By Rajiv Malhotra:
A New York-based organisation called Equality Labs is spreading serious propaganda against NRIs. It has taken it upon itself to educate Americans about what it considers as caste privilege enjoyed by Brahmins in the US. Its founder Thenmozhi Soundararajan is spearheading this movement by posing as a spokesperson for all Dalits with the stated goal of empowering them and ending their oppression.
Equality Labs’ mission is to use “community research, political base-building, culture-shifting art, and digital security to end the oppression of caste apartheid, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and religious intolerance”. This conflating of issues is typical of the Woke cult that has the goal of bringing together people with grievances to topple the traditional structures of society.
With funding from mysterious sources, this organisation has suddenly produced fake surveys and created a power base in the mainstream American media. It has converted dubious social sciences theories into activism on the ground.
Its fifty-two-page report on the American workplace claims that corporate power is controlled by Brahmins/upper castes and that Dalits are routinely oppressed and discriminated against. In my recent book, Snakes in the Ganga, my co-author Vijaya Viswanathan and I show that the report is full of flaws.
But this kind of activism attracts huge audiences because it has roped in many Blacks to lend credibility to the Dalit-Black hyphenation, i.e., Dalits are Blacks and upper caste Indians are Whites. However ridiculous, the theory has helped Soundararajan latch on to the Woke movement that Blacks are using to fight racism in the US. This is a dangerous cocktail designed to explode in Silicon Valley.
Soundararajan has helped file lawsuits against tech companies in Silicon Valley. This created havoc at Cisco, for instance, which has fought hard to defend itself in court. As a result, Indian Americans find themselves trapped in a terrible situation. Much to their embarrassment, Soundararajan is aggressively calling for surveys of caste discrimination in workplaces across America.
She is using the Cisco lawsuit to pressure many companies into accepting her “caste training” workshops. The claim that caste equals race labels a company a racist organisation if it doesn’t fall in line with these activists’ thinking. Racism is a terrible allegation in the US with legal and political consequences. Moreover, the share price of a company would fall if it faced such a scandal.
Rich technology companies prefer to pacify the trouble-makers, which actually plays into Soundararajan’s hands. She has entered large HR departments to coach employees to be able to recognize caste discrimination as racism.
Her account of the history of caste is packed with Hinduphobia. It’s very difficult for White Americans to tell the caste of Indians because they look the same, mostly speak English, eat the same food, enjoy the same kind of entertainment, and so on. This confusion causes nervous HR departments to opt for these training programmes. They are allocating significant budgets to deal with the issue. In 2020 for example, US companies promised thirty-five billion dollars toward racial equality efforts, making this a huge industry that generates millions of dollars for “consultants” like Equality Labs.
The effect on Indians who work in large numbers in Silicon Valley is devastating. In these “caste training” workshops, Indian employees are forced to sit quietly and listen. Many acquiesce to the indoctrination by apologizing for their casteism. Any employee who raises issues with the workshop and counters with facts is labelled casteist. It is an experience of public humiliation for most Indians in front of their American colleagues. It is unfair because they have not personally committed any act of oppression against Dalits.
This is hurting the brand value that Indian tech workers have built for themselves through their hard work. It is also hurting India’s competitiveness. The Chinese for instance are quick to capitalise on any situation and wanting to take jobs and contracts away from Indians. And even among Americans, there are those that are jealous of the success of Indians. Soundararajan is giving them ammunition by accusing Indians of bringing caste oppression into the American workplace. It is a manipulative bullying tactic in the guise of a noble social justice cause.
What started in Silicon Valley has spread like wildfire already. Even American college campuses are not being spared. Many have already adopted official policies to treat caste just like race and prosecute complaints of bias as acts of racism. Here too, Indians are harassed with lecturing and public shaming. Such policies make Hindu professors and students seem like suspects.
This is also the root cause behind the rapid flareups of Hinduphobia on campuses and in the media. I predict this tsunami will enter India via the business offices of US technology companies. It will create divisiveness among employees and feed the Breaking India forces.
For more details on this syndrome, please see www.SnakesInTheGanga.com.
(The author is a researcher, writer, speaker and public intellectual on current affairs as they relate to civilisations, cross-cultural encounters, religion and science. His latest book is ‘Snakes in the Ganga’. Views expressed are personal.)
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I wonder whether she gets funding from George Soros and anti Hindu interests. In today’s world there’s no place of any discrimination however it must be noted that a fair proportion of educational and employment quota are already reserved for the so called Dalits Also, not being able to find other faults, such activists get support from left wing liberals whi gave nothing better to do Even Brahmins suffer in India like any working class si the narrative is not only wrong but unconvincing