California State University Fights Caste Bias on Campus
While studying social work at the East Bay campus of California State University, Prem Peryar says fellow students from his homeland, Nepal, shunned him for being a Dalit or so-called “untouchable” in the Hindu caste system.
One day Peryar was waiting for a train, for example, when he heard two classmates speaking Nepali. “I went closer to them and I said, ‘Oh, you guys are also from Nepal? So nice to meet you.’ Initially the conversation was very good,” he recalled.
But when Peryar introduced himself using his last name, he says the mood changed. He felt like a pariah — the very translation of his name, which also identifies his caste. “Their facial expression was so different and after that they looked at me from top to bottom. It was very embarrassing,” he said.
