The UK's Controversial Caste-Based South Asian Dance Survey and Its Implications for Global Indian Performing Arts. Dr Avanthi Meduri, 29 March 2025 facebook.com/share In January 2024, three UK academics responded to Rahul Gandhi’s caste census idea by embedding it within the niche realm of Indian and South Asian dance, which is often used interchangeably in the UK. They founded the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) funded South Asian Dance Equity (SADE) network to support caste legislation in UK universities and to create anti-caste DEI policies for South Asian arts in the UK and globally. SADE’s politicizing vision, focused on India in South Asia, was expressed clearly in the SADE project launch titled “South Asian Dance in Britain: Decentring India and Hinduism.” akademi.co.uk/sade-project-launch/ The Political Vison of SADE Although described as a British South Asian dance-research project, SADE’s objective is political, directly countering the BJP ruling government’s vision of ‘Akhand Bharat’---an undivided India including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal. Rabindranath Tagore referred to this vast region as ‘Greater India,’ but this nationalist idea became obsolete by the 1970s. It was revived in the Akhand Bharat mural installed in India’s new Parliament building in May 2023. While the BJP views the modern South Asia region as an ancient Indic cultural sphere that is part of a historic Indian civilization, SADE academics emphasize divisive ideologies of Hinduism, Brahmanical patriarchy and casteism, which they contend marginalized minority communities and their dance forms in India and across South Asia. The atrocity narrative often omits the colonial legacy that created modern South Asia as we know it today, and the traumatic politics of decolonization in eight different countries of South Asia. The Political Vision of SADS Survey In early March 2025, SADE academics expanded their political objectives by launching the British South Asian Dance sector (SADS) survey. The survey aimed to collect demographic, caste-census and DEI information about dance cultures across South Asia. The SADS survey was distributed widely to artists and stakeholders with heritage from eight South Asian countries, as well as those people of South Asian ancestry living in the UK, US and Canada. viewform Together and independently, the SADE and SADS projects aimed to do two main things. Firstly, to include caste-discrimination as a geopolitical classification in the British South Asian dance sector and devise anti-caste DEI policies that could be employed by venue managers in the UK, India and globally. Secondly, to support caste discrimination policies in UK universities equality frameworks, in alignment with US universities, especially Harvard and Columbia. Ironically, the larger Indian and South Asian arts community in the UK and globally seemed to be unaware of the caste and social justice reforms that SADE academics were creating within and outside academia. Consequently, a wider consultation with Indian and South Asian artists and stakeholders is urgently needed to evaluate the potential dangers of the two caste initiatives that SADE academics had embedded in the minority sector of British South Asian dance in less than two years. Prejudicial Caste Classifications in SADS Survey Question 2 and 3 of the SADS survey asks respondents to identify whether they come from 'caste-dominant' or 'caste-oppressed' backgrounds. The leading questions not only categorize Indian and South Asian artists into oppressor/oppressed groups but also misrepresent the 100-year modern histories of Indian and British dance genres. The oppressor/oppressed castes terminology, derived from Critical Race Theory and contemporary US woke and DEI ideologies, is a postmodern construct that fails to align with the deeply rooted traditions of Indian and British South Asian dance cultures, anchored in ancient South Asian civilizations. The retrospective imposition of caste labels in the British South Asian minority dance sector poses a significant threat, creating unnecessary and harmful caste-based divisions. These divisions could severely impact the equitable distribution of the already limited funding available to South Asian dance sectors in the UK and globally. The caste classifications might lead to the fragmentation of global South Asian minority communities, resulting in the division of South Asian dance sectors based on caste, nationality, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, class and identity politics. Correcting Misleading Errors in SADS Survey It is crucial that the SADS survey be urgently amended to prominently feature a critical footnote detailing the 150-year history of the colonial imposition of the Indian caste system and its systematic dismantling post decolonization across South Asia. This crucial information must be clearly communicated to respondents, asserting that ‘caste’ is not an inherent essence tied to Hinduism, but a modern colonial construct, redefined in India and South Asia post-decolonization. The glaring omission of this essential historical context severely compromises the survey’s objectivity and demands immediate rectification. So, what is this colonial history that India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, defiantly referred to as India’s ‘Tryst with Destiny, which could be included in the SADS survey?’ Missing British Caste History in SADS Survey The ancient Brahmanical traditions may have sown the seeds of the caste system, but it was the British who meticulously crafted the deeply divisive colonial caste structure during their extensive nineteenth century caste census in South Asia. Caste-orthodoxies were not only solidified but also modernized through the colonial encounter and the subsequent establishment of national and international dance institutions in the 1930s and 1940. After India became a Republic in the 1950s, caste discrimination was outlawed. The government stopped collecting caste data in the arts sector to promote national unity and integration. Consequently, no caste census or DEI survey has been done in the Indian arts sector for over seventy years, based on the prevailing idea that arts are universal. After decolonization, the Indian national Akademies did not use caste classifications. They focused instead on ‘class inequities’ and provided financial support to develop Indian performing arts within a democratic framework and by creating modern multicultural policies. South Asian countries including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh have implemented caste discrimination policies at different times with varying outcomes. These countries have not conducted anti-caste DEI surveys for their national and folk-dance genres. Similarly, Arts Council England and the AHRC administrators integrated Indian and British South Asian dance forms into the fabric of British multiculturalism in the 1980s and 1990s, without using caste labels. If we are to bring back the caste narrative in South Asian arts in Britain, academics must delve into the historical complexities from seventy years ago. To truly understand the implications of reintroducing this narrative, it is necessary to explore British colonial policies of the 19th century that cemented caste divisions, and the post-independence efforts to dismantle these structures in India and South Asia. Two Recommendations Since the SADS survey contained incomplete and misleading caste information, the March 28 deadline should be extended to allow for broader public consultation regarding the implications of including caste labels and classifications retrospectively in the minority sector of South Asian dance in the UK. Extending the deadline is imperative to prevent the establishment of caste classifications in the South Asian dance sector, which could create significant disruptions across dance sectors in India, the UK, and worldwide. |
