Caste-based discrimination is a pervasive issue in North America. On February 21, a grassroots movement alongside Socialist Alternative's City Councilmember Kshama Sawant made Seattle the first city globally outside South Asia to ban caste discrimination, creating momentum for further potential victories. Following Seattle’s historic ban on caste discrimination, the Toronto School Board voted on March 8 to recognize that caste discrimination exists in its schools. In a landmark ruling on March 27, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal awarded more than $9,000 to a Punjabi-Canadian man who was a victim of caste-based discrimination that included slurs and physical assault. It’s crucial that we build on this momentum and demand that the British Columbia government ban caste discrimination.

Organizations like the Coalition of Hindus of North America, which are aligned with the right-wing, Hindu fundamentalist regime of Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party in India, have mobilized to oppose every effort to combat caste oppression. It will take a united working-class movement to defeat the right wing and win, as activists in Seattle demonstrated. Join us in the fight to win a law against caste discrimination in B.C.!