Win for Equality As New York State Caste Bills Targeting American Hindus Fail To Advance

Bills introduced in 2025 and 2026 lacked facial neutrality and furthered colonial stereotypes

ALBANY, N.Y., June 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) is pleased that New York Senate Bill S.6531 and House Bill A.6920 did not advance this legislative session. The bills, which sought to add loaded words like "caste" as a protected category under New York's Human Rights Law, would institutionalize bias. Far from advancing human rights, the passage of these bills would have introduced a religiously-coded ethnic classification that would disproportionately single out, stereotype, and harm New Yorkers of Hindu, Indian, or South Asian descent. CoHNA opposes discrimination in all forms and is thankful that caste-based mistreatment of any New Yorker is already prohibited, without need for laws that create inequality based on demographics.

"This is a win for advocacy and civil rights in the face of immense pressure from elite academics and activists with access to powerful media and political players," said Sudha Jagannathan, director of government relations. "As a Bahujan Hindu myself, I have held many meetings with lawmakers in New York for the past two years to share my story and to educate. I find it offensive that New York State would try to weaponize my identity against my own culture and traditions that provide me solace and strength."

Since the bills were first introduced in 2025, CoHNA has run a grassroots campaign to educate on the harm from such language that advances inequality under the cover of human rights. We have held dozens of meetings with NY State legislators including the bills' sponsors and enabled hundreds of community members to send emails to their assembly members and state senators. Our memorandum outlining Legal and Constitutional Concerns was shared with all 213 members of New York State Assembly and Senate. Most importantly, our Dalit Bahujan leadership team spoke up forcefully — pushing back against attempts to paint Hindu temples as places of discrimination and exclusion from many of the same activists pushing for passage of "caste" protections.

"This was yet another attempt to misuse a noble desire for social justice and subvert it to drive hate against a minority, like we saw in California in 2023," said Nikunj Trivedi, president of CoHNA. "It is important to remember that caste is not a neutral word and due to decades of misinformation it is primarily associated with the Hindu and Indian communities in public perception. It is also used by ideological rivals on the far-Right and ultra-Left alike to otherize and harm our community, by painting us as more likely to discriminate, oppress, or be hierarchical than other communities."

Impact of Caste Policies

A 2024 scientific study from Rutgers University Social Perception Lab and the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), found alarming results from potentially widening the use of caste training and policies. It found that even casual references and talk on caste, from people with institutional power, has severe consequences — including making individuals more likely to agree with "Hitler-like" statements against Hindus and Indian Americans.

New York residents deserve to be treated with equality and to not worry about the state forcing identities on them—as we saw in the 2021 lawsuit filed against Sundar Iyer where California misused its institutional power to assign both a religion and a caste to an atheist, simply due to his background. It is telling that the lawsuit alleging caste discrimination at Cisco, was ignominiously withdrawn "with prejudice" —- a move that revealed how the case lacked any basis in reality and how close the California Civil Rights Department came to being sanctioned by California courts.

Despite almost a decade of investigation and allegations, there is no proof of systemic caste discrimination in the US. Yet, elite academics and privileged activists continue to use taxpayer funds to push their personal opinions and causes, over and over again— putting American Hindus in harm's way and subjecting them to potential abuse of their civil rights.

About CoHNA
CoHNA is a grassroots level advocacy and civil rights organization dedicated to improving the understanding of Hinduism in North America by working on matters related to the Hindu community and by educating the public about Hindu heritage and tradition. For more information, please visit https://cohna.org or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and on Instagram.

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SOURCE Coalition of Hindus of North America