In a recent case in the UK, a woman recruited from a ‘lower caste’ to be a servant to an Indian family from a ‘higher caste’ was awarded £184,000 in unpaid wages in the first caste discrimination case of its type. (You can read more about the case
here.)
I once dated someone of Indian descent (well, more than once actually, but only once that’s relevant to the point I’m making). And I remember being shocked by the way members of his family considered themselves superior to people from other castes. On one particular occasion I recall a member of the family, (who, ironically, had no paid job), declaring publicly and loudly, “But I’m a [enter caste name here]!” That seemed at the time rather akin to me climbing onto a stool and shouting, “I’m upper middle class, don’t you know!” (Which, by the way, I’m not.)
So, in a way, it’s good that a form of prejudice that is little understood in this country has been brought into the light. And it serves to remind us that discrimination exists outside the traditional boundaries of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation etc.
In fact, before those of us who don’t belong to a caste system become smug and complacent, let me suggest that this sort of tribalism isn’t restricted to Indian culture – we can all be guilty of it.
When we judge another group of people because of their beliefs, appearance, job, accent or anything that differentiates them from our group, we are guilty of tribalism. When we live our entire lives in a ‘ghetto’ of people who are just like us, we are guilty of tribalism. (By the way, the word ghetto originates in Venice, and describes an area of the city reserved for Jews, and which Jews were restricted to.) I use the word ghetto often these days to describe a life where people voluntarily restrict themselves almost entirely to a life within their ‘tribe’ – whether that’s a tribe of other gay people, people of the same religion, or race, people from the same public school background, parents with children at the same school… the list is endless.
It seems that we have an inbuilt propensity towards tribalism – the desire to belong to a small, neat compact group of people with whom we feel a common bond and where we feel safe.
Perhaps, by focusing on our differences, we feel we strengthen our own tribal bonds. But it seems sad to me that we spend so much time focusing on how those in our tribe differ from other tribes, instead of focusing on similarities, which, almost always outweigh the differences.
Anti discrimination laws and good practice mean that our workplaces should be teeming with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. But, even where this is the case, how many of us really know our colleagues; what they do when they go home, what their outside interests are; indeed, what skills they have that we might be able to tap into at work. I wonder how much the ‘high caste’ family knew about their servant?
Diversity only really brings value to an organisation when we value that diversity and the differences it brings. It strikes me though that first we need to recognise our similarities before we can begin to accept, understand and, indeed, love our differences.
And perhaps that requires a new approach to diversity training and fresh thinking.