The Prism and the Funnel: Reflections of Race and Caste in the United States and India after 1947

This paper examines transnational links between the post-war struggles of African Americans and low-caste Indians.  I argue that these links reveal the relationship between two “limits” of the nation.  On the one hand, Indians and African Americans learned from each other as they challenged their nations from within, demanding greater political, cultural, and economic rights, and staking claims for difference from the larger body politic.  I relate these “internal” struggles to the exterior limits of the nation by focusing on the impact of race/caste comparisons on foreign relations between India and the United States.  I argue that analogies between race and caste that had been articulated and refined over the course of several generations came to have greater political meaning in the context of Indian independence and cold war politics.

Rather than overlook the internal diversity of postwar Indian and African American political movements, I aim to understand how transnational connections at times elided and at other times accommodated local and national diversities.  In certain contexts, transnational connections between India and the United States operated like a funnel, narrowing notions of belonging, often by excluding women, the poor, or low-castes.  In other contexts, however, transnational connections acted as a prism, refracting a narrow focus on a particular injustice into a broader concern for the diverse struggles of a variety of oppressed groups, both at home and abroad. 

This paper does not idealize interactions borne of selective appropriation and at times outright misunderstanding.  The relationship between Indians and African Americans did not entail the clean transfer of ideas, practices, or identities.  Rather, a bi-directional process of self-transformation through self-recognition bridged struggles that were themselves internally diverse.  Looking abroad and seeing oneself involved reflection in both senses of the word—a partial mirroring and a great amount of thought and practice.