Unpacking Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Caste Policy Position
On October 26th, the OHRC (Ontario Human Rights Commission) released its policy position on “caste” based discrimination. For those wondering what prompted OHRC to do that, you’re probably not aware about what happened at the TDSB (Toronto District School Board) either.
To quickly dive into the background, on February 8 this year, two trustees of the TDSB presented a motion that intended to address “caste” discrimination (something which is already addressed under Canadian laws) which, they say, is exclusively practiced in the “South Asian” community. The motion which was presented in a school board meeting, ironically, left out, in fact wanted to silence, parents, students and teachers — primary stakeholders in any school board anywhere in the world — from the action items. Instead, it intended to bring in “activists” to build material to train the staff on “caste”. The motion spelled out disturbing caricatures about the way this discrimination is practiced such as having a specific last name, practicing a certain diet, having a certain skin tone, hailing from a certain location and so on. If it sounds absurd, you’re not wrong. On being asked to the trustee who presented the motion, if she had received any complaint about such discrimination, her response was a word salad which essentially meant, “No”. Rightfully, after a huge uproar from the South Asian community, predominantly Hindus (who are always at the receiving end of this “caste” trope), the motion was referred to OHRC by the board, in the subsequent meeting a month later, to provide a framework and guidelines to address it.
Coming back to OHRC’s statement, while it does provide clarity with respect to the jurisdiction of framing laws related to “caste” — no surprises there — it’s obvious that the agency has been fed a particular narrative about “caste”. But what is more disturbing, especially considering it to be a government entity, is that it closed its doors to community consultation — something which many Hindu organizations complained about — while proceeding to make such sweeping statements on “caste”.
Skipping off the first paragraph which just introduces that a policy statement in this regard is made, OHRC wastes no time (and space) in defining, what turned out to be a series of insinuations, the “caste system”. Interestingly, the opening line itself specifies caste as “rooted in their ancestry”. This is, of course, in sync with what they went on to say about the position of this category in OHRC’s Human Rights Code.
However, and this is where the biggest problem and OHRC’s overreach on things they shouldn’t be getting into, started. The second paragraph mentions, “Although a person’s caste may not be visible, certain markers may be used to identify and discriminate based on caste. Caste-markers can include first and last names, family deities, rituals, wedding bands, customs and ceremonies, belief systems, food habits or diet, accent, dialect, area of origin, ancestry, and descent. Skin colour or “colourism” can also be a marker of social status that overlaps or intersects with other markers.” It’s important to note that the OHRC did not provide any source for this definition.
And get this! The OHRC enumerated 15 — FIFTEEN — yes, One-Five fifteen markers that can identify someone’s “caste”. And this list of fifteen was preceded by the word “can include”. The problem with such vague terminologies is that it leaves things open to interpretation and whims and fancies of the people who are dealing with cases related to caste discrimination. This is like a Subway sandwich where you can pick and choose the combination of vegetables and meat you like and make your own sandwich. We saw this in the Cisco case as well where the defendant was deemed upper caste by the administration based on the same random markers that were actually contradicting each other. On top of that, the defendant’s own declaration of being an atheist, years ago, wasn’t considered.
You would expect an agency of its caliber to be a little more precise and confident in defining something. Give them a few years and they’ll also include a person’s Costco membership as an indicator of “caste”. Theoretically, an Executive Member can be discriminatory towards a Gold Star member, no? I don’t blame OHRC if they had a hard time defining “caste”. For there is no universally accepted or specific definition to identify a person’s “caste”. It’s no wonder that OHRC was not able to do that. Britishers, in India, tried doing that and failed miserably as they ended up creating a bureaucratic nightmare for themselves. Today, the government of India maintains a list of castes which varies across the streets and keeps changing, often based on political considerations and vote bank politics. There is a tremendous amount of bureaucracy (time, energy, resources and money) that goes into managing “caste” information.
Now, having said all that, it is welcome that OHRC was explicit in mentioning that “The OHRC takes the position that caste-based discrimination is an intersectional system of discrimination that can be covered under any combination of ancestry, creed, colour, race, ethnic origin, place of origin, family status, or possibly other grounds, under Ontario’s Code.” This is important because it is often touted that “caste” discrimination cannot be addressed in Canada because it is not covered as a separate category. But if that is true, how did the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal slapped a fine of $9000 to two people in a case of caste-based discrimination where the convicts uttered the slur, “chamar”, to the victim during an altercation at a BC Taxi company’s taxi party? The judgement explicitly mentioned that, “Mr. Bhangu has proven that Inderjit and Avninder discriminated against him contrary to s. 13 of the Code based on his ancestry, place of origin, religion, and race when they both used the Slur towards him during a physical altercation at the Staff Party.” So, if it is not possible to deal with caste based discrimination under existing laws, does the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal have some special superpowers that allow them to deal with such cases? I don’t think so.
When these facts and logic is presented to people who are lobbying for adding “caste” as a protected category, they end up shifting the goal post by “Oh, these victims don’t report such cases since they don’t see “caste” listed as a category in our laws” (paraphrased). Now, I understand that there are many people who will not be aware of their rights under Canadian laws, especially the new immigrants. Well, then the problem is communication and education of the anti-discrimination laws, not the lack of it, to those who don’t report such cases. Agencies need to strengthen their communication activities and invest more in educating the stakeholders. Stigmatizing and singling out communities is not an answer.
Hindu faith has never required an outsider to make laws to govern the community. The underlying philosophy of the religion, the concept of Dharma, is strong enough to give rise, from time to time, people who will call for reforms. Bhakti movement was one such instance. Swami Vivekananda and Vinayak Savarkar were other such heroes in the more recent past who work on social reforms. Even today, a movement is ongoing, especially against caste discrimination and uniting the entire community — it is called Hindutva. Unfortunately, that movement is demonized as being “political” and “homogenizing” — the two words you would constantly hear/read — by the people who have made careers out of divisive politics for their petty gains and now see their sand castle being washed away. While the Hindu community is working towards eradicating caste consciousness itself, such Hinduphobic actors such as Equality Labs and its Canadian affiliate, SADAN (who was behind the TDSB caste motion), are working to keep it alive and keep the community divided. Canadian lawmakers, law enforcement, academia, media and well-meaning anti-hate organizations should escape such people and organizations.
As one of the TDSB Trustees Zakir Patel said, “My question is this, why are we dividing more and more and more?”
Uncovering the Pain & Violence of Caste Legislation: A Look into the U.S. Genocide — YouTube
References:
https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/ohrc%E2%80%99s-policy-position-caste-based-discrimination
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/caste-discrimination-taxi-decision-1.6783267
https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bchrt/doc/2023/2023bchrt24/2023bchrt24.html#_Toc128386461
https://www.youtube.com/live/UbZjIslOZZQ?si=WgvBiCzi2wOQzEcO&t=8472
https://www.youtube.com/live/UbZjIslOZZQ?si=6nuCVvZVZJ47s6F1&t=8499
https://www.youtube.com/live/UbZjIslOZZQ?si=KkiJEeK0TyPP7eda&t=8643
https://www.youtube.com/live/UbZjIslOZZQ?si=koTAh6oNemxbT5Sy&t=8711
https://www.youtube.com/live/EFcXqOui9p8?si=WapCHZITNwmQg7OH&t=11153
