Is the Toronto District School Board “Caste” Motion, a Wake Up Call for Canadian Hindus?
What exactly was wrong with the motion and what short term and long term learning the Canadian Hindu community can take from the TDSB “Caste” motion?
On 8th March 2023, the Board of Toronto District School Board (TDSB) voted on a motion that aimed to work on “caste oppression” in TDSB. The motion basically asked the Director to file an application with the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) to request to assess and provide a framework for addressing caste oppression in a public education context and present a report to the Governance and Policy Committee based on the feedback. The motion passed 16–5, in favour of the motion.
However, this was not the original intent of this motion. It came as a dreadful wake-up call for the Hindus of Canada, especially in the GTA, around mid-February when they came to know about the original version of the motion tabled on 8th February 2023.
Here’s what the original motion, presented by Trustee Yalini Rajakulasingam and seconded by Trustee Anu Sriskandarajah, both Srilankan Tamil Hindus, specified:
Now, at a thematic level, one would say what’s wrong with recognizing a form of discrimination that exists? Shouldn’t we be against discrimination? Why would we want “caste” based discrimination not to be recognized, or worse, encourage the people who discriminate on the basis of caste?
All good points theoretically — except that the motion does practically nothing to prevent it in the first place. And we take a leaf of learning from the Seattle City Council motion while learning that. Secondly, the motion is loaded with assumptions, targeting, and provisions of silencing certain voices that do not toe a certain line, that of the Trustees who tabled the motion. Let’s go through this one by one.
The motion starts off with — Whereas, Caste based oppression is experienced by various faith communities in South Asia and the Caribbean, — basically saying only the brown, black, and yellow folks are capable of caste discrimination while the white guy isn’t. Doesn’t matter the fact that the origin of the word “caste” itself is Portugal. To the motion’s credit, it excluded Africa as well, a privilege not extended in the Seattle City Council ordinance.
The next line asserts — Whereas, there is a rise in documented caste-based discrimination in the diaspora, including Toronto;. The irony of this assertion is that when asked, in the same meeting, by Trustee Pei to Trustee Rajakulasingam about what % of discrimination complaints have to do with the caste system, the response by Trustee Rajakulasingam was a fantastic “I have no idea”. Of course, she tried to justify it by using “no idea” as grounds to create a law for this supposed problem which will help determine whether this problem exists or not, in the first place. When asked by Trustee Hassan, if she has witnessed any incidents or has heard through her constituents, with respect to caste-based oppression, Trustee Rajakulasingam dilly-dallied around to a straightforward yes/no question. Throughout the proceedings of 8th February, no supporting evidence was produced to suggest this “rise”. A “rise” essentially means something was less before and has increased now. That means it was tracked before and is being tracked now as well. That means there should be some evidence or data.
The third problematics assertion is — Whereas, Caste may be identified by but not limited to an individual’s last name, family occupation, diet, and area of origin, and self-identification can be unsafe when caste-based discrimination is not recognized. Caste has no particular definition. Even in India, it is a laundry list by state. Unfortunately, this is one fact that is hidden from the lawmakers here who think “Caste” is just category A, B, C, D. The line, in itself, admits that it is clueless about what “caste” is, which is why hedging words like “but not limited to” find their way in. Further, to provide insurance, “self-identification” is also swooped in with a double whammy of “can be unsafe” so that anybody challenging this “self-identification” can be labeled dangerous. It’s appalling to see such a loose and self-serving definition is able to find its way through the brains of lawmakers in Canada and the US.
However, the above is still not the most sinister part of the motion. What is truly jaw-dropping was the proposal to create a “working group” composed of — Activists who self-identify as Dalit and are from caste-oppressed groups;. Remember, this is a school board we are talking about. When a working group consists neither of parents, teachers, or students, it should be a big cause of worry. Who are these activists? What are their qualifications to work on the mandate? And what the hell is “self-identifying”? Who decides who is “caste oppressed” when the definition of caste has been laid out so vaguely?
