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10 January 2024

8 min read

Untouchable: experiencing discrimination around the world

In America it’s in the headlines, while in India it continues to influence. Rahil Patel explores caste discrimination and finds out who helped craft constitutional protections for those affected.

Rahil Patel

Rahil is a former Hindu monk, and author of Found By Love. He is a Tutor and Speaker at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

A group of protesters march behind a banner waving flags.

Supporters of the caste discrimination bill march.

Equality Labs

Cisco is a highly successful California based tech company. It has an annual revenue of $57 billion and boasts of many awards and prizes. Great Place to Work placed Cisco at number one on its 2023 list. But what has this to do with caste discrimination? Well, 33 per cent of Cisco’s 84,000 employees are of Indian origin and the company is struggling under a lawsuit currently upheld by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The widely reported lawsuit is for caste discrimination against a Dalit (Untouchable) employee. The engineer has claimed to be paid less than his peers due to his low caste status.

Is this common? Well, the high caste Brahmin CEO of Google, Sunder Pichai (of Indian origin) has also faced allegations, raised by California based civil rights organisation, Equality Labs, of “caste bigotry” that is “running rampant” within his company.

“You can take an Indian out of India but you can never take India out of an Indian.” This was the sorrow filled saying I heard amongst well meaning fellow Indians whilst growing up in the United Kingdom. It usually cropped up when my Indian relatives and friends were confused by the appalling attitudes of other fellow Indians and trust me, it was quite common.

In October 2023, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom vetoed a Bill to outlaw caste-based discrimination across his state. His decision was met with anger and rage from low caste Indian Dalits and from those who are fighting alongside them to ban discrimination amidst this rigid but ancient Hindu social structure.

It may surprise us in the west that the city of Seattle in Washington State was the first city in the USA to outlaw caste discrimination followed by Fresno in California.

But is this just a moral battle against an enemy that doesn’t really exist and a lame excuse to protest away with ‘Dalit Lives Matter?’ Or is there a tiny surreptitious fire carefully kindling away underneath the blinding smoke that mustn’t go unnoticed? After all, we are in the west…right? Of course we believe in equality…right?

The Swaminarayan Movement, America’s largest and most influential Hindu tradition saw the FBI raid it's temple compound in Robbinsville, New Jersey in 2021 for illegally importing Indians from India and illegally paying them below the national wage as well as confining them to the temple compound. The FBI raid rescued 200 workers who were largely from Dalit or Tribal castes.

When I was training in India to be a Hindu monk I remember recognising the harsh reality of the caste system in one single moment. One day, after I had finished a conversation with a friend in the temple compound I turned to head back to my room when I saw a young boy waving to me far away from the temple gates. I waved back and gestured to him to come in and talk but he stayed rooted to the spot. A little confused, I walked over and asked, “why don’t you come inside the compound?”

“I can’t.” He said,

“Why?”

“I’m a Dalit…I can’t even touch you!”

Thinking back over that mind numbing moment I can’t help imagine how hard it must have been for the woman in the Bible with the issue of blood who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment within the rigid culture of the time. The difference I guess is that Jesus turned to the broken hearted woman and healed her and then called her ‘daughter’ and defined her real identity as a result.

If the Dalit boy on the other hand came into the temple compound that day the security guards would have typically hit him with a long stick to drive him out of the temple gates. If he had touched me in the meantime I would have had to immediately go for a bath with all my clothes on and ensure that I didn’t touch any other human being or even a book or a pot on the way!

PM Modi’s comment has a pernicious and curious undertone. If Dharma is first then one is obliged to follow the caste system diligently.

Bhimrao. R Ambedkar was a brilliant economist and lawyer who studied at the London School of Economics. When his genius mind was called upon to draft the new constitution for independent India he was all too aware of how Hinduism was not so compatible with democracy. The idea of equality and dignity was evidently embedded into western institutions to his mind and Ambedkar knew very well that these ideas were founded on Judeo Christian principles, primarily, that all are created in the image of God. In other words, equal. Being a Dalit himself, Bhimrao knew the pitfalls of Hinduism’s caste system and the anarchical society it would create if the institutions left behind by the British were replaced with caste based ideas. As a result he crafted a constitution based upon Christian principles ensuring that all castes were allowed the opportunities and privileges from the state and its institutions by law. Sadly, although the state provided those privileges and protections by law in 1952 when the constitution came into effect, the society in India at large until this day does not. India exports it to the west as well.

When the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave his speech on National Human Rights Day in India a few years ago he emphasised to the nation that Dharma needs to be held first before Human Rights… if Dharma is pursued, he insisted, Human Rights would follow. Dharma simply put, is to pursue one’s duty and righteousness as according to Hindu tradition.

At a quick glance here one is reminded of what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said during his Harvard Commencement Speech in 1978. He told his audience that it was time that the west upheld human obligation more than human rights. He had a valid point to state in a significantly individualistic culture which still prevails in the west but PM Modi’s comment has a pernicious and curious undertone. If Dharma is first then one is obliged to follow the caste system diligently.

