A survey we conducted in London found that 20 percent of people have been personally affected, so it's strange the government is still dragging its feet. In 2012, Permila Tirkey – a member of India's lowest caste – was awarded £266,000 at an employment tribunal after being treated like a slave by a higher-caste couple. She had been paid 11p per hour and worked 18-hour days, seven days a week, performing menial household tasks. She was made to sleep on a mattress on the floor and wasn't allowed to contact her family. All of this took place not in Delhi or Mumbai, where India's caste structure ranks sections of society by the social class they were born into, but at a house in Milton Keynes. Tirkey's was the first case of caste discrimination to reach a courtroom in the UK, but according to British charity Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance  (ACDA) her situation is representative of a much larger problem. This type of prejudice, they say, is widespread among Indian co

India's caste system is thought to be among the world's oldest surviving forms of social stratification. However, some British Asians say they still experience discrimination due to their caste. So, why are so many Hindu bodies in the UK opposed to this being made illegal? Sudesh Rani was shopping in the Home Counties two years ago when she experienced such discrimination first hand. The 42-year-old from Bedford identifies herself as Ravidassia - a group regarded by some as at the lower end of the caste system. She says she was in a supermarket when two women began verbally abusing her. "They started calling me a low caste chamar (a derogatory term used to describe an individual belonging to a low caste), a dirty bitch. "At that time, I got a bit frightened, I thought 'no, no this can't be happening.'" She said the women, who had seen her at a wedding previously, followed her and her nine-year-old son to her car. "There were two of them and one o

In the initial years of the VHP’s campaign, its leaders had argued that the claim of a Ram temple at the disputed site would be eventually “proven”. However, the findings by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as part of its Archaeology of Ramayana Sites project, suggested that there was no evidence of any human settlement in contemporary Ayodhya before eleventh century BC. What this meant was that if events described in the epic did occur as believed by several Hindus, they perhaps may have, but not necessarily in the location that the VHP insisted they did. At a time when the sangh parivar was in a conundrum over faith and fact, it was Advani who had come to their rescue by proclaiming that Ram was a matter of faith. His master stroke of a statement, which was in a way an assertion of belief over rationality, gave the RSS and its affiliates instant nirvana from the burden of confronting historical facts. Much like phrases which have become part of the urban political narrative t

For asylum seekers, trying to find work in another country is very difficult. Not only is there often a language barrier and reams of paperwork, but there is also the fact that government systems can encourage exploitation. Asylum seekers in the UK receive £37.75 a week to live on, and most are prohibited from working. But this small amount of money often fails to allow people to meet their basic needs. This leads some to search for work to supplement their income. But herein lies the problem, as the only people willing to employ them are those happy to do so illegally. This leaves asylum seekers with no bargaining power to negotiate reasonable pay or working conditions. Yet the risk of exploitation does not end with a positive asylum decision. Refugees are often dispersed out of London and the south-east to other areas in the UK. The areas of dispersal are determined by the availability of temporary housing. In many cases, this is concentrated around areas of economic deprivation. Thi

Rogue immigration solicitors are exploiting vulnerable migrants by charging thousands of pounds for legal representation that falls “far short” of basic professional standards, the High Court has ruled. Desperate immigrants are losing legitimate claims or given false hope about claims that are unwinnable, after paying large sums of money to solicitors who fail to deliver a professional service. A ruling found solicitors were instructing paralegals and unqualified people to draft applications which fall “well below acceptable standards” and which judges must reject as “unarguable and totally without merit”. This has led to vulnerable individuals squandering thousands of pounds, often borrowed from family and friends due to dwindling access to legal aid, judges warned.  It is observered that in some cases, solicitors are failing to include relevant evidence provided to them by clients in court submissions, making their claims unwinnable simply because important facts are omitted. One wom

Ahmed Zaha, whose name has been changed to maintain his anonymity, is in his late 20s.  He was born in a country in West Africa, where he lived for most of his life. Then, a few years ago, he attended a pro-democracy demonstration, which led to his detention and torture at the hands of the state. After he escaped, he fled to the United Kingdom in 2017, but was forced to leave his family, including a wife and young son, behind. Ahmed now stays with a friend in South London while he awaits a decision on his asylum appeal. We are not mentioning his country of origin or any details about the torture he endured as this may put him in danger if he is returned.  He told Al Jazeera his story. The way I understand it, a job is work that someone does to earn material things: food, clothes, money. When you are recruited by an employer, a job has duties, tasks and responsibilities that are definite and specific, and that can be accomplished. Back home, I was a physics and chemistry teacher. My job

Dr B. R. Ambedkar (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) prominently known as Babasaheb was conceived in alleged unapproachable station group of Mahar. Yet, for him this was not the shackle to reach at peak. He turned into an incredible instructor, speaker, rationalist, pioneer and earned a lot more trees of this sort. Likewise he was first from his standing to get school instruction in India, as untouchables were not permitted to get training, they were not permitted to love in sanctuaries, they were not permitted to drink water from the source that was utilized by upper station individuals and so forth. So even while concentrating in school he had confronted every single such segregation. Be that as it may, with a genuine soul of a warrior in the wake of finishing his investigations in India, he went to London School of Economics for further examinations and turned into an incredible legal counselor. He is a genuine case of an independent man who buckled down against all the chances to accomplish