As Kshama Sawant runs for US Congress, she’s hoping to shake up both Democrats and Republicans

Kshama Sawant is known to many South Asians in the US as the politician who introduced the first ordinance against caste discrimination in the country. The ordinance, which was passed by the Seattle city council in February 2023, set an important precedent in recognising caste as an exclusionary system in a country with a vast number of people with origins in the subcontinent.

Three years on, Sawant, a Mumbai-born economist and former tech worker who has lived in the United States since 1996, is making the jump to national politics.

She is contesting as an independent socialist candidate from Washington State’s 9th Congressional District, hoping to become the first South Asian elected to the United States Congress from outside the Democratic and Republican parties.

Sawant, who describes herself as a “revolutionary socialist” and “Marxist”, said that the caste discrimination bill is one part of a broader politics for social and economic justice. She served three terms on the Seattle city council from 2014 to 2024, where her legislative wins included wresting the highest minimum wage and having a tax imposed on Amazon to fund affordable housing.

“We were not there to help administer the capitalist state,” she told Scroll, reflecting on her time as a city council member in Seattle....

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