The Black Panther–Dalit Panther connection
There is a lot in common between the racism faced by African Americans in the US and the caste discrimination faced by the Dalits in India. This was recognised by Dr Ambedkar when he spent time in the US studying at Columbia University in New York establishing contacts with Black rights activists there. But this ‘sibling solidarity’ was never as much in prominence as during the radical Dalit upsurge of the 1970s, when the most radical post-Ambedkar organisation of the Dalits— the Dalit Panthers— named themselves after the Black Panther Party of the US. In this article, Dr Shridhar Pawar traces the organic connection across continents of these two powerful subaltern movements.
Published on: 14 April 2024, 08:25 am
There is a lot in common between the racism faced by African Americans in the US and the caste discrimination faced by the Dalits in India. This was recognised by Dr Ambedkar when he spent time in the US studying at Columbia University in New York establishing contacts with Black rights activists there.
But this 'sibling solidarity' was never as much in prominence as during the radical Dalit upsurge of the 1970s, when the most radical post-Ambedkar organisation of the Dalits— the Dalit Panthers— named themselves after the Black Panther Party of the US.
In this article, Dr Shridhar Pawar traces the organic connection across continents of these two powerful subaltern movements.
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IN 1913, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar initially went to Columbia University in New York to do his master's. Harlem, a district of New York City famous for being the cultural centre of the city's Black population, happened to be in the neighbourhood.
During his stay in the US, two incidents had a strong impact on Babasaheb's mind. The first was that although the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the US (through which slavery was abolished) and the 14th Amendment (which gave citizenship rights to all people born in the US regardless of colour) had been passed many years earlier, not a single black student was able to get admission to Columbia University.
The second incident was the death of Booker T. Washington, who passed away in November 1915. Washington was the leading spokesman of his time for the freedom of the Black people.
In his famous book Up from Slavery, which has become a classic autobiography in the US, he underlined the importance of education for the Blacks in their fight for freedom.
Likewise, Dr Ambedkar too emphasised the importance of education in his potent three-point formula for Dalits: "Shikha! Sanghathit Vha! Sangharsh Karaa! (Educate! Organise! Agitate!)."
