LRD guides and handbook May 2017

Law at Work 2017

Chapter 7

Caste 



[ch 7: pages 221-222]

For some time, governments have promised new laws to ban caste discrimination, which affects approximately 400,000 people in the UK. Caste is a hereditary division rooted in Hindu society, based on factors such as wealth, rank or occupation.



A power to ban caste discrimination was included in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, promising a consultation, followed by an Order amending the definition of “race” in the EA 10 to include caste. In September 2016, the governmentreiterated the plan for a public consultation.


Meanwhile, in Chandhok v Tirkey [2014] UKEAT/0190/14/KN, the EAT confirmed that caste discrimination is already covered by the EA 10, as long as it is part of an existing protected characteristic – usually “ethnic origin”. Someone’s caste is likely to be part of their ethnic origin where it is based on descent, or contains an identifiable ethnic identity. A full hearing followed, before the Cambridge Employment Tribunal:


The tribunal upheld a claim by Ms Tirkey for race discrimination, treating caste as an aspect of Tirkey’s race – her inherited status. Tirkey belonged to the Adivasi caste, described as the lowest rung of the “caste pyramid”. She self-identified as belonging to the “servant class”. Tirkey, who could not speak English, was recruited from India to work as a domestic servant for the Chandhoks. She worked 18 hour days, seven days a week for four and a half years for 11p an hour, cooking, cleaning and looking after their children, sleeping on a foam mattress on the floor. Her passport was seized and she was prevented from having her Bible, attending church or calling her family. The tribunal ruled that these conditions were a violation of her dignity and that she suffered both racial harassment and religious discrimination. Nobody based in the UK would have accepted these conditions of work, it concluded. Her employers were ordered to pay £183,773, which was the amount Tirkey would have earned had she been paid the national minimum wage.



Tirkey v Chandhok, 2015, unreported (source: BBC website, 2 September 2015)


House of Commons library briefing paper: The Equality Act 2010: Caste discrimination, published 21 November 2016 (http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06862).