Today DSN-UK is launching our ‘Report Everyday Casteism’ campaign to collect evidence of caste-based discrimination and casteist hate speech in the UK experienced by non-dominant caste people. Our dedicated webpage has a succinct reporting form with an option to remain anonymous. Everyone who has faced casteist behaviour in the UK is encouraged to submit incidents that might be serious or negligible, very offensive or so minor and normalised that you do not even give it much thought or feel the need to protest.
DSN-UK together with other like-minded organisations in the UK campaigned to include caste in the Equality Act 2010. However, after the public consultation on caste, the UK government announced its decision to repeal the duty in the Equality Act 2010 to make caste an explicit aspect of race discrimination. Since then, MP Bob Blackman has been pushing to ensure this is done as soon as possible.
We have often faced the challenge of providing enough concrete evidence on how widespread the issue of caste-based discrimination is in the UK. At the last DSN-UK Annual General Meeting suggestions were made of looking at the possibility of collecting everyday casteist incidents that may not reach courts or mass media attention. A catalogue of reported casteist incidents will strengthen our campaign by allowing us to illustrate how casteist behaviour manifests in the UK and what type of legislative or policy protections are needed to protect the victims and prevent such incidents in the future.
Report Everyday Casteism in the UK now and encourage others to do the same.