An Open Letter to the Government of Irvine, CA: Banning Caste Discrimination is not Anti-Hindu
Mayor Larry Agran, LarryAgran@cityofirvine.org
Councilmember Melinda Liu, District 1MelindaLiu@cityofirvine.org
Dear Mayor Agran, Councilmember Liu, and Members of the Irvine City Council:
We write on behalf of Hindus for Human Rights, a national, nonpartisan organization advancing human rights, pluralism, and an inclusive, justice-centered Hinduism.
We were deeply concerned by reports that, at the July 11 America250 celebration at Irvine Hindu Mandir, Mayor Agran promised to oppose future legislation containing the word “caste,” and Councilmember Liu affirmed that position. The commitment reportedly followed remarks by Geeta Sikand of Americans4Hindus, who portrayed California’s SB 403 as a “Trojan horse” targeting Hindu Americans.
SB 403––and similar legislation to ban caste discrimination in cities and states around the country––was not anti-Hindu legislation. These bills were introduced to protect individuals facing caste discrimination in diverse religious communities.
California’s legislative record documented caste-related exclusion in employment, housing, education, hospitality, construction, and other settings. SB 403 was supported by Ambedkarite, labor, Sikh, South Asian, civil-rights, technology-worker, and anti-caste Hindu organizations. Furthermore, when this bill was introduced in California, the Senate Judiciary Committee found that the bill was neutral, required no one to identify with a caste, and did not treat caste as exclusively Hindu.
Many of the people likely to benefit from legislation prohibiting caste discrimination are themselves Hindu, including Hindus from oppressed caste backgrounds. The majority of Dalit and Bahujan individuals in India are Hindu, and extending caste discrimination protections would help protect vulnerable Hindus as well as others facing caste-based harm.
No temple, lobbying group, or political action committee speaks for all Hindu Americans. Americans4Hindus is entitled to advocate its position, but it is not entitled to present that position as community consensus.
We are Hindus, and we reject the claim that our faith must be protected from laws against inherited discrimination. Hindu Americans include Dalits, Bahujans, Adivasis, dominant-caste people, and those who reject caste identity altogether. Many of us regard opposing caste hierarchy as a moral and religious responsibility.
Portraying the mere mention of caste as “anti-Hindu” is a familiar strategy: redefine civil-rights protections as attacks on Hindu identity, discredit those who report discrimination, and pressure officials to keep caste unnamed. The result preserves the silence and ambiguity that allow discrimination—and the power of those who benefit from it—to continue.
A celebration invoking Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the principle that the world is one family, should not become a platform for elected officials to side with the most powerful members of that family against those facing inherited exclusion. The principle calls us to confront caste discrimination.
We therefore ask that you:
Acknowledge publicly that caste must have no place in American workplaces, schools, institutions, or Hindu American public life.
Meet with caste-oppressed Californians, Dalit and Ambedkarite organizations, labor and civil-rights advocates, and anti-caste Hindu groups before taking any further position.
Clarify that future civil-rights legislation will be evaluated on its actual language and merits, rather than rejected simply for using the word “caste.”
Hindus for Human Rights would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and help convene a conversation with community members whose experiences were absent from the Irvine Hindu Mandir discussion.
America’s 250th anniversary should expand the promise of equal citizenship, not place certain forms of discrimination beyond discussion. Protecting people from caste discrimination is not anti-Hindu. It affirms a simple principle: no one should lose a job, home, education, opportunity, or dignity because of a status assigned at birth.
Sincerely,
Hindus for Human Rights
CC:
JamesMai@cityofirvine.org
WilliamGo@cityofirvine.org
MikeCarroll@cityofirvine.org
BettyMartinez@cityofirvine.org
KathleenTreseder@cityofirvine.org
Irvine DE&I office: dei@cityofirvine.org
City Public Information Office: PIO@cityofirvine.org