The recent legislation against caste-based discrimination in the American city of Seattle has conjured interest and debate around the issue of caste in contemporary times. At the outset, it brought to light the prevalence of caste-based discrimination within the tech sector in America. At another level, they also threw open a series of discussions in India and the US, garnering both support and criticism from different quarters. The latter includes claims that the legislations are American universities’ assault on their Indian counterparts for promoting meritocracy. Public discussions organised in premier institutes of higher education in India have tried to argue the same. Even social media is rife with similar arguments.
A deeper perusal of the past conversations and deliberations in similar spaces would also showcase the support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Thus, highlighting the complex and somewhat contradictory approaches to the institutions of caste and race.
In this light, this paper shall try to understand how the different sections of the Indian American diaspora view the legislation. Mapping the academic discourse on caste and race in the United States and India, the paper will try to understand how caste and race are viewed in universities, sites critical for spearheading public discourse. The paper will use mixed methods using interviews of persons of Indian origin with experience or associations with universities based in the US. This will be supported by a digital ethnography on race and caste of ‘academic Twitter’. The paper aims to highlight the complex ways in which the institutions of caste and race intersect in contemporary societies.
