Prem Pariyar came to the United States to escape the ubiquitous caste discrimination he experienced growing up in Nepal. But like many other Dalits – members of the marginalized caste formerly known as “untouchables” – he found the same caste dynamics abroad.
While pursuing his master’s degree at California State University, East Bay, Mr. Pariyar that he faced derogatory comments and probing questions intended to tease his caste status. Dalit activists and allies say incidents of caste-based harassment and exclusion are common in countries with a large South Asian diaspora, but also widely underreported due to a lack of formal recognition in schools and the workplace.
Why we wrote this
The growing push to tackle caste discrimination outside of South Asia reflects a changing understanding of the caste system – and an emphasis on justice.
Several major colleges have recently addressed this by updating their non-discrimination policies. This year, thanks in large part to Mr Pariyar’s activism, CSU became the country’s first public university system to ban caste-based discrimination, taking effect on all 23 campuses. The new policy has sparked opposition from some faculty and Hindu groups, but has also revived efforts to fight caste discrimination in the US and back in Nepal.
Sarita Pariyar, board member of a Dalit think tank in Nepal, says CSU’s recognition of caste is an important message that “wherever Nepalese go, whether they go to the US or the moon, they will not accept untouchability.”
Kathmandu, Nepal
Prem Pariyar thought that an education abroad would be a way out of the caste discrimination he faced in central Nepal. But he was wrong.
Shortly after arriving in the United States, he accepted an invitation to lunch with a friend, someone he knew back home. When it came time to serve the meal, Mr. Pariyar – who is Dalit, an oppressed caste historically considered unclean or “untouchable” – was stopped by the host’s wife. “I was told not to approach the food because I would contaminate it,” recalled Mr. Pariyar himself. Caste discrimination does not require a visa. It travels everywhere.”
It’s a general story. Lower caste youth go abroad to escape discrimination and seek new opportunities. Once they arrive, they discover the same cabinet dynamics in the classroom and beyond. In recent years, several major U.S. colleges have updated their non-discrimination policies to include caste, including Brandeis University in 2019 and Colby College in 2021. Thanks in large part to Mr. Pariyar’s own activism, California State University became the first of these this year. the country’s public university system to prohibit caste-based discrimination. The new policy has sparked opposition from some faculty and Hindu groups, but has also revived efforts to fight caste discrimination in the US and back in Nepal.
Why we wrote this
The growing push to tackle caste discrimination outside of South Asia reflects a changing understanding of the caste system – and an emphasis on justice.
Sarita Pariyar, writer and board member of Samata Foundation, a Dalit think tank in Nepal, believes that CSU’s recognition of caste sends an important message to political leaders, educators and the public. “Wherever Nepalese go, whether they go to the US or the moon, they don’t accept untouchability,” Ms Pariyar says.
Forbidden, but ingrained
Like India and Sri Lanka, Nepal has a long history of caste. The hereditary system divided communities broadly according to the Hindu model of four social classes, or varna: Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriya (rulers and warriors), Vaishya (traders and teachers) and Sudra (servants and workers). Among the Sudra are Dalits, formerly known as ‘untouchables’. Over time, these classifications were codified into laws that transcended religious boundaries.
Nepal declared the caste system unconstitutional in 1951 and criminalized caste discrimination in 2011. But even now, caste continues to be a prominent form of discrimination in both urban and rural areas in South Asia, where mentioning a surname or occupation puts a person on the receiving end of harassment due to its association with lower castes. In India, the practice of “untouchability” – through segregated housing or refusing Dalits into homes, cafes and temples – is common. In Nepal’s Dalit community, which makes up up to 20% of the population, education levels are below average and poverty is high.
mr. Pariyar got tired after years of bullying while working as a teacher in Kathmandu. “There was resistance and trouble everywhere,” he says, but the final straw came in 2014, when a gang of about 30 people from the dominant caste attacked his family at their home. Mr. Pariyar’s father was about 50 cents short that day when he bought a tailor, and the seller was offended by his request to pay the money later. The father was hospitalized with serious injuries. Pariyar says he had to knock on politicians and human rights activists before police allowed him to file a complaint, and the family was later pressured to shut down the investigation. mr. Pariyar moved to the US the following year and not long after he enrolled in the master’s degree in social work at CSU, East Bay.
Caste travels to the west
Vipin P. Veetil, an economist based in India, says the caste system has forced the lower caste into subordinate occupations and barred them from adequate education in South Asia, pushing many westward in search of better opportunities. But they often find that Brahmins also dominate higher education abroad – as Dr. Veetil noted during his Ph.D. studies at George Mason University.
Damian Dovarganes/AP/File
A 2016 survey conducted by the Dalit civil rights organization Equality Labs suggests that a third of Dalit students in the US are discriminated against during their education. One in four Dalits surveyed have experienced verbal or physical violence, and half said they feared their caste would be ‘littered’. More recent investigations and media reports have also found evidence of cabinet-based favoritism in Silicon Valley, as well as harassment in social and communal areas.
dr. Veetil says the CSU decision and other similar decisions provide “protection to make the American dream come true” for lower castes.
Before the change, Mr. Pariyar told his colleagues at CSU about gender, race and other inequalities in the classroom, but they seemed oblivious to what he saw as the greatest injustice in South Asia and among the diaspora. When he tried to discuss his experiences with the caste system, professors and other South Asian students denied any knowledge of modern discrimination, leaving him ashamed.
But he kept talking, and eventually a professor connected Pariyar with Equality Labs, sparking more formal activism. The graduate student began to see results last year, with the Cal State Student Association voting to recognize caste as protected status and the University of California, Davis, where Mr. Pariyar also lobbied for change, adding caste in November. to the protected categories.
The call for recognition has picked up steam even among students of the dominant caste, recalls Pariyar, who graduated in 2021. “This movement has become an interfaith and interracial coalition,” he adds. Then, in a landmark move, CSU’s board of trustees voted unanimously to make caste a protected category in January, effective on all 23 campuses.
Solving or inciting stigma?
Some faculties and Hindu groups disapprove of the change, arguing that caste discrimination would already be prohibited under university rules on race, national origin or ancestry.
In an open letter to the board of trustees, more than 80 CSU faculty members wrote anonymously that highlighting caste “will cause more discrimination by unconstitutionally single-out Hindu faculties of Indian and South Asian descent.”
Suhag Shukla, co-founder and director of the Hindu American Foundation, supports the professors and commends their courage.
The new policy “is an arbitrary, unwarranted and highly abusive affront to their decades-long service,” Ms Shukla said by email, adding that CSU has created a new problem through “implicit bias and discrimination against all people of Indian and Hindu heritage.”
Many Dalits and allies disagree. They claim that caste already track South Asians abroad, but cases of discrimination or exclusion often go unreported due to the lack of formal recognition in schools and the workplace. Mr. Pariyar’s success has inspired other students to push for caste protection in their own institutions.
Bikash Gupta, a Nepalese student of public policy and data analytics at Carnegie Mellon University, along with fellow students, drafts a letter to be submitted to the school administration. “It will be about how caste is a form of discrimination and a global problem, and the evolving research or interpretations of caste,” said Mr Gupta.
Experts say change will be more difficult – but just as, if not more important – in Nepal, where discrimination is rampant despite being illegal. But Ms Pariyar, of the Dalit think tank, says Mr Pariyar’s persistence is a reminder for Nepalese students “not to mention unacceptable caste and caste discrimination, especially in higher education.”