And even more worrisome is the mandate — to define caste-based discrimination, lead curriculum and instruction development. So, you have activists, not parents, teachers, students, or TDSB administrators, who will define “caste” discrimination (as loosely as it is in the motion itself), and then create atrocity literature around that which will be then fed to the TSDB staff (and I suppose, only to begin with because it’ll surely percolate to teachers and students). Definitely, all this will require public funds to be allocated and awarded to the organizations that will prepare such material and conduct the training. This is basically an “Employment Guarantee Scheme’’ for companies (yes, companies) like Equality Labs and their partners who will make a profit (just Google if Equality Labs is a not-for-profit in the United States).
Clear Intention to Silence Certain Voices
During the meeting on Feb 8th, one of the Trustees, Trustee Pei, asked Trustee Rajakulasingam why the motion shuts out the voices of parents, students, and staff. His point was that all voices, especially South Asian parents, need to be heard and represented, not just activists. To this, to all sane people’s amusement, Trustee Rajakulasingam responded, “I agree with you and I think activists can be parents, activists can be students, and activists can be anyone that self-identifies. Trustee Pei what we are trying to do is protect the voices of those that come forward. So, if we just say parents, we want to prevent those with caste privilege to come forward and take up space and leading the work on this. We want to make sure that those who identify as Dalits, these are parents, these are students, teachers, anyone who is part of the system to come forward as long as they feel safe enough to come forward and identify as Dalit or from a caste-oppressed group.”
It can’t get clearer that in a country like Canada, which boasts itself as developed and democratic, a school board Trustee gets away with a statement to silence certain voices. Who is going to define who is “caste privilege”? Activists who already come with a certain agenda? And what will be the criteria for this “caste privilege”? Why will an ideologically charged “activist” want to cede ground to those who do not subscribe to her/his ideology? And what stops these activists from labeling those who are actual Dalits but not subscribing to their ideology as “Brahmin adjacent” — just like Hindus and Asians are being labeled “White adjacent” these days?
Encourage Casteist Slurs to Silence and Discredit
As the motion promoter, Trustee Rajakulasingam demonstrated how she intends to silence certain voices based on the activists’ whims and fancies that give birth to the convoluted definition of “caste privilege”, but it will not limit itself to TDSB.
We have already seen the usage of certain terms as slurs to label “privilege” and silence dissent. The last few years have taught us that you don’t have to be Brahmin to be called Brahmin. Who can forget the famous episode when Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the founder of the hinduphobic organization Equality Labs, the torchbearer of “Kaun-Jaat-Ho?” in the United States, declared the newly appointed Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, a Brahmin, when he was not. Very recently, the two ladies who won the Oscar for the documentary, The Elephant Whisperers, Kartiki Gonsalves, and Guneet Monga, were also called “Brahmin” by the Twitter handle “Dalit Chief”. And not just people, even phenomena are being described using casteist slurs — like that WSJ article titled “Cancelling Student Debt Would Be a ‘Brahmin Bailout’”.
Even in the Cisco case, we have seen that even though nothing has been proven till now, one of the accused has already been declared semi-guilty by forcing the “Brahmin” identity on him by the state even though he never considered himself one. In fact, he detested the caste system as it exists today in India. And even though he was the one who hired the complainant in the Cisco case, gave him challenging projects, and promoted him. However, in the end, the accused has no voice since he has been declared “privileged” and hence, should not speak.
We have seen a similar tendency shown by Trustee Rajakulasingam. What happens, if tomorrow, a teacher in a Toronto School doesn’t give a good grade to a student and the student accuses the teacher of “caste oppression”? It wouldn’t matter what the investigation reveals. By the time investigators would finish their job, the media, casteist organizations such as Equality Labs, and casteist academics, would be all over the teacher, projecting her/him as oppressive, privileged, casteist, and whatnot — just like what has happened in the Cisco case.
Hinduphobic without saying Hindu
In a tongue-in-cheek response to the accusation of the motion being Hinduphobic, Trustee Yalini Rajakulasingam said that she was confused by the allegation that the motion was targeting the Hindu faith. She said the motion did not single out any faith but that it affected South Asian, African, and Caribbean diasporas. While she, perhaps, thought she was being smart in her response, she ended up declaring that the motion isn’t just Hinduphobic but also racist, based on the geographies she chose to accuse of, leaving out only the white guys of Europe, Australia-NZ, and North America. Essentially saying that only brown, black, and yellow people are capable of this “caste” oppression.
