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As far as press conferences go, the first rally to support a bill to ban caste discrimination in New York was low-key. After previous efforts in Seattle and California faced highly coordinated countercampaigns from right-wing Hindu groups, organizers feared that the April 13 event would be disrupted if it had been publicized with social media posts or flyers.  

Instead, the press conference, held in Jackson Heights, Queens, during Dalit History Month, proceeded without a hitch. Dalit and other caste-oppressed New Yorkers stood with elected officials and other advocates to share why the bill—which would create caste protections for employment, housing, and public accommodations—was not based on hypothetical scenarios, but would have a material impact on the everyday lives of South Asians in the state.

Caste is a hierarchical system that segregates people into categories of “high,” “low,” and “untouchable” castes based on their descent. Although its roots lie in Hinduism, over thousands of years, caste has also become part of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Sikhism across the South Asian subcontinent. Individuals born in higher castes, like Brahmins, often enjoy systemic and cultural privileges, while those from lower castes, like Dalits—the self-described term for untouchable castes—face systemic exclusion as well as social and cultural discrimination.

Among those present at the rally was Swati Sawant, a Dalit lawyer who has worked on the bill for the past three years, drafting the language and securing support from legislators. In an interview with Prism, she recounted the experience of a Nepali restaurant worker who faced discrimination in 2018 from other workers at his job and was fired after he complained.

“Co-workers wouldn’t eat with him. They would say, ‘You are impure, untouchable.’ And he faced difficulties,” Sawant said. “So when he escalated this issue with his manager, the manager said, ‘It’s better that you leave than other people.’” Because New York does not legally recognize caste discrimination, she said she was unable to pursue his case.

As South Asian communities have migrated and grown more prominent in the U.S. over the last several decades, caste discrimination has also become a bigger issue in the diaspora, where it has been actively and often covertly practiced, particularly in workplaces, housing, and intracommunity spaces. 

Caste discrimination is happening every single day, not just in India and broader South Asia, but here in America, from the East Coast to the West Coast. We have to be very honest about this issue in our communities.

Shekar Krishnan, New York City COuncil Member

“Caste discrimination is happening every single day, not just in India and broader South Asia, but here in America, from the East Coast to the West Coast,” Shekar Krishnan, the first Indian and Hindu elected to the New York City Council, said at the press conference. “We have to be very honest about this issue in our communities.”

Last year, Assemblymember Steven Raga introduced the bill, along with state Sen. James Sanders. Unlike similar bills in California and Seattle, New York’s caste discrimination bill has the support of several state and city lawmakers, including Zohran Mamdani, who as an assemblymember had been a co-sponsor before becoming mayor of New York City in January. 

Raga represents District 30 in Queens that covers parts of Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, and Maspeth—areas with large swaths of South Asian residents. Raga told Prism that he spent time with advocates and community members to understand how caste discrimination affects his constituents.

“People shared experiences of exclusion, harassment, and economic discrimination that too often go unaddressed because caste is not explicitly named in our laws,” he said. “Most civil rights laws do not name caste directly. In some cases, it is assumed that caste discrimination could fall under categories like race, religion, or ancestry, but that is not clearly defined in statute. That lack of clarity creates a real gap in enforcement.”

Attacks from the Hindu right

Defining caste as a separate protected class could be crucial to whether the bill passes. In 2023, after months of agitation by Dalit activists and other supporters, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill banning caste discrimination as “unnecessary,” claiming that caste was included under the state’s existing protected classes. However, according to reports, Newsom, who is vying for the presidency, gave in to mounting pressure from influential Hindu donors who have been major fundraisers for Democratic candidates.

The countercampaign against California’s caste discrimination bill is part of a larger movement that has gained traction in the last several years. Individuals associated with Hindu-right political ideology in the U.S. and other groups that oppose the visibility of caste have repeatedly disrupted events, spam-bombed virtual meetings and email inboxes, and doxed and threatened organizers attempting to speak about Hindutva, the far-right offshoot of Hindu fundamentalism increasingly prevalent in the U.S. 

A similar backlash occurred in Seattle, where a bill to codify caste protections championed by socialist and then-City Council Member Kshama Sawant was introduced in 2023. The bill was successful, and Seattle became the first city in the U.S. to ban caste discrimination. 

In both California and Seattle, some right-wing Hindu groups claimed that caste isn’t an integral part of Hinduism, while at the same time arguing that a caste discrimination ban would be “Hinduphobic” and prompt discrimination against Hindus.

