The Sambar Kings (updated)
Scenes from Martin Luther King Jr.’s India tour in ‘59:
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The Kings meet Nehru |
While hundreds of Indians waited in vain for King’s arrival in India’s capital, a later flight took them to Bombay.. the three travelers were shocked by their initial encounter with Indian poverty on the drive to Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel. ‘The sight of emaciated human beings wearing only a dirty loincloth, picking through garbage cans both angered and depressed my husband… Never, even in Africa, had we seen such abject, despairing poverty…’ King combined his observations with implicit criticisms of his own country: ‘They are poor, jammed together and half starved but… they do not abuse each other… as readily as we do…’
After being escorted to [Delhi’s] Janpath Hotel, King conducted his first press conference. ‘To other countries I may go as a tourist… but to India I come as a pilgrim…’
Nehru… [invited] them to join a previously scheduled dinner with Lady Mountbatten… and… Indira Gandhi… the King party also met with India’s president, Rajendra Prasad, and its vice president, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Particularly impressed by the latter talk with the ‘philosopher-politician,’ Coretta King noted that her husband compared the session… to ‘meeting George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison in a single day…’
… the Kings left Delhi for Patna… they visited…. Gaya, Calcutta… Madras… [and] Trivandrum… the party experienced rural life, eating seated ‘on the ground from banana leaves’ … when a principal of a school… introduced him as ‘a fellow untouchable,’ he was at first ‘a bit shocked and peeved…’ [but eventually said,] ‘Yes, I am an untouchable, and every Negro in the United States of America is an untouchable…’
King also had lasting memories of… Cape Comorin [Kanyakumari]… ‘It is one of the most beautiful points in all the world… This is one of the few points in all the world that you can see the setting of the sun and the emergence of the moon simultaneously.’
… the party [stayed at] Mani Bhavan, Gandhi’s Bombay residence… King left his impressions in the Mani Bhavan guest book: ‘To have the opportunity of sleeping in the house where Gandhiji slept is an experience that I will never forget…’ King met with African students studying in Bombay… [and] went to the Sabarmati ashram… where [Gandhi] began his 1930 Salt March… King delivered a farewell address… for broadcast on All India Radio… He then offered his most controversial public pronouncement of the India tour by repeating [godman] Vinoba Bhave’s suggestion that India disarm unilaterally…
Touched by India’s reception of him ‘with open arms,’ King related that Gandhians had ‘praised our experiment with non-violent resistance… at Montgomery… the strongest bond of fraternity was the cause of minority and colonial people in America, Africa and Asia struggling to throw off racialism and imperialism.’ [The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr.]
Upon his return from India, King compared the discrimination of India’s untouchables with America’s race problems, noting that India’s leaders publicly endorsed integration laws… “today no leader in India would dare to make a public endorsement of untouchability. But in America, every day some leader endorses racial segregation…
“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.” [Link]
Happy MLK Day.
Update: Chachaji reminds us of MLK’s March on Washington in ‘63, backed by supporters in Gandhi caps:
on Monday, January 21st, 2008, 7:31 am in History, Holidays, Photographs › 
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Great post.
It’s ironic the divergent paths Desis and Blacks have taken since King’s epic struggle. Many Desis view themselves as proto-whites and look down urban Blacks. Many Blacks resent Asians for taking economic opportunities they view as rightfully theirs. Ebony, Jet or Black centric- media often have articles on how the importation of graduate students from Asia is a dis-investment in Blacks.
My relatives in India always made snippy note of my black friends in photos. Among the DBDs Desis I know (successful, educated and upper-middle class), I’ve consistently heard disparaging remarks about Blacks — especially those running small/medium businesses. Part of this stems from lack of exposure — it’s really sad that I don’t run across Blacks in a professional setting anymore. As one goes higher up in academia, medicine or business there is definitely a dearth.
fabulous post. thanks for inspiring us.
The whole post is a class act dude, a labor of love and you must have been working on it for days. It is much much appreciated.
p.s. That stamp is a wonderful find.
i was fortunate to visit the mlk paper exhibit at the atlanta history museum last year with my folks…
mlk was inspiring.. and he respected mahatma gandhi a great deal..
what caused my jaw to drop to the floor
a picture of his family eating dinner at their home..and who’s picture was adorning the top of their table?
gandhi.
i had to sit down for that.
great man.
Thanks, guys. A relaxing day, an inspirational life.
Very nice post, Manish.
Worth pointing out that when he went to India in 1959, King was just 30! (Nehru was 70). The Montgomery Bus Boycott was behind him, and he had already been inspired by Gandhian methods. But many more of the marches and sit-ins were to come later - so the trip to India did strengthen his belief in the potential of non-violent resistance to effect change.
The ‘Gandhi caps’ that many of King’s followers began to wear, such as in this 1965 pic of the March on Washington, are a visible sign of the influence.