While the motion takes lessons from California and Seattle caste motions and uses the word “South Asian” instead of Hindu, the entire foundation of this “caste” Olympics has been from Equality Labs which has been an openly Hinduphobic organization. From calling Holi a casteist and violent festival to caricaturing a group of Hindus as rapists and explicit calls to stop the celebration of Hindu festivals, the group has done it all.
Secondly, even though the motion, this one and the Seattle one, doesn’t specify Hindu anywhere, everywhere else — the motions/ordinances/resolutions before the TDSB and Seattle one, school textbooks, mainstream media — the discussion about “caste” is always in the context of Hindu faith. Even the average Canadian Joe’s caste question will be to a Hindu, like “do you guys still have this caste problem in your country?”. Nobody asks a Japanese or Vietnamese or Somalian. So, something which has been almost exclusively linked to the Hindu faith everywhere, won’t suddenly morph into affecting the entire South Asian community in practice just because it says so in theory (this motion).
Extortion Racket
The left framework of oppressor-oppressed is economics centric. So, if you are economically rich, you must have oppressed someone. Even their description of upper caste, while they say is a social hierarchy based, is also economy-focused, as their description of oppressor focuses on the ownership of land, money, and power.
Parag Agrawal didn’t have to be Brahmin, he just needed to be economically successful. Asians — mainly the South East Asia community — are economically successful, which is why some of the universities (dominated by the global left) club them with Whites and penalize them for being Asians. The Hindu community has been economically successful too. And assertive Hindus have already started to be called “White adjacent”. So, Hindus must have done some evil. They can’t be hammered for skin colour. They can’t be hammered for colonizing. They can’t be hammered for residential schools. So, what do we make them apologize for? Something for which they will have to pay money as well. A ha, here comes “caste”. So, keep hitting this “caste” bogey on them and the white guy — with a saviour complex — will readily jump on to save his “pagan” brother from the evil of “caste”. And the amount of money allocated wherever caste-related motions/resolutions/ordinances come — will go to which organizations? The ones who come in saying, “Here, we will teach you everything about this, don’t worry.”
Who Are These People? Where Do They Come From?
This is one of the most common question people, especially who are new to this thing, ask. Are these the people who have their own political ambitions and are ready to sacrifice any community (and in this case, given that the promoters of the motion were Hindus, their own community) for it? What do they get from this?
Just look at the trajectory of the people in the US, who are shouting “caste”. Just search if Equality Labs is a not-for-profit. Just check who they get funding from. Which voices are supporting them? Where do these people go and talk? Which institutions welcome them? How has their career progressed in the last couple of years? Which new positions, professionally, have they secured?
People won’t just have political ambitions. They also have economic and social ambitions. Toeing a certain line gets you access to many places. For politicians, it gets them access to sources who may fund their election campaigns. For academics, it gives them more visibility. It opens the doors which would have otherwise been closed. Look at the people who did not subscribe to their views — do they also get invited by the same institutions?
Bashing one’s own community also gives them more credibility since they will be considered an “insider”. It creates an aura of authenticity. It provides more weight to the issues raised, irrespective of their actual existence. Makes things more difficult to refute. And also accusations are easy to make. It puts someone on an offense and the ones refuting it on defence.
The aftermath of the Feb Meeting
As the details of the February meeting went out, it lead to a massive pushback from the Hindu community with individuals and organizations like the CoHNA (Coalition of Hindus of North America) and COHHE driving the outreach to the Trustees and explaining the wrong being done to the South Asian community through this motion. Online conversation, email campaigns directly to the trustees, and in-person protests outside the TDSB office on March 8th (the next board meeting for voting on the motion) created significant pressure on the Trustees.
March 8 Meeting
Seeing the backlash and being exposed for their ideology-driven motion, the Trustees were forced to make face-saving changes in the motion to make it palatable. The whole thing about forming of a working group that consisted only of activists and them defining caste oppression and lead curriculum and instruction development for the staff was replaced by the mandate for the Director to “file an application with the Ontario Human Rights Commission to request that they assess and provide a framework for addressing caste oppression in a public education context”. The second stage was for the Director to “present a report to the Governance and Policy Committee about the first stage, following receipt of the feedback from OHRC”.
