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ID:
085867
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| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the midst of the Second World War, feminist, socialist, and anti-colonial activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya spent 18 months travelling and speaking in the United States. She aimed to increase American support for Indian independence, while establishing connections with American feminists and African Americans, and defending the rights of women and people of colour throughout the world. Kamaladevi championed a coloured cosmopolitanism that defied narrow, chauvinist definitions of race, religion, or nation, while simultaneously encouraging the unity of 'coloured' peoples. She envisioned Indian independence as a crucial step toward the liberation of the entire 'coloured world'. By sharing her expansive understanding of coloured solidarity with her Indian readers, Kamaladevi contributed to the knowledge and persistence with which Indians criticized American racism. India's independence, coupled with the rise of the Cold War, endowed Indian criticism of American racial oppression with new power. Beginning in the late 1940s, Indian opinion helped pressure American presidents, Supreme Court justices, and diplomatic officials, afraid of losing the propaganda battle of the Cold War, to resolve civil rights crises and to instigate significant domestic reforms. Tracing the genesis and impact of Kamaladevi's coloured cosmopolitanism reveals the long and diverse history of Indian critiques of American racism.
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| 2 |
ID:
188190
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| Summary/Abstract |
Ramnath Biswas (1894–1955) independently travelled around the world on a bicycle between 1931 and 1940. His travelogues about Africa and the US reveal Biswas to be an active supporter of the nascent transnational civil rights movement. This article connects his endeavours to achieve social justice for African, African American and Asian people with the phenomenon of ‘coloured cosmopolitanism’. Biswas’ observations—in particular, his portrayal of racial dynamics between Indians and Africans—are striking. Exploring Biswas’ narratives from a micro-historical perspective allows us to envision an alternative history of solidarity between non-white (‘oshwet’) people and to place his journey at the intersection of Indian Ocean Studies and studies of transnational civil rights activities during the inter-War period.
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