Couple Sue Over ‘Caste Discrimination’
By: Moses | August 24, 2011 at 11:23 pm | 21,070 comments
Amardeep told a tribunal in Birmingham that when the bosses found about their marriage plans, she was advised to reconsider her decision and warned of potential difficulties.
“He [one of the bosses] said … I should reconsider the step I was taking of marrying Vijay because he was a different caste. People of Vijay’s caste were different creatures. Marriage would be very different from dating,” she said.
In a case of how the Indian caste system has been imported into Britain, a young Hindu-Sikh couple have sued their British employers of Indian origin for alleged discrimination on the basis of caste.
Although covert caste discrimination is believed to be widespread among Britain’s Indian community, this is the first time that someone has made a formal complaint in what is seen as a test case in a long-running campaign for caste prejudice to be recognised as racism.
The couple, Vijay and Amardeep Begraj, claim that they lost their jobs at Heer Manak, a Coventry-based firm of solicitors, because their bosses frowned upon their inter-caste marriage and they were subjected to harassment.
The employers dismissed the claim as outrageous.
Vijay (32) is a Hindu Jat while Amardeep (33), a Sikh, belongs to a higher caste. They met while working in the same office, fell in love and decided to marry — a decision which, they claim, did not go down well with their employers. The latter allegedly objected to Amardeep marrying someone from a “lower” caste.
Amardeep told a tribunal in Birmingham that when the bosses found about their marriage plans, she was advised to reconsider her decision and warned of potential difficulties.
“He [one of the bosses] said … I should reconsider the step I was taking of marrying Vijay because he was a different caste. People of Vijay’s caste were different creatures. Marriage would be very different from dating,” she said.
Workload increased
When she ignored the warning, her workload was increased and she was discriminated in other ways such as being paid less than other solicitors in the firm, Amardeep told the hearing. She said that on her wedding day, one colleague “raised a toast to Jat girls going down the drain”.
She resigned after Vijay, who had worked at the firm for seven years, was dismissed.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article2366596.ece