Should Caste be covered by the Equality Act?

If all you are concerned with is Justice and Utility and stuff like that- go ahead and answer yes. The same goes for looney toons Hindutva types who think eradicating Caste will instantaneously turn India into a Super Power and this will make every N.R.I or P.I.O dick at least two inches longer and wider.
But what if you were philosophically inclined? Would you still think the answer is yes?
Before rushing to judgement, consider the case of  Naveed vs. Aslam where an Employment Tribunal dismissed the Claimant's allegation of caste discrimination on the following grounds

What would happen if the Crown amends the Equality Act to bring Caste discrimination within its purview?

Well, in that case being discriminated against because of one's Caste- even if those doing the discriminating are of the same Caste- would be actionable. In the case of Mr. Naveed, a chef from Pakistan whose style of cooking was not to the liking of his employer's clientele, a case could be made that he was cooking 'proper' Arain food and his Arain employers were in fact discriminating against him because they had become deracinated Arains by reason of prosperity; in particular, their ownership of land and other assets ha turned them into 'Chowdhurys'. 

To my mind, this line of thought opens some truly marvelous vistas for litigious persons like myself. I have previously complained on this blog about the quite horrendous Racial and Sexual abuse I suffered, the former at the hands of my parents and the latter at the hands of my ex-wife. 

Previously, what restrained me from going to law was that it was open to the Court or Tribunal to find that, like Mr. Naveed, in the above example, since it was possible to alter my status within my Caste- for e.g by washing regularly or getting a job-in which case I would cease to be subject to abuse, therefore, it followed, that no actual Racial or Sexual abuse had occurred. I say this because it is only my lowly status within my Caste which endows me with such merely corporeal characteristics as Race and Gender. 

If the Equality Act is extended to Caste- at least Hindu Castes- then an exciting new vista is opened for the Philosophy of Law. This is because Caste- 'Jati'- signifies a type of concrete Universal such that it defines a class all of whose elements possess substance, quality and action as opposed to abstract Universals referring to things like inherence, existence or non existence, particularity, universality etc all of which are subsumed under the rubric of  upadhi -thus, assuming away the problem of 'sankaarya' (e.g. by a choice of vocabulary such that no ambiguity or over-lapping cross-reference arises) Jati defines what Western Philosophy calls an essence which, by definition,  must be permanent, unalterable and present in all possible worlds. In impossible or partly impossible and hence ontologically dysphoric worlds, Jati remains present but alterable or alterable but permanent. Thus, while remaining within the same Jati, one may be a God, a demon, an animal, a ghost or wholly insubstantial and all or none of these things simultaneously and with varying degrees of virtuality. More particularly, in the case of Hindus in the U.K- clearly they have lost Caste by crossing the black water but equally evidently they possess it by virtue of having never left India in the first place- in other words anything at all can be predicated of them with equal truth value. Furthermore, since Caste is alterable and moreover the possibility of subsisting in several different physical bodies simultaneously is admitted, if follows that the a priori virtuality of all Caste UK Hindus permits my bringing an action against myself for Caste discrimination- certainly a good way to punish myself for daring to be uppity.

What about non-Hindus? For them, clearly 'Caste' isn't about status but descent because there is no religious ceremony they can undergo, or ostracism they can incur, to change their Caste status. Here, though self-prosecution isn't possible, still the door is opened for sons to sue their fathers and brothers to sue their brothers. Speaking personally, it is my custom- as becomes a typically low status member of my caste- to hurl my feces at dinner guests while hanging from the chandelier. If my father fails to employ me, clearly it is because of my caste, not anything else. The fact that he belongs to the same caste doesn't change anything. He has improved his status within my caste but no one can deny that our very distant forbears behaved as I do now- hence it is something inherited by descent which can't be divorced from Caste since Caste- within non-Hindu Religions and Cultures- is wholly descent driven and, consequently, not alterable at will.

Not that any of the above excuses David Cameron's refusal to breast feed Nick Clegg- reserving all of his profuse lactation for the greedy little lips of the Chancellor of the Exchequer..

I've said it before and I'll say it again- that boy aint right.

Mind it kindly.

