(Artwork inspired by drawing I made when I was younger)
"On August 15th 1947 men and women all over India rejoiced in the declaration of independence of the country of India. Today on August 15th 2020, I stand before you as the first candidate for Vice President of the United States of America of South Asian descent."
-Kamala Harris
Congrats To Kamala!!!
Kamala Harris, a Black and South Asian woman on the debate stage was so inspirational to me. I was lucky enough to see her at a rally and I teared up a little bit. As a biracial, brown girl devoted to making this world a better place, Senator Harris seemed to be a reflection of myself. Suddenly, running for the highest office didn’t seem so out worldly to me anymore.
During quarantine with all this free time, I started reflecting on myself and where I come from. I have been thinking about my ancestors who fought for me to be where I am today. About my Grandfather's Uncle who was a freedom fighter who died at the age of 42, due to poor conditions at British prisons. Or my great grandmother who participated in Vinoba Bhave’s efforts by saving a handful of rice grain out of every meal for the poor. I have always been very interested in my story and my culture and often ask my grandparents questions at the dinner table. One thing I always find so scary is my grandparents were born under British rule.
On August fifteenth, I listened to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris speak on the seventy third anniversary of Indian independence. I thought, look how far we have come. The connection between India and America runs deep. It existed before there was a significant population of Indians in America.
A “Fellow Untouchable” From America
The strongest relation between India and America is through the American Civil Rights Movement and the Indian Revolution. Most people know that the Civil Rights Movement was led in a nonviolent, self-disciplined way. They know Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. directly used the tactics Mahatma Gandhi used in India. It’s actually much deeper than this. In Caste, written by Isabel Wilkerson, she argues Indian system of hierarchy tells more about racial divides here (in America) than the idea of race can. So, how can India, a country across the globe, help civil rights leaders like John Lewis, Dr. King and so many others unpack America?
Dr. King took a trip to India after a civil rights victory in America. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted three hundred and eighty two days and is the most sustained mass action in American history. It led the way for a supreme court decision addressing the bombing of churches and desegregation of busing across the nation.
Dr. King took a trip to India on a goal to learn from a young nation, a nation that had only recently won their freedom from the British. The British Raj had strengthened class divides, colonized India, and passed laws that taxed Indian people on their own homegrown products. Gandhiji, along with many others, won their freedom by conducting peaceful protests based on truth, or in Sanskrit, Satya Graha. They were met with violence from the British. The British killed them, detained them in prisons that malnourished them and some even say poisoned them, and the list goes on.
Dr. King wanted to learn about Gandhiji's efforts to dismantle a two thousand year old caste system, imposed on people by birth, determining what jobs they can have, people they can marry, quality of life, and so much more. Members of the lowest class were known as the “untouchables” (or Dalits). Gandhiji led an effort to gain the right for Dalits to be allowed in religious places, a right they previously didn’t have. After Gandhiji had been assassinated, the Indian constitution of 1950, largely created by B.R. Ambedkar, an Indian activist from the west side of India, was signed into law. It abolished untouchability, and declared caste discrimination as a crime. It also created affirmative action quotas for Dalits and Indigenous people of India.
Perhaps the most influential part of Dr. King’s trip was when he visited a school for Dalit children and was introduced by the principal as a “fellow untouchable” from America. While this didn’t exactly sit right with Dr. King, he began to understand a deeper similarity between the two countries, a similarity based on caste. He realized the problem in America was deeper than race, it was about a classification of being less than human, a lower caste, the untouchables.
In America, when fighting for racial equity, or any inequity of that matter, we are fighting not only against stereotypes that dark skin is bad, we are fighting against a caste system of our own, one almost mirroring India’s. The thing that is scary about this is caste systems are insidious, they exist in every aspect of life. Caste turns a division of quality of life into a division of ancestry. Even though discrimination against caste has been determined a crime, it still is very much present in India. Why? Because centuries of oppression is hard to repeal with just one rule, one constitution, or even ten.
The other thing about caste systems is they change as groups disappear and appear. They can be manipulated by those in power, as the British did. They created divides and conflict between groups, especially based on religion which ended up in the division of India into two countries, India and Pakistan (West Pakistan and East Pakistan. East Pakistan later became Bangladesh).
Overtime caste becomes less obvious, more folded into society, and harder to pick out. For those born into it at the top, it’s just normal. As Isabel Wilkerson says in her book, “racism is only the visible manifestation of something deeper, a hidden system of social domination”.
Parallels
Because of shared goals for movements in India and America, it is possible to draw a lot of parallels between movements in America and India. For example, the bus boycotts. Black people could only sit on the back of the bus, and when they sat on the front they were arrested, so organizers responded by finding a different way to get where they needed to go. In India, the British would buy cotton from Indians at a low price, process the cotton into clothing in England, and they would then sell it to Indians at a marked up price. In response, there was a movement led by Gandhiji to encourage Indians to spin their own cotton at home and make clothing (khadi) themselves. Ghandiji was also promoting cotton industries for the common people while resisting British rule. Both of these forms of nonviolent protest required much organization. Both Indians and Black Americans had to figure out how to find ways to manage without a system or item that humans were highly dependent on. Organizers also had to gather whole communities and convince them to give up something for a greater cause.
