“If Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem.”

These words by sociologist and historian Shridhar Ketkar (1909), quoted by Ambedkar 1916/2020a) in his seminal work on Castes in India, about the portability of caste, resonate strongly in diaspora contexts today. Unlike certain identities that fade when transplanted, caste is remarkably resilient. It migrates with bodies and minds, encoded in language, surnames, food practices, and invisible hierarchies. Among Indian students in the UK, caste is not left behind but actively reconstituted. These experiences show that caste, as Ketkar predicted, has become a transnational structure of inequality; ultimately, a world problem.   

Caste, Diaspora, and Habitus

Ambedkar’s (2020b) concept of caste as “graded inequality” highlights its systemic reproduction across generations. To understand how caste travels, Bourdieu’s (1977) notion of habitus is useful: deeply internalised dispositions that structure practices across space and time. Caste is not simply an external label; it is embodied, performed, and re-enacted abroad. Moreover, Nicholas Dirks (2001) has argued that caste, far from being a timeless essence of Indian society, was fundamentally shaped and reconstituted under colonial rule, becoming a central institution through which colonial modernity was organised and understood. Additionally, Gopal Guru (2011) argues that caste should not be seen as simply a set of cultural practices, but a structural regime of lived humiliation that is deeply embedded in power relations that continuously produce and reinforce inequality. When viewed through these lenses, diaspora is not a rupture but a stage where caste scripts are replayed.

Furthermore, drawing on Nirmal Puwar’s (2004) concept of ‘space invaders’: bodies entering institutions not historically designed for them, we can read caste dynamics transnationally. In the UK higher-education sector, there is documented evidence and concern about caste-based exclusion and harassment (see EHRC 2014 & NIESR 2010 reports), and some universities have begun to recognise caste in equality policies (see SOAS SU policy). Stuart Hall’s (1990) account of diasporic identity as fluid and contested, and Avtar Brah’s (1996) ‘diaspora space’, where relations of power among migrants and with ‘hosts’ intersect, together help explain how caste hierarchies are reconstituted within South Asian diasporic communities.

Episodes of Caste in the UK

The portability of caste becomes tangible in specific encounters. Many students from Maharashtra in the UK, including my friends, shared that they are commonly asked by other Indians whether they came on the Shahu Maharaj Scholarship, which is a scheme reserved mainly for Scheduled Castes (SCs) among other marginalised groups; thus, here the question functions as a “caste locator”. This is not a neutral inquiry but an attempt to unmask hidden identities. A simple query about funding becomes a disciplinary act, reorganising social relations along caste lines.

In another case from my student hostel, three flatmates agreed to rotate cleaning duties. An upper-caste student resisted, saying: “I am a Bhardwaj, not a Bhangi.” Mary Douglas’s (2002) work on purity and pollution helps decode this remark: cleanliness is associated with contamination and has historically been relegated to Dalits, while ritual purity is claimed by upper castes. The refusal here is not only about labour but about maintaining symbolic boundaries that migration has not erased. The continuation of such language in a UK flat reflects Guru’s (2011) argument that caste humiliation is not a mere insult but a deep wounding that constitutes Dalit subordination at the level of existence itself.

Furthermore, caste stigma at times also enforces silence. On one cultural occasion, when an Ambedkar song was played in a common room, an SC student quickly requested that it be stopped, fearing exposure. This moment illustrates internalised oppression, what Paulo Freire (2000) called the “fear of freedom”; it is the anxiety of self-assertion under hegemonic scrutiny. Even in liberal spaces, Dalit assertion risks penalty, leading to self-censorship. This silence can be read through Frantz Fanon’s (2021) framework of colonial alienation, where oppressed groups are conditioned to police their own expressions of identity.