The Caste system- economics or religion

The Indian caste system- economics or religion?
As a responsible Hindu I feel im my religious duty to add to the nonsense written about the caste system by making a couple of points, not I believe, highlighted elsewhere-

1) India was a mixed regime economy with a metropolitan cash nexus parallel to a system of non-monetized specialisation & division of labour where agicultural land and surpluses were periodically redistributed according to some ill-defined communal collective bargaining which more often than not meant whole sub-castes (endogamous occupational groups called jatis) voting with their feet. During exogenous monetary shocks/ natural disasters the unmonetized jati system of specialisation and exchange was the default value. It kept things ticking over and allowed the clearing of new land and rural settlement with low capital investment but the full complement of services. Theoretically, endogamy was supposed to facillitate the diffusion of new techniques of production and thus raise productivity. Religion tends to say what IS is right. God wants it that way. Vedic Hindu religion was particularly suitable for this because it emphasised the equality of all paths to the deity- i.e. the notion that utterly opposite codes of behaviour (customary morality) were equally valid. This lead to the notion that every occupational jati was engaged in an imitatio dei- i.e. the potter feels God is a potter & hence derives a psychic satisfaction from making pots, the thief reckons God is the ultimate thief etc. Hence each jati reckons it alone is supreme because it is wholly engaged in God's quintessential activity. Thus each jati develops its own spirituality and (the inevitable corrollary) coercive system.
2) The metropolitan cash nexus, when supported by State power used for extraction of surpluses, does not in its expansion dissolve the default system, but leeches resources off it causing it to crash. This is because the initial rise in productivity incident on monetisation is ultimately swamped by ecological degradation, fiscal incentive incompatability, and Social Capital failure arising from collapse of public good provision. The metropolitan cash nexus esperiences a tulip bust and learns fear of a more fundamental collapse affecting every aspect of Socialisation. Fear of the crash means the metropolitan cash nexus ultimately resurrects jati as varna (legitimating ideology for social stratification).
3) Only if the State becomes effective in provision of public goods at the village level can the crashing default system be expunged from the directory. However, if the State is dependent on its survival on the crisis of the default system- i.e. it is a protest against what it perpetuates- this aint gonna happen.
4) Though jati type caste appears to be, under ideal conditions, a co-operative solution that would dominate competitive solutions- giving rise to dreams of 'Ramrajya'. Gandhian village swaraj, Buddhist Socialism, Vandana Siva styleEco-Feminism etc- this is just a pipe dream. It is not productivity that rises but the amount of time people spend in 'consciousness raising' and other such magical practices. Sure, this may attract outside funding- but it aint sustainable as a universal panacea unless they like hit upon a better class of recreational drug or find a way to intensify orgasm or something.
5) Caste in present day India is about people from larger jatis taking power by claiming to speak for smaller jatis that have, arbitrarily, been adjudged to be of equally low status. It represents a redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the richest in these arbitrarily defined 'castes'. This is not done in a Pareto efficient way. Rather there is a huge and growing deadweight cost to the whole economy. The rich can escape this, because, in India, increased life chances equals increased elasticity of supply and demand (i.e. the rich can always get what they want by circumventing the system. Not just a Black Economy, India has always had (infinitely many!) Anti-States, Anti-Commons, Anti-Relgions (as well as Anti-Anti-States etc) simoultaneous memberships of which is the path to thrive.
5) Some social customs can (only if everyone is very good in the first place) internalise externalities, improve Schelling focal point choices, turn prisoner dillemmas into positive sum games etc, etc. But why bring caste into it? The English word caste dervies from the Portugese and Spanish notion that degree of miscegenation determines 'nature' and hence ought to determine social status. Does anyone believe that sort of racial nonsense anymore?
6) One good point about jati-dharma (caste based religion) is that it recognises that from the moral point of view there is a huge range of choices which are equally acceptable. However,some modern Hindus believe that their own vegetarian jati-dharma is the universal morality and seek to convert everybody to an irrational and socially very costly (and potentially environmentally disasterous) code of conduct. But the same point applies to Islam, missionary Christianity, Eco-feminism, Marxism, Hitler worship etc.
Caste is crap. However economic analysis of its causes and consequences should continue so as to prevent history books from spouting silly conspiracy theories- the Brahmins did it! No, it was the British. Actually, you're both wrong- it was the lizard people from Planet X.
nuff said