Sravya Tadepalli, deputy executive director of the advocacy group Hindus for Human Rights, called such arguments “ridiculous.” She pointed to a 2024 Carnegie Foundation survey in which 77% of Indian Americans supported legal protections around caste. A 2025 study from Cornell Law School suggested that about 77% of New York state residents support such laws. 

“Right-wing Hindu groups claim to represent the entire Hindu community when they really don’t,” Tadepalli told Prism. “They are just a very vocal minority of the Hindu community, and they want to protect maybe their own caste privilege.”

The Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA), which has been accused of ties to Hindutva, has argued that the New York caste discrimination bill would “unfairly target” Hindu and Indian American communities in particular.

“Discrimination is already covered under existing law, and we condemn any kind of discrimination. Any individual or organization that faces discrimination needs to immediately get recourse, and current law covers that,” Pushpita Prasad, CoHNA’s chief communications officer, told Prism. “Trying to add the word caste into as a separate provision singles out people of Hindu and Indian American and South Asian origin. And that is not a proper thing to do in a law.”

Prasad also pushed back on claims that CoHNA is affiliated with Hindutva.

“People with privilege and people with elite backgrounds, it’s very easy for them to silence an immigrant-heavy community and try to label them. And that’s been used against almost every Hindu who speaks up,” she said. “We reject any attempts of people to define our faith for us or to silence us for exhibiting and practicing our religion as we desire.”

CoHNA has organized with Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which the CIA has designated as a “religious militant group.”

According to Raga and other advocates, the bill avoids emphasizing any religious community and encompasses discrimination faced by individuals from South Asia as well as people from Roma communities and parts of Japan, where similar systems of exclusion exist.

“Caste discrimination exists across different backgrounds and is about conduct, not identity,” Raga said.

Hindus for Human Rights is among the supporters of the bill. Anuraag, an organizer for the group who spoke at the press conference, told Prism, “I support this bill because it is important to stand up for people who are discriminated against, and that’s part of our sacred duty and our faith.” Anuraag, who does not go by their last name, added that they witnessed incidents of caste discrimination at the tech company where they used to work. 

Everyday discrimination

Caste-based workplace discrimination has been a major area of focus among advocates. In 2020, a Dalit engineer at Cisco took the tech company and Brahmin Hindu managers to court in California for discrimination he faced on the job. In New York, upper-caste employees at Google successfully coerced management to cancel a talk by a Dalit activist in 2022. Tanuja Gupta, who organized the event and later resigned over the retaliation she said she faced from Google, talked about the incident at the press conference for the New York bill. 

“The bill is critical because it not only clarifies law, but it also forces a reckoning within all of these companies to understand what caste is and how to prevent caste discrimination within their workforces,” Gupta told Prism. 

Pabitra Dash, a Dalit senior organizer at Adhikaar, a Nepali women-led community and workers’ rights organization based in Queens, also shared the experience of Dalit Nepali worker Deepa Sunar, who was told during a job interview for a nanny position last year that she wasn’t qualified because of her caste. 

“She told me, ‘Sorry, there is no job for you,’” Dash recounted in Sunar’s words. “I lost a job opportunity because of my caste.”

Members of the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple, a Dalit gurudwara in Woodside, Queens, described discrimination they’ve experienced in places of worship because of their caste.

Balbir Chumber, a member of the temple, told Prism that in the ’80s, local Sikh temples refused to allow him and his wife to conduct their wedding ceremony on their premises, referring to him as “chamaron ka ladka,” or the son of a lower-caste Chamar. Avtar Bhatia, another member of the temple, recalled how the women in his family would often encounter casteist, misogynistic remarks when visiting Sikh temples, eventually leading them to pool their money to construct the only Dalit Sikh place of worship in the city. 

On May 5, a coalition of Dalits and advocates traveled to Albany to meet with lawmakers, several of whom pledged their support for the bill after hearing testimonies of caste discrimination from those directly impacted by it. (Disclosure: The reporter of this story helped organize the press conference and was part of the coalition.) 

Though the bill remains in committee, where it has yet to be scheduled for a hearing, advocates are hopeful that the rising momentum around the bill could turn it into law.

Shalini, a Dalit community organizer who was part of the coalition and did not give her last name, situated the fight for caste protections in New York within the larger civil rights movement in the U.S.

“This movement is rooted in equality and pluralism, and really healing, for a community that has been long oppressed, who just wants to safeguard [their] rights,” she said.

Correction, May 11, 2026: Sravya Tadepalli’s title has been updated from political director to deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights.

Editorial Team:
Rashmee Kumar, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor

New York bill confronts caste discrimination residents face at work and in public institutions, advocates say is a story from Prism, a BIPOC-led nonprofit news outlet that centers the people, places, and issues currently underreported by national media. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work today.