The idea that race and caste are parallel, if not equivalent, forms of oppression and marginalization is increasingly being used by many to explain the crisis of liberal democracy in India and the United States. Adhitya Dhanapal caught up with Nico Slate, Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, via email to discuss the long and complex history of drawing parallels between democratic movements in India and the United States. As Slate’s writing contends, misunderstandings and misrepresentations in the nature of social stratification are part and parcel of a genuine attempt to forge solidarity across these two spaces. The interview asks if building solidarities and a mutual understanding of each country's predicaments would help us better understand the systemic transformations we are witnessing in national and global politics.

Adhitya Dhanapal (AD): You begin your book, Colored Cosmopolitans, with an anecdote about the Indian activist, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, visiting the United States and marking herself as 'colored.' Could you tell us more about how there was a growing recognition amongst upwardly mobile intellectuals and activists about the "international color line," as put forth by DuBois? How did these actors relate their particular experiences of injustice or oppression with other marginalized groups in an increasingly 'global' world?

 Nico Slate (NS): The conception of "dark" or "colored" solidarity that was advanced by Du Bois influenced a wide range of thinkers and activists in colonial India and other regions of what would later be called the "Third World." Unlike the phrase "Third World," which came to bear Cold War connotations and often reinforced a state-centered conception of diplomacy, what Du Bois called the "colored world" transcended both racial and national borders. That is part of what I find striking about how anticolonial figures like Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay embraced what I call colored cosmopolitanism. Even while struggling to achieve a free and independent India, Kamaladevi located her Indian patriotism within a larger series of solidarities. She fought against imperialism, racism, sexism, casteism, and class inequality—and she did so without feeling compelled to elevate one of her commitments above others. In that way, she paralleled the intersectionality that marked the work of many African American women who were at the forefront of radical Black internationalism, as scholars like Keisha Blain and Imaobong Umoren have demonstrated.

 As to how such a colored cosmopolitanism spread, part of the story concerns the way in which imperial metropoles—particularly London—offered a space of connection for radical anticolonial and anti-racist activists from many parts of the world. Part of the story concerns the power of print media. Many South Asian activists encountered Du Bois through his books. And then there were key translators such as Kamaladevi or the self-described "Eurasian half-caste," Cedric Dover, who traveled to the US, forged direct ties with African American activists including Du Bois, and then worked to expand the influence of colored solidarities. I understand my research on Dover (published as The Prism of Race) within a larger body of outstanding work on the intellectual history of solidarities of resistance by scholars such as Penny Von Eschen, Kevin Gaines, Robbie Shilliam, Carol Anderson, and many others. Like so much in the history of social struggle, the story of colored cosmopolitanism is ultimately a story of creative and dedicated human effort.

AD: Why was it necessary for these actors to demonstrate solidarity with others in the world? How did their politics transcend national boundaries while simultaneously appealing to national governments? What convergent strategies for advocating social change emerged through this dialogue? 

NS: I like the way you frame this question in regards to necessity. Was it "necessary" for advocates of colored cosmopolitanism to demonstrate solidarity on the global stage? It's worth noting that solidarities of color were not the only form of anti-racist, anticolonial connections in that period. I find it useful to contrast colored cosmopolitanism with what I call the "racial diplomacy" of someone like Marcus Garvey. Garvey had a profoundly global conception of the struggle against white supremacy, but he tended to think in ways that reified racial boundaries. Scholars of Garvey and Garveyism, such as Robert A. Hill, Adam Ewing, Ula Y. Taylor, Karen Adler, and others have demonstrated that the millions of people who were moved by Garvey often developed their own understandings of radical Black internationalism. There are many different strands of Black transnational activism and thought, and they intersect with colored cosmopolitanism in different ways in different times and contexts. Or consider the Cold War Civil Rights thesis and how a range of civil rights activists argued that white supremacy was a liability in the midst of the Cold War. Examining those linkages is a way of engaging your second question about appeals to national governments. In general, I think it is important to critically assess the limitations of figures like Jawaharlal Nehru, who transitioned from being an anticolonial activist to a defender of state sovereignty. Yet, I'm also struck by how often transnational efforts gain influence when they are able to tap into the power of the state.

AD: Can one historicize the shift involved in drawing parallels between racism in the United States and British Imperialism in India to a more specific exercise of comparing race with caste?  

