Religion and Caste in the UK: Reflections on Hindu and Sikh Fundamentalist Mobilisations

Abstract

This Chapter considers the relationship between caste discrimination and religious fundamentalist projects in the UK. In particular, it provides background information about the incidence of caste within Hindu and Sikh communities and considers how this specifically features within right-wing Hindu and Sikh political mobilisations. The first half of the Chapter provides a background to the Brahminical underpinnings of Hindu nationalism and explores Hindu mobilisations against the introduction of anti-caste discrimination law in the UK from 2008 onwards. This mobilisation became a rallying point for the assertion of Hindu nationalism that is now a dominant presence in the Indian Hindu diaspora. The second half of the Chapter explores the ways that caste arises within Sikh fundamentalist politics. Sikh fundamentalism is premised on claims about the egalitarian underpinnings of the Khalsa version of Sikhism. Sikh fundamentalists potentially oppose caste on this basis but also as an attempt to demarcate their bounded version of Sikhism from the threat of Hindu submergence and Hinduised practices. However, institutionalisation of a Khalsa norm also embeds caste privilege and indeed Sikh fundamentalists have rejected, indeed inflicted violence upon, antinomian strands, such as Ravidassis and Valmikis, that are defined as much by their caste position as their dissenting practices.

We are indebted to Chetan Bhatt for his invaluable expert advice and generous support throughout the writing of this chapter.