Caste Discrimination in the United Kingdom: Identifying Parliamentary Patterns in a Movement to Secure Caste in Equality Legislation

In India, caste-based discrimination is constitutionally prohibited. Among western nations with large Indian populations, however, not one has implemented a law prohibiting caste discrimination. This thesis examines the reasons that Members of Parliament (MPs) in the United Kingdom supported, or declined to support, a movement to prohibit caste discrimination in law. When politicians discussed legislation to prohibit caste discrimination in 2012 and 2013, the Indian community was split on the issue; the Hindu lobby rallied fiercely against it, even as low-caste advocacy groups pushed it forward. Language outlawing caste discrimination was provisionally passed in 2013 but not implemented, as of 2017. The central debates on the issue have come to be seen as a landmark case study on caste legislation outside of India. Despite this attention, how average citizens stood on the issue—and why MPs mobilized—remained opaque. This study serves a twofold purpose. The first is to determine the demographic and political factors that influenced Members of Parliament to vocally support caste legislation. I examine whether the percent of Indians in a constituency, the MP’s ethnicity, or Labour party identification is the strongest predictor of vocal support. Vocal support is advocacy for the caste legislation movement, expressed through signing an Early Day Motion or advocating for legislation through debate. I also examine voting patterns in a 2013 Lords amendment to add caste to the 2010 Equality Act. The second goal of the study is to lay the groundwork for future research into how and if Western nations interpret and legislate against discrimination on the basis of sub-ethnic groups. I find that the percentage of Indian constituents an MP has is the single strongest influence on an MP’s probability of strongly supporting the caste legislation movement. Representing a constituency in the top decile of Indian population increased MPs’ probability of vocal support twofold from the mean.Bachelor of Art