Finally, caste violence also manifests in its raw verbal form. In Edinburgh, when a marginalised student danced for a reel in a public space, one of my Indian colleagues sneered: “Ye Chando-Chamar jahan bhi jayenge, desh ka naam kharab karte hain” (translation: Wherever these Chando-Chamar [Dalits] people go, they tarnish the nation’s name). Here, casteist abuse converges with nationalist anxiety, constructing Dalit presence as both polluting and unpatriotic. Gayatri Spivak’s (1988) concept of “epistemic violence” helps explain how language itself becomes a weapon, erasing dignity and reinforcing hierarchy. It also reveals how caste is tied to a performance of “respectability politics” in the diaspora, where Dalits are expected to embody restraint to avoid “shaming the nation.”

Broader Implications: Caste as a Diasporic Problem

These vignettes demonstrate caste as a transnational structure. It functions as a form of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1986), unevenly distributed to advantage upper castes and stigmatise marginalised groups. For upper-caste migrants, caste becomes a resource to assert superiority in unfamiliar terrains. For marginalised students, caste translates into vulnerability, like silencing, stigma, and humiliation. The examples also show that caste is not just reproduced but rearticulated: what was once a village-based system now operates within global cities like Edinburgh, London, or Manchester, proving caste’s adaptability.  

The UK setting exposes caste’s paradoxical visibility. British institutions rarely recognise caste legally, despite Dalit organisations campaigning for its inclusion under equality law (see Dhanda, 2015). As a result, caste remains invisible to universities and policymakers but hyper-visible within Indian communities. This dual invisibility/visibility makes caste particularly insidious: it flourishes unchecked, shielded from accountability. Moreover, ignoring caste in policy should be seen as “deliberate social blindness”, which is the refusal to confront systemic inequality even when evidence abounds.

This dynamic also underscores the importance of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989). For Dalit women students, for instance, caste stigma intersects with gendered expectations, producing unique vulnerabilities in diaspora spaces. Similarly, caste intersects with class, as access to international education itself is stratified. These layered oppressions reinforce the idea that caste cannot be treated as a singular axis but must be located within broader structures of inequality.

Conclusion: From Prediction to Reality

Ketkar and Ambedkar foresaw that caste would not dissolve with migration but instead reassert itself as a world problem. The persistence of caste among Indian students in the UK confirms this. Migration does not disrupt habitus; it relocates it. Caste, as embodied practice and symbolic order, adapts to new geographies without losing its grip.

Addressing caste in the diaspora requires dual recognition: host formal and informal institutions and societies must acknowledge it as a form of discrimination, and Indian communities abroad must confront their complicity in reproducing it. For marginalised students, articulating these experiences through writing, art, or organising becomes both survival and resistance. To invoke Ambedkar in the diaspora is to extend his struggle across borders: wherever caste travels, so too must the fight for dignity and equality. Ultimately, the diaspora reveals not only the endurance of caste but also the necessity of strengthening transnational anti-caste solidarities that affirm Ambedkar’s emancipatory vision.

References

Ambedkar, B. R. (2020a). “Castes in India” In Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and speeches (Vol. 1, 3rd reprint, pp. 3-22). Government of India, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

Ambedkar, B. R. (2020b). “Annihilation of caste.” In Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and speeches (Vol. 1, 3rd reprint, pp. 23-98). Government of India, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The Forms of Capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–258). Greenwood.

Brah, A. (1996). Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. Routledge.

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139–167.

Dhanda, M. (2015). Anti-Castism and misplaced nativism: Mapping caste as an aspect of race. Radical Philosophy. 192. 33-43.

Dirks, N. B. (2001). Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton University Press.

Douglas, M. (2002). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge.

Fanon, F. (2021). Black Skin, White Masks. Penguin Modern Classics.

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum.

Guru, G. (2011). Humiliation: Claims and Context. Oxford University Press.

Hall, S. (1990). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (pp. 222–237). Lawrence & Wishart.

Puwar, N. (2004). Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place. Berg.

Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (pp. 271–313). University of Illinois Press.

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Aniruddha Mahajan is a doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research interests include caste inequalities, student activism, nationalism, youth, and sports.