It has taken an incredibly long time to carve away at the negatives of the caste system in India but it is nowhere near the end.

Krishna who is the most widely revered incarnation of God in the Hindu world told his disciple Arjuna to fight and kill his cousins and teachers on the battlefield of Kurukshetra as it was his Dharma to do so. As a Kshatriya warrior caste Arjuna was not meant to meditate in the forest but fight and kill, as is laid out quite clearly in the beginning chapter of the Bhagvad Gita scripture.

Although the Gita scripture is quite a complex context to unravel here, in today’s India and in large parts of the west placing Human Rights behind Dharma can be quite dangerous. It somewhat validates the violence towards those of other faiths and endorses a dislike to those of a lower caste.

The need for individual freedom from caste based social structures in India was introduced to the British Parliament by William Wilberforce and Charles Grant in 1793. Interestingly, it was the same year that the cobbler-turned missionary William Carey snuck into India against the rules of the British East India Company. The company knew that if missionaries entered the country they would battle against the unfair social order and upset the high caste Brahmins. And that would hinder their lucrative trade.

Wilberforce and Grant along with other devout Christians fought in Parliament for 20 years until in 1813 a law was passed to allow missionaries passage into India. These men and women of God began to transform the subcontinent and provide education and health care for all castes. Teaching and training the Indian mind that God created male and female first (in his image) and they then created a social order as per God’s guidance whilst cautiously deconstructing the idea of God creating a social order first and male and female after.

It has taken an incredibly long time to carve away at the negatives of the caste system in India but it is nowhere near the end.

Sadly, the caste hierarchy has infiltrated parts of the Christian faith in India too. Dalit Christians who are made in the image of God cannot enter certain churches.

What fascinates me however, is when a Dalit leaves India, in most cases, a lot of India leaves them! They are quite successful. In a society like India one is made to believe (in large part by the communities) that past life karma has destined the individual to be a Dalit and so one must continue to clean the gutters and carry away dead dogs. But when a Dalit enters into a land like the USA or the UK where notions of equality and freedom are based upon Christian values the thinking of that individual changes drastically. A Dalit engineer filing a case against his seniors is inconceivable in large parts of the Indian community in India.

But the issue of caste is not the domain of Hinduism alone. Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Myanmar is very much entrenched in a caste based order which is quite an irony as abuse of this social order was one of the main reasons Gautam Buddha established the faith.

Sadly, the caste hierarchy has infiltrated parts of the Christian faith in India too. Dalit Christians who are made in the image of God cannot enter certain churches and where they can in some parts they are not allowed to sit in the pews but on the floor, at the back.

Author E.M Forster lovingly did say that India is both a mystery and a muddle.

The late Christian and author John Stott wrote in his book The Cross that Jesus was facing the most excruciating pain in the garden of Gethsemane not because of the cross and its horrific nails but because Christ was about to be touched by sin. God readily touches us even though we are untouchable.

The relentless work by William Carey, Wilberforce, Grant and other Indian reformers began to change the Indian mindset primarily by introducing the notion of love and freedom at every level of Indian society. Do we have the will to continue respectfully that fight?

Review

Culture

Film & TV

Identity

Music

20 November 2025

6 min read

Life is complicated, and Alan Bennett know it

Beneath The Choral’s cosy nostalgia lie some discordant truths

Roger Standing

Roger is a theologian and author with a particular interest in the relationship between faith and culture.

Ralph Fiennes conducts.

Sony Pictures.

There is something wonderfully disconcerting about the movie, The Choral. On the face of it, it’s a feel-good tale in the light-hearted British comedy-drama tradition. Set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Ramsden during the First World War, the local choral society put on their annual production. Confronted by a succession of challenges and setbacks they persevere and accomplish their goal.

With Ramsden beautifully conceived and filmed in the model village of Saltaire, it is evocative of its time and place. Scripted by national treasure Alan Bennett, now aged 91, it is shot through with his well-observed wit, penchant for understatement and gentle melancholy. This is a heady mix.

That the film is directed by BAFTA, Olivier and Tony Award winner Nicholas Hytner, a longtime collaborator with Bennett (The Madness of King George, The History Boys and The Lady in the Van) and includes Ralph Fiennes, Roger Allum and Alun Armstrong among its cast only underlines the dramatic quality of the ensemble.

So, all things considered, you’d expect this to be a heart-warming foray into the cosy nostalgia of the familiar. The fact that it is also the first original screenplay from Bennett in 40 years, with Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius as its musical heart, would also seem to guarantee universal critical acclaim. Wrong on both counts.

From the outset, something doesn’t seem to be quite right. It’s a little off. The progression of a young postboy and his mate around the town on their bikes, delivering telegrams to young, widowed women is heartbreakingly poignant. But Ellis, the postboy Lofty’s mate, disturbs the pathos of the moment by cheerily embracing the possibility of romance, “Grief, it’s an opportunity!”

