already ban discrimination and have put in place a lot of things to make sure it is implemented. And given the unique mix of races, religions and cultures in the US, the laws are wide enough. There is really no need to ban caste discrimination because it is not as if it was allowed earlier. Just as there is no need for separate racial discrimination laws for various shades of skin colour – yellow, brown, dark brown etc. Or brown vs black or yellow versus brown. It’s all there. If you doubt me, just go ahead, be my guest and try to be a violator!
In fact, you can read the “anti-discrimination” verbiage that corporates put in their websites, hiring ads or other marketing collateral, you will find practically every form of discrimination imaginable is worked in – other than not liking Yanni’s music perhaps. After all high price lawyers draft these things.
I am not trying to trivialise the experience of a few Indians that may have faced such discrimination in the US. Obviously, I am not supporting such hate. All discrimination is bad. All I am saying is, this new “law” is completely pointless, at least in the US. It may make sense, in, say, China or Japan where tough anti-discrimination laws probably don’t exist. Moreover, American corporates have “lawyered up” and evolved defence mechanisms to handle such laws.
Even in the most “Indianised” of the American corporate sector – IT and big tech, the number of Indians is minuscule as a percentage. I am not referring to Indian companies like TCS with branches there. If you are a low caste Indian employee of, say, Google, your chances of bad treatment at the hands of fellow Indians, that too for caste, will remain low or statistically meaningless – and to repeat, even before such laws, you had recourse anyway.
If big tech wants to sack a lower caste Hindu for being unproductive or whatever, they will not ask Mr. Iyer or Dubey to do it. They can easily put together a team of Chinese, Blacks or Hispanics to review the work and do exactly that to get around the law. They have all learned to live with such virtue signalling do-good laws which abound in the US. Why do you think each company is stampeding the other to pander to woke narratives on pronouns, BLM and Ukraine? It takes a few cents to change your web page, a few thousand dollars to hire a consultant to make your SOPs “compliant”. This law will just add one more item to that check list. Life goes on.
Unlike Indian institutions like IITs where caste discrimination can be a real issue, in the US our student population is just one among dozens of races and cultures. Hence the chances are not only far lower, but existing remedial mechanisms should also more than suffice.
The entire payoff for the liberals is only when we Hindus get over-excited and start fighting each other. Then they can easily make THAT news and not the killings in Pakistan or the hate in London or the beheadings in India, which they facilitate through their silence or obfuscation.
