This isn't about "the US recognizing the caste system" or even about who is responsible for it. It's about preventing very real, very tangible discriminatory effects happening to people TODAY, right now. When the time comes to prevent actual, quantifiable harm, slippery slope arguments and debates about the origin of the problem help absolutely nobody.
Draconian versions of such anti-discrimination laws exist in India. They are weaponized to settle personal scores to such an extent that the Supreme Court of India has had to step in on multiple occasions.[1][2]
This is a legitimate fear of those protesting against such laws in the US.
If you cannot handle caste discrimination cases without enacting a religion-specific law, that is a defect of existing laws that the relevant authority should fix.
[1] "Civil dispute can’t be converted to a case under SC/ST Act: SC (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/civil-dispute-cant...)
[2] "Insulting, abusing SC/ST person not an offence under SC/ST Act unless victim abused on account of caste: Supreme Court" (https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/insulting-abusin...)
Indian politicians will try to maximize votes overall. Only in a district with supermajority caste-culture population would they be able to prefer their caste over others someone in campaigning, and why wouldn't they do that anyway?
As it stands now, an elected Indian official is free to appoint only same-caste officials when said officials are also Indian. Do they pr do they not do that now?
Technically, it is. This happens when people who do not understand a particular society or its conflict hierarchy start writing the laws for that society.
From Wikipedia:
> Modern India's caste system is based on the artificial modern superimposition of an old four-fold theoretical classification called the Varna on the natural social groupings called the Jāti. Varna conceptualised a society as consisting of four types of varnas, or categories: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, according to the nature of the work of its members. Varna was not an inherited category and the occupation determined the varna. However, a person's Jati is determined at birth and makes them take up that Jati's occupation; members could and did change their occupation based on personal strengths as well as economic, social and political factors. A 2016 study based on the DNA analysis of unrelated Indians determined that endogamous Jatis originated during the Gupta Empire.
> From 1901 onwards, for the purposes of the Decennial Census, the British colonial authorities arbitrarily and incorrectly forced all Jātis into the four Varna categories as described in ancient texts. Herbert Hope Risley, the Census Commissioner, noted that "The principle suggested as a basis was that of classification by social precedence as recognized by native public opinion at the present day, and manifesting itself in the facts that particular castes are supposed to be the modern representatives of one or other of the castes of the theoretical Indian system."
I don’t see anyone fighting for laws that prevent discrimination against former European serfs. You forget those differences and move on.
[1] "Why is religion suddenly declining?" - https://blog.oup.com/2020/12/why-is-religion-suddenly-declin...
[2] "Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline" - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/22/us-churches-...
The West does not understand caste. Their only comparison is slavery which is completely irrelevant. The closest thing to caste in the West is class.
This is the British social classification experiment all over again where they came to India, invented criminal tribes and martial races, and took the fluid jati/varna system and froze everything as part of law instead of letting society deal with its problems at its own pace. The result is there for every one to see. Three hundred years later, politicians in India want a caste census to maintain their caste-based vote banks, and caste groups that used to rule entire kingdoms demand to be classified as backward castes because it helps them compete with other caste groups who are benefiting from reservations/affirmative action.
If the US legally recognizes caste, in 50 years time, you will see Indian politicians campaigning for votes on caste lines in California.