Of course, the backdrop of the film is the war. The war has robbed the Choral Society of its choirmaster and its male members. Then, having recruited young men in their place, the prospect of conscription on their eighteenth birthdays is inescapable and inexorably drawing closer. We know what’s coming and a shroud is cast over their endeavours.

The war also throws up issues of patriotism and the demonisation of everything German. Even Battenberg cake is frowned upon.

The newly recruited choirmaster, Dr Guthrie played by Fiennes, is also held in suspicion as he had previously lived in Germany by choice. For him it was a nation of high culture, philosophy and civilised society.

At one point he recites

“A man should hear a little music every day of his life so worldly cares may not obliterate the beautiful in the human soul.”

Revealing he is quoting “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe” he is abruptly rebuked, “For God’s sake man, lower your voice.” So it is that the Society abandons its customary performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion for the Elgar, with Bach “being a Hun!”

Guthrie is also suspect in the minds of some because “he is not a family man”. Behind the euphemism lay a relationship in Germany, cut short by the beginning of the war and the German joining the Imperial Navy.

When the choir learn from a newspaper report of “829 Germans killed at sea” they break out into a spontaneous and raucous singing of “God save the King”. Knowing the ship, Guthrie is left in private, unshared grief. For the audience, the nationalistic enthusiasm rings empty, hollow and jarring.

People’s lives are complicated, what drives and motivates them remains largely unknown and the consequences frequently unanticipated. Bennett pulls back the curtains a little bit to give us a peak. Things are not straightforward. Issues are not as black and white as we tell ourselves. Our impressions and the stereotypes that inform them do not stand scrutiny.

There’s the mill owner, Alderman Duxbury (Roger Allam), who funds “the Choral”, chairs the committee and expects a leading role is the epitome of privilege. Yet he has lost a son to the war and is deeply grieving himself, unsupported by his wife who is paralysed by her grief and emotionally frozen.

Then, as the film progresses, Clyde returns from the front after being ‘missing in action’ and having lost his arm. However, he discovers that his fiancé, Bella, had ultimately been unable to wait for him and has taken up with Ellis.

Processing his trauma and negotiating the loss of Bella, to his shame he manipulates her for a sexual favour. Hero and villain, pain and pleasure, light and dark all laid bare within the beauty of the Yorkshire landscape and Elgar’s transcendent music. A gifted tenor, Guthrie casts Clyde in the leading role while Bella and Ellis take their places in the chorus.

Complicated!

Other characters are interlaced into the tale with their own backstory. Salvation Army singer, Mary, has an angelic voice and takes the female lead. A committed Christian she resists romantic advances, while Horner, the Societies’ accompanist wrestles with the whole idea of war and the love that dare not speak its name. When the sensitive musician is robustly led away to prison by the military another discordant note is played in the audience’s mind.

Then there are cameos by a pompous and self-important Elgar, the thoughtful and compassionate Mrs Bridge, a woman of ill-repute, and the local vicar, who is more concerned about the Roman Catholic theology contained in John Henry Newman’s religious poem, The Dream of Gerontius upon which Elgar based his oratorio.

“Purgatory …” says Clyde, “… I could take you there tomorrow!”

The closing thought is Newman’s, not as the Society performs, but as the lads, now 18 and in uniform, wave to their friends as their train leaves the station. The oratorio scores the scene with the Angel’s farewell:

“Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul, In my most loving arms I now enfold thee.”

While the film has been received warmly by some, not everyone is convinced. Rachel LaBonte is clear that the narrative is:

“… suffocated by the sheer number of characters at play, and the odd disconnect between their individual arcs.”

And Guy Lodge in Variety observes:

“Bennett’s script flits inconsistently between generations, foregrounding certain perspectives before they suddenly recede …”

But actually, this is the genius of Bennett’s script. This is what life is like. Every day we bump into loads of people, each one living their own life, with their own issues and their own back story. And you can be sure there is an ‘odd disconnect’ between our lives no matter how much we have in common.

And life does ‘flit inconsistently’ between triviality and seriousness, between the interests of the young or the old, between what matters, what’s a priority and what’s a diversion.

While the substance of the town of Ramsden, the elevating art of the Choral Society and horror of the war frame the story, what it’s about is the people. A diverse, complex set of individuals who inhabit a particular place and a particular time. They share the space, but each have their own lives to navigate and each of their lives is complicated. And the number of characters and the flitting about is precisely how Bennett makes his point.

It was a first world war British Chaplain who advised the men at an army camp in Zeitoun, Egypt to be careful about judging those around them:

“There is always one fact more in every man’s case about which we know nothing.”

If we only knew what baggage people are carrying, what they’re wrestling with and what they’re keeping to themselves we would see them in a different light. We might even, perhaps, treat them more kindly.

Life is complicated. We are complicated. In these febrile times it would be good to remember that and cut each other some slack.

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