FAIRHAVEN — Hindu statesman Rajan Zed of Nevada is requesting luxury handbag brand Brahmin to change its name.

Headquartered in Fairhaven, the company produces luxury handbags made of cow leather. In a press release on Wednesday, Zed stated that the cow was sacred and had long been venerated in Hinduism, and that inscribing the brand's name on a bag created from the animal was "quite out-of-line and was painful to the Hindu sentiments."

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Software engineers and stone masons might not have much in common professionally, but both kinds of workers can face discrimination, if they're members of the Dalit caste in Hindu society — whether in South Asia or the United States.

So say leading advocates for the rights of Dalits, who were once known as "untouchables."

A class action lawsuit recently filed in federal court in New Jersey alleges that a massive Hindu temple in the city of Robbinsville brought some 200 workers to the U.S. on R-1 visas as religious volunteers.

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For the first time in nearly three decades, Alabama will allow yoga to be taught in its public schools, but the ancient practice will be missing some of its hallmarks: Teachers will be barred from saying the traditional salutation “namaste” and using Sanskrit names for poses.

Chanting is forbidden. And the sound of “om,” one of the most popular mantras associated with the practice, which combines breathing exercises and stretches, is a no-no.

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Federal law enforcement agents descended on a massive temple in New Jersey on Tuesday after workers accused a prominent Hindu sect of luring them from India, confining them to the temple grounds and paying them the equivalent of about $1 an hour to perform grueling labor in near servitude.

Lawyers for the workers said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a Hindu sect known as BAPS that has close ties to India’s ruling party and has built temples around the world, had exploited possibly hundreds of low-caste men in the yearslong...