Campaign news

Left MPs win victory on caste discrimination

7th April 2010

Left MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn have successfully added a clause to the Equality Bill adding caste discrimination to the section dealing with race discrimination.

John McDonnell, who spearheaded this successful addition, told the Commons:

“The process started with representations received by a number of us from constituents and organisations such as the Dalit Solidarity Network and a series of temples across the country.

“Representations were made to us about some of the horrendous implications of caste discrimination transposed from the Indian subcontinent to this country.”

Jeremy Corbyn said the problem in Britain was a small part of “the massive amount of discrimination that exists throughout the world, whereby 200 million lower-caste individuals are systematically discriminated against.”

In parts of the Indian subcontinent, “they are killed, they live awful lives, do awful jobs and end up fundamentally underachieving.”