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RUNOKO RASHIDI: A BLACK AMERICAN'S SOJOURN OF DISCOVERY
By SOROOR AHMED
Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI
Mr. Runoko Rashidi is on a mission to trace the link between the Dalits of India and Blacks of North and South America. Himself a Black from Texas (USA), he is a historian, writer and civil rights activist. These days he is in India to write a book on Dalits of the country both Hindu and Muslim. His tour itinerary, interalia, includes Delhi, Patna, Bangalore and Nagpur. In Bihar he visited the tribal and Harijan slums of Ranchi, Koderma and Patna and made it a point to visit Bathe in Jehanabad where 61 Harijans were brutally massacred by the private army of the Bhumihar farmers. "We, the Blacks of the world and Harijans and tribals of India are like a family. We are brothers and sisters. We are one people", he told this correspondent in an interview.
Rashidi, who said that he was neither a Christian, nor a Muslim but was impressed by Islam and Buddhism found the condition of the people, especially the Dalits, extremely deplorable. "It is much worse than the plight of the Blacks of the USA. The Indian government should be ashamed of it," he minced no words in stating this. "When I came to India for the first time in 1987, I remained depressed for six months", he said with a tinge of regret.
He was surprised by the state-sponsored discrimination between the Hindu Dalits and non-Hindu Dalits. "Why is it that once a Dalit embraces the other religion he is deprived of all his benefits?" He asked. "I visited the colonies of Hindu and Muslim Dalits and found them living in equally hellish conditions."
Rashidi has authored three books: African Classical Civilizations published in 1993; African Presence in Early Asia (in fact he is the editor of this book) and Kushite Case Studies. Kushite stands for Egyptians.
His interaction with the Indian Dalits started way back in 1987 when he was invited by Mr. V.T. Rajshekar, the editor of Dalit Voice at a conference in Hyderabad. "I write for this magazine," he informed while elaborating his decade long relationship with the Dalits.
To the Indian ears his diatribe against the Whites and Church would not sound strange. But he hit the headlines of a newspaper at Patna when he criticized Gandhi as a status-quoit who "worked for the preservation of caste system." "I like Ambedkar. He was a great man." Rashidi also exposed Abraham Lincoln. "He abolished slavery to use Blacks in army during the civil war. After that he wanted to revoke this decision," the black scholar opined."
SOURCE:
Reprinted from ISLAMIC VOICE (May 1998); Published in Bangalore, India
Soroor Ahmed is a writer for Islamic Voice, published monthly from Bangalore, India.
Copyright © 1998 Runoko Rashidi. All rights reserved.
Revised: October 15, 2000.
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