Ghandiji fought for Dalits to have the right to go into places of religion while in America, Ruby Bridges attended an all white school to fight for the right for integrated schools. The Indian Constitution of 1950, giving rights to Dalits and the Indingineous people of India mirrors the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Recently, Dalits in India have even started using American strategies in fighting the power by replicating groups like the Black Panthers. These are just a few examples of the way Indian movements and American Civil Rights movements built off of each other.
There are strong parallels in the tactics of the Indian Revolution and American Civil Rights movement, but there are also noticeable parallels in the tactics people in power in India and America use.For example, this idea of divide and conquer has been used to divide minorities against each other to make a country easier to control. Americans in power used it to separate Asian and Black communities, while the British used it to separate Muslim and Hindu communities.
Another example is: the troubling similarities between the two countries current leaders, Modi and Trump. To a lot of people, Trump's victory isn’t much of a surprise. Our nation will soon be a majority minority with a growing population of people of color and Obama has become the first minority to ever hold office. As a nation we were taking steps forward, but as caste theory goes, if we take steps forward, we are bound to take steps back. Modi is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party or B.J.P. The Brahmin class is the highest class in Indian hierarchy. Modi’s victory hasn’t come as much of a surprise either because of the caste system India functions in. Because of Modi and Trump's similar styles of leadership, they have drawn in Indian American and Indian voters with their "Howdy, Modi!" rally in America drawing crowds of 50,000 people and "Namaste Trump" rally in India drawing crowds of more than 110,000 people.
The Indian Diaspora
Before the 1960's there were not enough Indians in America to be an added race on the census. In the 1970's, after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the Indian American Population grew to twelve thousand. As of 2018, there are two point seven million Indian Americans, almost one percent of the nation. Even though Indian Americans only make up less than one percent of the nation, they make up five percent of the vote and also have the largest population of democrats than any other Asian group.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 occurred at a time where there was much tension between White and Black Americans in the fight for civil rights. As Black America was facing tremendous amounts of discrimination and oppression, the U.S. opened access to more immigrants of color. It ended up drawing a lot of Indians in the country and changed the demographics of America. It also prioritized immigrants coming to America for higher education, especially in science fields, which is the reason why there are so many Indian doctors and scientists in America. At the very time that Black people were being oppressed, while trying to fight for their civil rights, a new wave of highly educated people of color were allowed into the country.
It led to the one minority exceeding because they were given access to resources such as high quality education; while another minority was denied. The model minority stereotype, a stereotype which divided Black and Asian communities was created. These tactics of purposefully trying to separate minority communities mirror the tactics the British used in India in order to have better control over the nation. Unfortunately, tension in Asian and Black communities still exist today. Current police brutality and an upcoming election gives a perfect platform for Asians to break stereotypes and stand up in solidarity with minority communities.
Despite strides Indian Americans have made, people are still brutally racist to them. Indians still face microaggressions daily, whether it’s because of their accent, clothing, food, or skin color. Indian culture is often exoticized, especially in the media. Indian culture is seen for the elephants, peacocks, spicy food, and bright saris, which is all a small part of India but the majority of what is portrayed in the media. America is still not always safe for Indian Americans. Indian Americans face hate crimes and countless acts of violence, just because of whatever stereotype someone has about Indian Americans.
Conclusion
"The reason there is a kinship between everyone who is a product of the South Asian diaspora no matter how diverse our backgrounds, maybe is because we also share a set of values. Values forged by overcoming colonial pasts, not only in one nation but in two. Values like tolerance, pluralism and diversity." -Kamala Harris
Senator Harris comes from an immigrant story, one that many can connect with. Her name Kamala is a significant symbol in India for the way, “A lotus grows underwater, it’s flower rising above the water while it's roots are planted firmly in the river.”Senator Harris is not only the daughter of immigrants, she is also a biracial woman. Being biracial in America is hard when there are such deep running racial tensions. When asked how she defines her race, she answered a “Proud American”. Kamala Harris brings out normalcy in biracialism by breaking the barrier of what an Indian-American or Black person should be.
In light of Kamala Harris being nominated as the Vice President, South Asian and Black communities have been given a spotlight we are not often given. Indian Independence Day is a chance to celebrate how far we have come in just 73 years of freedom, but it's also a change to acknowledge how far we must go. It is now our turn to pick up where our ancestors left off and carry the baton of freedom all the way to the finish line not just for Indians but for all.
References
Article: Top Down: Isabel Wilkerson’s world-historical theory of race and caste. Sunil Khilnani
Article: How Sen. Kamala Harris' Indian Heritage and Pioneering Mother Propelled Her. NBC
Article: What Kamala Harris’ Indian roots Reveal about the U.S. CNN
Article: What Kamala Harris Means to Indian Americans. CNN
Book: The Truths We Hold: an American Journey. Kamala Harris, 2019
Book: March. John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, 2013
Book: The Color Of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority. Ellen D. Wu, 2014
Video: Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris Deliver On Indian Independence Day
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