This is a win (maybe not big) for the community since the earlier motion that intended to run away handing over the reins to ideologically charged activists, was stalled and instead the issue was referred to the OHRC. It’s a temporary win since the OHRC may also have people who think in a certain twisted manner but that is to be found out. However, it does provide some more time to the community to gather and create a formidable resistance.
What Next? — Short Term
Given that the issue is currently with OHRC, it is important for the Hindu community to make a representation to understand what the process with OHRC is. How is OHRC going to determine the framework, which is the ask of the motion? Hindus, especially the parents, need to reach out to the committees/groups who are going to take this up.
Caste motions/ordinances/resolutions are surely going to emerge across Canada in universities, school boards, city councils, and other places. It will be important to put our points across, as applicable, as discussed above as well, and make sure the Hindu voices are heard.
What Next? — Long Term
1. Be more involved
Let’s hope this incident is a wake-up call for the Hindu community to get more involved at the local level politics and administration. While the TDSB school board had two Hindu trustees, unfortunately, if it was not for them, this motion wouldn’t have seen the light of day. And the ones who voted No in this motion, none of them were Hindus. Irony can’t get bigger.
But having said that, it is very important for the Hindu community to be active in local schools, school boards, parent associations, city councils, advisory councils/boards, and even small committees formed for various purposes under these public agencies. There must be a vocal and assertive Hindu voice in these agencies who can advocate for the community’s interest in an articulate manner. There are many such individuals in the community — they just need to step up.
2. Support Organizations
Other faith-based groups have been tremendously successful because they use organizational power very smartly. People donate to various organizations, volunteer for them, sign-up to their campaigns, and be physically present at events/protests (even during weekdays working hours). That’s their passion.
Hindus need to support organizations, such as CoHNA (Coalition of Hindus of North America), which also has Hindu Parents Network (that strives ensure that the North American Hindu next-gen is raised with resilience and Dharmic values). There are various ways. Money is the easiest way to do that. Nothing happens without money. And advocacy work surely requires a lot of money. One should donate to whatever their capacity is. Most of the organizations have an annual membership fee worth just 1–2 Uber Eats meals. If you don’t have money, donate time. Volunteer for organizations, especially the grassroots advocacy organizations. Volunteer your time to help them with community outreach, research work, marketing stuff, lawmakers outreach, and whatnot.
If you don’t have money, and neither do you have time, there is something you can do for free that doesn’t consume much time — support and amplify their voices. Follow them on social media, like and share their posts/videos, watch their videos, share it with your friends and family. Sign-up when they launch campaigns and need signatures to demonstrate support. Signing up only takes about a minute.
3. Money
Now, for those who have money, and loads of it. Definitely, definitely, support the advocacy organizations with money. No other option. But also, when it comes to donating money to politicians, it’s ironic that a community, that prides itself in bargains, doesn’t really squeeze even a tiny bit to extract value from their donations to politicians. Canadian and American Indians need to learn from their British counterparts about how the diaspora, even when they did not have the population to swing the votes to teach the Hinduphobic Labour party a lesson, swung the fortunes by diverting the money to Conservatives. And while this was at a federal level, more impact happens when things change at the local and provincial levels.
Think about where your money goes. Be cognizant about in whose hands your money ends up. And this is also true in the context of daily expenses as well. For a community like ours, it’s a shame that we are not judicious when it comes to money matters in the context of community advocacy.
4. Allies
Great things happen when alliances are built — internal as well as external. Things cannot go forward, at least significantly, unless there is support from outside the community as well. And sure there are rational, well-intentioned people and organizations out there who will support the right cause. We just need to find them. Many Hindu organizations conduct a number of interfaith programs across the year but so far they have been on generic and very soft issues. Interfaith on issues such as Hinduphobia or Swastika, without compromising or diluting our stance, will be the real test.
But it’s important to have partners in our endeavours.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the TDSB “Caste” motion woke up Hindus like never before. It’s an indication that they are coming after our children. This is just the beginning. The caste train is going to make many stops across Canada. Their idea is to reignite the “caste” consciousness to divide the community. The only way the “caste” curse on the Hindu community will go away is when “caste” consciousness itself dies. When the entire community comes together in unison, it will render organizations like Equality Labs out of business.
