USA: Seattle City Council adds 'caste' in its non-discrimination policy, Hindu Americans object

On February 21, the Seattle City Council in USA passed Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s Regarding the resolution, Hindu American Foundation co-founder and Executive Director Suhag Shukla said in an official statement, “Throughout our two decades of existence, HAF has maintained that caste discrimination is wrong, violating core Hindu principles of the divine oneness of all beings. Calling it an international problem that affects over 250 million people, Sawant suggested that caste is “often associated with Hinduism and India”, but it “transcends religious and geographic boundaries, with caste-based discrimination showing up in Christian, Muslim, Sikh, and other religious communities” across South Asia, Southeast Asian and African communities, including Japan, the Middle East, Nigeria, Somalia, and Senegal. #Leaked: an internal “FAQ” that Kshama Sawant is sharing with her @SeattleCouncil colleagues defending her unlawful caste proposal targeting South Asians is egregiously biased & hateful. However, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called out the survey on Indian Americans by Maari Zwick-Maitreyi, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Natasha Dar, Ralph F. Bheel, and Prathap Balakrishnan titled “Caste in the United States: A Survey of Caste Among South Asian Americans ” and said it “relied on a nonrepresentative snowball sampling method to recruit respondents.