The Concurrence of Anti‐Racism and Anti‐Casteism

Abstract

The article considers three interlocking ways in which we can understand the concurrence of anti‐racism and anti‐casteism in the Indian diaspora. First, at the level of experience—of UK activists and campaigners—it has been found that the concurrence of anti‐racism and anti‐casteism is not conclusively determined at this level. Second, by a juxtaposition of the conceptual apparatus of ‘caste’ and ‘race’ the article considers the fault lines—illuminating or obfuscating—that appear in conceptualising anti‐casteism as a form of anti‐racism. Here, the sociality of caste is found to be important, the operation of racialisation underpinning anti‐racist practice. Finally, by considering the legal apparatus available in a given jurisdiction (UK), the article evaluates the feasibility of measures that might facilitate the actualising of anti‐casteism as a form of anti‐racism through the practice of litigation to allow a pragmatic capturing of the experience of casteism as a form of racism.