Muman has maintained a case register of all instances that he has encountered, a decade and a half ago. “We register cases of discrimination regularly,” he says, pointing to the list he has compiled. The list is replete with examples of name-calling, based on caste names, of traditionally lower caste employees often being treated by higher caste colleagues and employers differently, once their caste is discovered, of school children in their early teens being discriminated in school by other children after their caste is revealed. The list serves as a chilly reminder of how caste can pervade different parts of the diaspora life as well.

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The other reason that the UK government offered for not banning caste-based discrimination was that it could not arrive at a ‘universally accepted’ definition of caste. “Interpreting caste either too narrowly or too broadly could give rise to either the legislation failing to cover some of those it was intended to protect or risk importing concepts into law that it was not designed to cover,” the government said, in its report on the issue.

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Caste and the UK’s Hindu right

Muman’s comment is echoed across those who have been demanding stricter rules to fight caste discrimination.

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But it is difficult to miss the fact that the Conservative government’s climbdown comes after a vociferous campaign led by various Hindu diaspora groups who were fiercely critical of any move to ban caste-based discrimination, insisting that it did not exist. Many of these groups are close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP and have never hesitated to advertise it.

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One such group, the National Council For Hindu Temples UK (NCHTUK) had lashed out at the UK government for the proposed legislation and called casteism in India “a colonial conspiracy” and a hate crime against Hindus. Its report on the issue, titled ‘Caste, Conversion and a “Thoroughly Colonial Conspiracy”’, was released by senior BJP leader and Member of Parliament Subramanian Swamy. It welcomed the government’s decision, but added that the use of caste with reference to Hindu community was denigrating and divisive in order to facilitate ‘evangelical conversion’ activities.

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Late last year, the same group had drawn the ire of many by inviting Tapan Ghosh, the founder of a right-wing Hindu organisation called ‘Hindu Samhati’ to the House of Commons for a talk titled ‘Tolerating the Intolerant’, where Ghosh spoke about ‘love jihad’, a Hindu-right conception that Muslim men, in an organised manner, conspire to marry Hindu women. It was also reported that Ghosh attended a Diwali event where he shared space with then British home secretary Amber Rudd.

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Sources who have been involved in this debate over legislation say that such instances, among other things, were meant to serve as an indicator to Westminster of the clout and the influence that these Hindu groups have in both, New Delhi as well as Nagpur, home to the BJP’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

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Some other organisations actively involved in opposing the proposed law include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)’s UK branch, an integral part of the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar.

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Other Hindu organisations don’t agree that the government’s decision has anything to do with larger political themes around it. Trupti Patel, president of the Hindu Forum of Britain, another group which opposed the proposed law bitterly, said that the decision was made solely based on the representations that the Hindu community in Britain made. “This view is not expected of the pro-legislation lobby; they are reading political agendas only to justify their loss,” Patel added.

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The Hindu Council UK, which opposed the caste legislation as well, but toed a more moderate line, said that the law would have been divisive in nature. “We have always maintained that bringing in such a law would have been very divisive since it would entrench caste further, rather than eradicate it,” says Anil Bhanot, a founding member of the council.

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Not just politics

As much as the decision was about diaspora and global politics, it was possibly about the economics of it, too. One crucial reason why the May government, scarred by the unravelling of Brexit, does not want to upset the Indian diaspora is the economic might of the community.

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A report in April this year by Grant Thornton, a global consultancy, revealed how the UK sees more investment by Indian-owned businesses than the whole of the European Union combined, employing 104,000 people and paying £360 million in corporation tax.

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At a time when Britain is looking to seal trade deals with various countries to help it offset the impact that Brexit might have, it is unlikely to upset the applecart with the ruling dispensation of its fourth largest investor.

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In addition, the Indian diaspora, forming over 2.5% of the total population, is the wealthiest ethnic minority in the country. A recent government race audit had revealed how over 35% of Indian households earn over £1,000 each week, as against only 24% of the native White British community. Many of them are influential donors to Britain’s political parties and hence, the government might have been wary of ticking them off.

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The recent visit by PM Modi ended on a low for India-Britain relations after India refused to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate the return of undocumented Indian immigrants in the UK. Observers don’t rule out that this could have been a factor of consideration for the decision too.

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