While Nehru demurred on King’s request to set up scholarships for African-Americans to study in India - on account of India’s relative poverty then - today, almost fifty years later, it is worth taking up again. More generally, India’s (and the South Asian American community’s) engagement with the African-American community deserves more attention and should be imaginatively and meaningfully strengthened.
While Nehru demurred on King’s request to set up scholarships for African-Americans to study in India - on account of India’s relative poverty then - today, almost fifty years later, it is worth taking up again. More generally, India’s (and the South Asian American community’s) engagement with the African-American community deserves more attention and should be imaginatively and meaningfully strengthened.
Under World Bank plan, hundreds (or close to thousands) of African students have studied in IITs, and different institutes in last 60 years. Part of it was economics, third world politics, and non-aligned diplomacy.
In fact, the first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyrere’s scientific advisor was a Roorkee (then perhaps Thomsen College, or U. Roorkee, now IIT) graduate, and when JN visited India, he visited Roorkee too, as a tribute to his scientific advisor training, and friendship. At that time, there were close 200 Tanzanian students studying Civil Engineering.
MLK mentor met Gandhi in 50s in Sabmarti Ashram.
Why do I know this? My father was the dean of foreign students when he meet Julius Nyrere.
awesome post. that is some amazing visual history.
This bit was too much, in a good way:
wow! very inspiring post and a delightful way to remember the ‘king‘ :) keep up the great work!
Very nice.
Interesting article, on long ago ties that have withered away. The current generation of African American leadership is unsympathetic to India. They view Indians here as carpetbaggers as sui_generis noted above. Desis by in large don’t view the AA community in a positive light either, though many of their gains came directly as a result of AAs civil rights sacrifices.
Obama pejoratively characterized Hillary Clinton’s as “Senator (D-Punjab)”. Sepia or Little India had an article showing few Desis being employed by the Obama campaign. The Clinton campaign had > 15%.
Can anyone post a link to this? I’d love to see it.
I like his Pakistan policy– not stasis, not backing Musharraf.
Great post Manish. Thanks for the pics of people with Nehru caps.
Kush Tandon wrote:
“Under World Bank plan, hundreds (or close to thousands) of African students have studied in IITs, and different institutes in last 60 years. Part of it was economics, third world politics, and non-aligned diplomacy.”
I spent 4 years at IIT Kanpur and I didn’t see any Africans. None of my friends from other IITs have mentioned this either. The typical ‘foreigners’ I saw were Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis.
Just type variants of “Asians Displacing Blacks” in Google
Nonresident Asian Students Displacing Black Ph.D.s in Science and Engineering?
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 2 p. 15
doi:10.2307/2962545
This has been a contentious point in the Black community. We made all the sacrifices, and the benefits are going to outsiders both in education and business opportunities.
I spent 4 years at IIT Kanpur and I didn’t see any Africans. None of my friends from other IITs have mentioned this either. The typical ‘foreigners’ I saw were Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis.
World Bank programs targeted different institutes at different times.
A lot of them were geared toward agrarian/ development centers at different Universities- like Civil Engineering/ Water Resources in Roorkee, Agriculture Institute in Punjab, etc.
It never was all institutes, all the time.
As I said, the height of it was non-aligned movement.
Same was with Nepal under Colombo Plan.
I prefer to think of it as standing on the shoulders of giants!
Some of the studies focus on competition for engineering Ph.Ds. How does this interact with economic nativism from laid-off American programmers, many of whom are white?
As Kush rightly pointed out, there was a phase in the mid to late 80s when there were lots of students from African countries studying at Indian universities. I have personally met/seen a lot of those students in Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow. Agra, Allahabad and Varanasi; the so called KAVAL cities.
Kenya had a large group of foreign students studying in India for a period of time in the 80’s.
Friction between the Asians (including Koreans grocers, Asian laundries, Desi sundries) and AAs
is well documented. The educated AA elite of the US certainly view the foreign Asian presence
in American graduate schools as a diversion of their resources. This is on the native soil as
opposed to off shoring which occurs outside of the USA.
BTW: isn’t Mississippi Masala in part about the Desi prejudice against AAs?
Good post…… Even so many years after Independence Indian elections are still caste based and India has reservation system at all levels.So IMHO India is still at large in the same shape as of during time of MLK’s visit…
This seemed familiar when you mentioned it - today I noticed it - one of the banners on Sepia Mutiny has MLK with Gandhi’s picture in the background. It looks like MLK had a picture of Gandhi in his office too, from which the banner was adapted (in sepia tones). There is also a statue of Gandhi at the King Center in Atlanta. I couldn’t find the one chickpea mentioned in a quick google image search, but it might be in one of the archives that Manish might be able to access.
Three guesses who made that banner ;)
1. abhi
2. anna
3. me
4. Saraswati herself, who produced the popular ‘You suck at Photoshop’ YouTube series