On Saturday (March 15th), the Hindu Policy Research and Advocacy Collective (popularly known as HinduPACT) took to X (formerly Twitter) to highlight the far-reaching consequences of a recent US court verdict on Hindu Americans.

“We strongly disagree with the judgement of the 9th Circuit Court against the Hindu faculty of CSU,” it said in a tweet.

HinduPACT pointed out, “The Hinduphobic caste narrative in the US based on fictitious surveys and allegations is a weapon to destroy the professional success of American Hindus.”

HinduPACT was referring to the verdict [pdf] of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which was delivered on Wednesday (12th March).

The case pertains to a legal challenge by two Hindu Professors, Sunil Kumar and Praveen Sinha, against a dubious ‘anti-discrimination and harassment policy’ of the California State University (CSU) that came into force in January 2023.

In an unprecedented move, CSU had included the word ‘caste’ in the protected class of ‘Race or Ethnicity.’ Needless to say, the varsity did not define ‘caste’ in its policy, leaving ample scope for its misuse.

CSU had even defended its position saying “the same analysis campus investigators use to determine other forms of discrimination will be applied to allegations of caste discrimination.”

This was despite having no working definition of caste and the broad possibilities of falsely labelling everything as ‘caste discrimination’, a concept alien to American society and politics.

The arguments made by the Hindu Professors

Professors Sunil Kumar and Praveen Sinha pointed out that the addition of ‘caste’ as a protected class in the ‘anti-discrimination and harassment policy’ of the California State University (CSU) falsely attributed the caste system to Hinduism.

They argued that the policy not only stigmatises Hinduism but also forces them to self-censor religious practices like celebrating holidays and discussing religious texts.

The Hindu Professors further pointed out that the ‘anti-discrimination and harassment policy’ was unconstitutionally vague and that even non-discriminatory religious practices could be misconstrued as discriminatory under the CSU policy.

Professors Sunil Kumar and Praveen Sinha also highlighted that the 2023 policy resulted in a spiritual injury, i.e. stigma from belonging to a religion (Hinduism) that has been disparaged.

They argued that Hinduism was being singled out in the policy after the addition of caste as a ‘protected class’, which was not the case with other provisions laid down by the California State University.

US Court turns down appeal

The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the appeal of the two Hindu Professors.

It claimed that ‘caste’ is not exclusively a religious concept and has previously been used to refer to ‘social class without reference to any particular religion’ by the country’s Supreme Court.

The court further stated that the ‘anti-discrimination and harassment policy’ of the California State University (CSU) and a Question & Answer document released by it did not make explicit reference to Hinduism.

“There are also documented incidents of caste discrimination in the United States and recent lawsuits in California, New Jersey, and New York have alleged caste discrimination,” Judge Richard C. Tallman claimed despite charges remaining unproven in all the mentioned cases.

He also claimed that Professors Sunil Kumar and Praveen Sinha failed to demonstrate ‘sufficient injury for a pre-enforcement challenge.’

The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit also said that the CSU policy did not stigmatise Hinduism and thus did not amount to ‘spiritual injury.’ It claimed that the two Hindu Professors had ‘no standing’ in the case.

The court further down the appeal by stating that Professors Sunil Kumar and Praveen Sinha failed to show how their non-discriminatory religious practice could be misconstrued as discriminatory.

It must be mentioned that the petition of the CSU Professors was earlier turned down in part by the United States district Court for the Central District of California.

The larger context behind the case and its implications

‘Caste’ is an alien concept to the Hindu American way of life. There is no concrete proof of any instance of caste discrimination in the United States. There also has not been a single conviction in any case where ‘caste discrimination’ was alleged.

In recent years, several bogus cases of alleged ‘caste discrimination’ were propped up to target Hindu Americans in positions of power. We saw it in action in the infamous CISCO case where two Indian-origin engineers (Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella) were accused of discriminating against a ‘self-identifying Dalit.’

This was despite the fact that the alleged victim was recruited by Iyer at a generous package with millions in stock grants. The Indian-origin engineer had also hired at least one more ‘self-identifying Dalit’ who held a leadership position at Cisco Sytems Inc.

It also came to light that the ‘self-identifying Dalit’ was working in the American company for 8 long years at the time of filing the complaint.

The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) ignored the fact that Sundar Iyer publicly identified as ‘agnostic’ for over 20 years. CRD went on to falsely identify him as a ‘Hindu’ and relied upon malicious ‘reports’ published by Thenmozi Soundarajan-run-Equallity Labs.

CRD could not find any evidence against the two Cisco Systems engineers that constituted harassment and voluntarily dropped the case.

We also saw notorious lawsuits against the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan (BAPS) temple in New Jerey alleging forced ‘Dalit labour’ for the construction of the temple as well as human trafficking.

It later turned out that artisans were threatened to be part of the deep-rooted conspiracy to stall the construction of the grand Hindu Temple. Some were tempted with promises of American citizenship and huge amounts of money.

The anti-Hindu lobby in the US, which experienced initial success by weaponising ‘caste’ against Hindu Americans, is willing to go to any length to tarnish the reputation of one of the most successful communities in the US.

The ecosystem has been coercing educational institutions, corporate houses and tech giants to include ‘caste’ in protected classes, despite it being a non-issue in the North American country.

The California State University (CSU) policy of 2023 is a step in that direction. The recent ruling by United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is thus a setback for the Hindu community in the US.

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