My Lords, I seem to be the last speaker and I will take this opportunity to say what has been in my mind. It is very interesting that we have two Hindus speaking today against this amendment. On the previous occasion one of them was here but did not speak up, yet that was the time to make his points about why we should not have voted in favour of a caste discrimination amendment.
I have found that all Governments in this country have a great belief in so-called “community leaders”. Ever since immigrants first came to this country they have created this myth of community leaders: community leaders know everything about the community; they will tell us what the community wants; they are the important ones. They are not the ones to speak for all communities: they are the ones who shout the loudest. It has always been a big mistake to listen to people who say, “We are the community leaders”. Have you ever seen a woman as a community leader? Have you ever seen any women in any consultation? Have you seen any women among all these men who have been shouting outside the House of Lords about the caste amendment? The Hindus have come together for the first time ever, to my knowledge, to shout about the caste amendment because they feel that this dishonours them in some way. They dishonour themselves: caste is a fact. It is not created by us or in the minds of the British or other people; it is a fact that people discriminate on the basis of caste. It is endemic in social issues like marriage. As far as public things like employment and education are concerned, we have to watch out: we have to say, “No discrimination on the basis of caste”. It is no good our saying, “Leave it for next time”; that happens all the time. There will be more consultation and more evidence, but there is already plenty of evidence of discrimination. As someone has said, if there are six people being discriminated against, we should do something about it. We do not know how many people are discriminated against.
We have been told about the untouchables. Caste is not about untouchability but about someone of a particular caste not being accepted by a person of a higher or different caste. It is about not giving them the same treatment as you give to people of your own caste. In my parents’ house, we were from the merchant caste and had to have a Brahman cook, otherwise people in our house did not eat. None of us were allowed in the kitchen because we would pollute it. I have lived with caste all my life, from childhood.
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Of course people say, “It’s bad in India but it’s nothing like that here”. That may be the case, but it should not be here at all, and we know that it is—we have the evidence and people have brought us cases. I am sure that your Lordships have had a chance to talk to people and to understand. If there is a consultation, the Hindus who made such a fuss last week are going to say, “There is no discrimination”, while those from the lower castes are going to say, “There is discrimination”. How do you bring those two together? I do not understand. There is no meeting point between them; if that were the case, things would have been sorted out in India. They have not been and the situation has become worse.
Noble Lords must not shilly-shally or put their heads in the sand. Just do it. It deserves to be done. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, took so long to tell us that he would not support the amendment to the Motion, and he should have told us a little earlier that he would not do so.
I am always interested in points one, two, three and four made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh; he has always done that, and by the time he gets to part 1(2) of point four I get lost. However, he talked only about the untouchables. This is not about only the untouchables but about the person who is not of as high a caste as you. It can be a person who is not an untouchable at all. There is no need for untouchability here. That would be beyond belief, but there is discrimination and I saw it in schools when I was a teacher when lower-caste children were mistreated by higher-caste children. Discrimination is there and is built into the psyche, and the sooner we put an end to it the better.
The Minister asked, “How are we going to declare what a caste is?”. Every declaration is voluntary. We do not have to say whether we are Indians, Pakistanis, Muslims or Hindus. We do not have to say anything. It is not a matter that is enforced. Lower-caste people do not have to say anything if they do not want to. All the arguments against the amendment are just trying to put us off doing this. There is no complication. If there is discrimination in a place of work and the person says, “It’s because of my caste”, someone will investigate it. As to frivolous complaints, there are plenty of those now in all sorts of discrimination cases.
Last year I became a pariah among Muslims because of my stated wish that there should be a reduction in benefits for people with more than two children. Today I have become a pariah among Hindus—the noble Lord, Lord Popat, has already declared that he will not be my friend—because I support the amendment to the Motion, totally and utterly.