Why NJ hasn’t banned caste-based discrimination

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Deelip Mhaske says he has been lobbying New Jersey lawmakers for 15 years to pass legislation that would criminalize caste-based discrimination. Yet he has been unsuccessful in these efforts, even as the issue has hit home in the Garden State.

Mhaske and fellow activists attribute this failure to the Hindu nationalist movement currently in power in India, saying powerful national lobbying groups are influencing U.S. policies as they relate to the South Asian community.

Although this is difficult to prove in New Jersey without an active bill under consideration, the chief opponents of a similar bill vetoed in California by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year were the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and the Coalition of Hindus of North America, groups that have also publicly stated their opposition to a caste bill in New Jersey. (A similar initiative passed and is now law in Seattle.)

Former New Jersey Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer, who worked with Mhaske last year to try to introduce a bill, said opposition from those groups is having an influence on New Jersey’s ability to address caste-based discrimination.

“There is certainly some fear of groups who want to deny that caste discrimination is an issue—the same groups who protested that in California,” she said, saying the opponents are “right-wing Hindu nationalist groups and don’t like the idea of anyone bringing attention to caste discrimination in the U.S.”

India’s caste system is a social structure that places people into a hierarchy based on their community of birth. Those at the bottom of the caste system are called “Dalits” or “untouchables.” Although it is most closely associated with Hinduism, caste exists in countries and religions across South Asia, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Sikhism.

While caste originated in South Asia, a report by the nonprofit Equality Labs found that Dalits in the U.S. have experienced caste-based discrimination at their workplaces, schools, stores and religious spaces. In a 2016 survey, the group found that 25 percent of Dalit respondents said they had faced verbal or physical assault based on their caste.

As a Dalit in New Jersey, Mhaske said he has been denied a job promotion and targeted online for lobbying on the issue. In 2023, he worked with BBC News to see if temples in the U.S. would allow Dalits to perform a pooja, but none of the 120 temples he contacted responded to his request to enter the temple as a Dalit. 

The issue of caste in New Jersey made national headlines when a lawsuit was filed against the BAPS temple in Robbinsville, accusing the builders of using forced labor by Dalits from India to construct the temple. While the alleged labor violations at the BAPS temple are the most visible example, caste-based discrimination can take the form of everyday slights, exclusion from social groups and gatherings and harassment with caste-related slurs. 

Not everyone sees a need to act. State Sen. Raj Mukherji, who represents New Jersey’s 32nd district, said such legislation may be unnecessary. 

“Caste discrimination appears to already be illegal under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination,” he said. “If an aggrieved party has been unsuccessful in seeking a remedy or there are examples of discriminatory conduct that our state’s laws don’t presently address, I suspect this issue would get more attention and lawmakers would pursue a legislative fix. Affected constituents need to contact their legislators whenever they are being shortchanged by the law.”

The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination prohibits discrimination based on several categories, including ancestry and religion, but does not specifically include caste. 

Jaffer said she wants her fellow legislators or anyone else who questions the need for such legislation to understand that, “If community members are telling us that they are facing discrimination in New Jersey, then we should listen to them.”

Opposition to legislation

One of the concerns activists have raised about these national groups is the possible ties they have with the Hindu right movement in India, where the national government has openly discriminated against Dalits, Muslims and other marginalized groups.

One example is a donation disclosed on HAF’s tax forms from the Bhutada Family Foundation. The foundation is led by Ramesh Bhutada, a leader of the overseas counterpart of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s most prominent Hindu nationalist organization. 

When asked about the organization’s connection to Hindu nationalist groups, HAF spokesman Mat McDermott said, “The organization does not comment on specific donors.”

“Discrimination based on caste is a violation of Hindu principles,” he added. “We firmly believe that existing protections can and should be interpreted to include discrimination based on caste.” 

HAF contends that banning caste-based discrimination could unfairly target Hindus and Indians. 

Audrey Truschke, a Rutgers University professor who has studied Hindu right organizations, said such groups are active with considerable resources in the U.S., including backing from groups in India. 

“All the organized pushback against adding caste as a protected category is by Hindu nationalist groups,” she said.

Push to add caste protections to Rutgers contract

Absent legislative traction, activists tried a new tack last year, attempting to add caste as a protected category against discrimination in the faculty union contract of Rutgers University. Several American universities have added similar clauses, and the graduate students behind that effort said they thought adding such language would help advance efforts to get a state law.

Yet the efforts stalled there, too: Activists said they faced opposition from university board members and ultimately were only able to secure a side letter to the contract that established a task force to “examine issues of caste discrimination.”

A Rutgers University graduate student who was in the working group to add caste to the contract and spoke to Central Desi on the condition of anonymity, said that the activists received “massive pushback” from Rutgers University board members about adding caste protections to the contract. 

She said it was clear that the university’s board was “extremely worried about the optics of adding this category in a university with a huge upper caste, dominant caste South Asian population.”

Rutgers University did not respond to a request for comment. 

Meanwhile, Truschke said she has heard numerous accounts of caste-based discrimination on campus from current students and alums, but that many fear retaliation if they report it.

“We fled from India to get out of this system,” Mhaske said.

Sofia Ahmed is a reporting fellow for Central Desi.

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