 NS: Yes, the race/caste analogy runs parallel to the race/colony analogy until 1947, at which point the race/colony analogy no longer holds the same force. Most African American activists who looked to India before 1947 compared the struggle against American racism to the struggle against British imperialism. But after 1947, their focus shifted to matters of caste. When Martin Luther King visits India, he talks with Nehru about the Indian government's response to caste oppression. As that encounter makes clear, juxtaposing race and caste did not require having a deep understanding of both ends of the comparison. As I discuss with regard to Lala Lajpat Rai, Gandhi, and others, comparing race and caste often reveals the blind spots and prejudices of figures who aim to globalize their struggles.

AD: Though race and caste are peculiar institutions of social exclusion, in what ways did 'caste' or the 'untouchable' become powerful metaphors within Black politics in the 20th and 21st centuries?

NS: Caste becomes a key term for abolitionists in the 19th century and remains important for many American anti-racist activists well into the 20th century. It is pertinent to note that many Americans use the word "caste" without knowing much, if anything, about caste in the subcontinent. The so-called "caste school" of sociology on American race relations is marked, for example, by false claims about caste in India. I expect most readers will be familiar with Isabel Wilkerson's recent work on this question. That work is too rich and sweeping for me to discuss here. I included a chapter entitled "Caste" in my recent work, Lord Cornwallis Is Dead. I would also recommend that readers explore an essay that Daniel Immerwahr published in Modern Intellectual History in 2007 entitled “Caste or Colony?”

AD:  What role, in any, did left-leaning politics play in the creation of 'Colored Cosmopolitans'? Did a universal theory of labor as the driving force of world history underpin anti-racist and anti-caste politics? Two prominent figures in your book, W E B DuBois and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, were sympathetic to socialism. How did they hope to criticize, while simultaneously working to transform, the broader labor movement in the 20th century?

 NS: Left-leaning politics were central to the creation of colored cosmopolitanism. In addition to Du Bois and Kamaladevi, figures like Yusuf Meherally, Paul Robeson, Cedric Dover, Langston Hughes, Ram Manohar Lohia, Pauli Murray, J.B. Kripalani, and Jawaharlal Nehru all blended some variety of socialism with a transnational conception of the struggle against racism and imperialism. Their concern with class inequality helped ground their colored cosmopolitanism and allowed many to be, in Dover's words, "both racial and anti-racial at the same time." Their attack on white supremacy was bound up with a sweeping vision of social and political transformation. Consider a passage that Kamaladevi wrote in a book on the United States that she published in 1946:

"Soon Africa too, will come back, and come into her own, and the dark ones will cease to be the 'untouchables' of the world.  The international colour line has been challenged and stormed by Asia.  No more the colonials will allow themselves to be jim-crowed the world over and their country looted under pseudo-slogans.  The Negro problem will only cease when the colour line of imperialism vanishes when Science becomes the benefactor of man and knowledge his friend, and human respect for each other and for the sanctity of life are observed as the codes of our daily life."

AD: Finally, the combination of the Cold War and Decolonization in the decades following World War II put forth a new prominence to non-violence, disarmament, and Civil Rights in the United States. Could you give us a sense of how these strands also came to meet with resistance in the emergence of a militant form of politics in the 1970s with the Black Panther and Dalit Panther movements?

NS: One of my goals in Colored Cosmopolitanism was to cut against the dominance of non-violence in narratives that link South Asian and African American freedom struggles. Even if you look at what Martin Luther King saw in Gandhi, it was about radical anticolonial struggle and colored solidarity, not just non-violence. Yet now, I find myself increasingly fascinated by the complexities of non-violence and of the translation of non-violence across time and space. I am also intrigued by the way in which nonviolent civil disobedience and armed self-defense often worked together, as books by Charles Cobb, Simon Wendt, and many others have shown. As to the Panthers, I wrote a chapter on the Dalit Panthers in an edited collection called Black Power Beyond Borders. That volume also features chapters on the Israeli Panthers by Oz Frankel and the Polynesian Panthers by Robbie Shilliam. What I find most striking about the transnational history of the Panthers is the continuity across both time and space when you look at the key demands of these movements and organizations, nearly all of which are focused on attacking structural forms of oppression—whether racism, casteism, or something else—in the face of massive state repression. Many of the inequities they confronted remain today, and there is much we can learn from their legacies of struggle.