move to fuel hunduphobia underway

The City of Seattle voted two days ago to become the first city in the US to outlaw caste discrimination. Caste discrimination has to be fought at every level and at every place. However, Indian-Americans have vociferously protested the same, expressing concern that it would lead to discrimination against the South Asians in general in the country. The addition of 'caste' to the non-discrimination policy violates the very policies it now amends, they claim. But, hours ahead of the vote, Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal lent her support to the move. "Caste discrimination has no place in society anywhere in the world, including here in America. That is why some colleges and universities have banned it on campuses, and workers are fighting for their rights and their dignity in cases involving caste discrimination," she said.

The brain behind the move is Equity Labs, which is said to be a coalition of about 30 Ambedkarite and minority organizations. The founders of the Labs are from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. However, whenever it speaks of caste, it usually and only refers to India. In fact, the only report of the Equity Lab ever published and submitted to the US authorities was found to be unacceptable earlier to the authorities due to its false premise. Some of the Labs members in responsible positions are allegedly connected to anti-Indian extremist organizations and individuals like the Khalistani forces and ISI agencies. A couple of them at least are the children of former Pakistani Army officials and it is suspected that the Labs often acts as a front for their activity. It is also closely connected by some Kashmir separatist groups.

Equality Labs' report on caste mentions several activists and organizations that were involved in its curation, such as IAMC (Indian American Muslim Council), OFMI (Organization for Minorities in India), AJA (Alliance for Justice and Accountability) and HfHR (Hindus for Human Rights). These organizations are known fronts created in the US by the Pakistani Establishment, Jamaat-e-Islami, as part of its longest war against India. In particular, OFMI was founded and jointly run by Bhajan Singh Bhinder and his employee, Pieter Friedrich, who once worked with the ISI to send weapons to India for terror attacks in the 1990s, it is said. This is what the Indian-Americans and other South Asians exactly fear as it gives the others a chance to brand all of them as casteists which potentially could harm their interests. Secondly, Equality Labs was very active during the

Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)

protests in India. During that time, Equality Labs collated CAA, National Register of Citizens (NRC), and National Population Register (NPR) with purported Genocide in India and released a one-page pamphlet on it. It also released a toolkit titled "organizing against Hindu Fascism" to organise protests and run online campaigns against the Indian establishment. The toolkit gave sample tweets as well as suggestions for running campaigns and holding protests.

The Labs said in its latest statement that "love has won over hate as Seattle has

become the first in the nation to ban caste discrimination." The fact remains that "the City of Seattle has voted to treat South Asians (and Southeast Asians and African) in a manner that no other ethnic or

racial community is treated under the guise

of non-discrimination. By the way,

the Labs keeps referring to Tamil Eelam,

too, every time.