From Oakland to Mumbai: How the Black Panthers Sparked a Dalit Revolution​

In this article, Jana Eid traces how the radical ethos of America’s Black Power movement crossed borders to inspire a new wave of anti-caste resistance in 1972 India.

From the poor urban alleys of Mumbai in 1972 emerged an organization not different at all from the Black Panther Party in the U.S., a militant organization that reshaped Black political consciousness and the battle for equal rights among Black Americans. Two angry young men, Namdeo Dhasal and J.V. Pawar, decided to pivot from the post-Ambedkar Dalit leadership at the time when they discovered a copy of Time magazine that featured the Black Panthers of the U.S. Emboldened by the same vision of self-reliance and self-defense, they strove to create a different reality for Dalits through separation from state institutions.

Since the nineteenth century, scholars and political activists have drawn connections between racial discrimination against Black people in the U.S. and the historically revered caste system in India. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar couldn’t help but recognize this similarity when he studied at Columbia University in New York, establishing communication with Black rights activists there. He realized that although the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which abolished slavery) and the 14th Amendment (which provided citizenship rights to all people born in the U.S. regardless of color) had been passed many years earlier, not a single Black student was able to gain admission to Columbia University. He learned from civil rights luminaries of the time, like Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, about the fight for freedom and racial equality. The word “educate” in Ambedkar’s revolutionary three-point formula for Dalits—“Educate! Organize! Agitate!”—was inspired by Washington’s book, Up From Slavery, which emphasizes the importance of education in obtaining freedom for Black people. Du Bois is known for his 96-page petition, the Manifesto of Universal Human Rights, to the United Nations, which embodies the first constitutional dissent against racism. In 1946, Ambedkar wrote a letter to Du Bois in which he noted:

“I was a student of the problems of Negro people and here there is such a striking similarity between the condition of the Untouchables in India and the condition of the Negroes that I find it is not only natural for me to study their condition but it is imperative… like the human rights petition of the Negroes of America, the question of the Indian Untouchables should also be put forth in the UN and a copy of the petition submitted for this purpose should be sent to me on my address” (“The Black Panther-Dalit Panther Connection”).

Little did Ambedkar know that Black people in the U.S. and Dalits in India would be bonded in their struggle for social justice. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was formed in 1966 by two young individuals, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who were forced to find a way to defend themselves against constant police terror that primarily targeted Black youth.

The Dalit Panthers movement was formed under the same pressure to protect Dalits from social elites and state forces that used sheltered affirmative action policies and violence as a means of social repression. Since the beginning of the 1970s, widespread disillusionment had surfaced among marginalized segments of society against the political rhetoric of development and social justice proposed by ruling elites. The state’s desire to achieve a substantive form of social democracy and economic justice created a prominent break within Dalit political consciousness, where various movements emerged to reconstruct the essence of Dalit empowerment outside of state institutions. Two extreme incidents of caste atrocities incited Dalit youth to establish the Dalit Panthers. On May 14, 1972, two women from a Dalit settlement on the outskirts of a village (termed ‘Maharwada’ or ‘Rajwada’) were stripped and paraded naked through the village in a display of the humiliation tactics commonly employed against Dalit women. Within the same year, the eyes of two Dalit men were gouged out by upper-caste people in Dhakali village, in the Akola district. Oftentimes, when upper-caste people are involved in a caste atrocity, the state sides with them and imprisons the Dalit victims.

In the same way that the Black Panther movement antagonized the passive, non-violent, assimilationist model championed by Martin Luther King Jr. and other reformist leaders, the Dalit Panthers movement distinguished itself from the conventional liberal model of democratic politics embraced by post-Ambedkar Dalit leadership by articulating a kind of romantic militancy. They were primarily newly educated Dalits, young artists, poets, unemployed youth, and social activists—all of whom were committed to challenging the political establishment and status quo through street protests and emotive speeches. Members of the organization started publishing pamphlets full of revolutionary poetry, magazines covering current affairs, and literary writings that united the Dalit community through a common political conscience. The organization was not afraid to bring issues of rape, violence, and caste atrocities into mainstream discourse to occupy the center stage of political deliberations. In 1973, the Dalit Panthers Manifesto was released as a revolutionary agenda by Dhasal and Raja Dhale, outlining Ambedkar’s teachings within a Marxist class framework that declared Dalits must become the rulers of the land. It famously stated:

“We will not be satisfied easily now. We do not want a little place in the Brahmin alley…We want the rule of the whole land. We are not looking at persons but at a system. Change of heart, liberal education, etc., will not end our state of exploitation. When we gather a revolutionary mass, rouse the people, out of the struggle of this giant mass will come the tidal wave of revolution” (Dalit Panthers Manifesto, p. 146).

In the May 11, 1974 edition of their official newspaper, the Black Panther Party announced its support and appreciation of the Dalit Panthers. The organization was able to establish itself as a serious and committed group by undermining the liberal democratic system that served the interests of social elites.

What comprised essential elements of the Dalit Panthers movement also ended up leading to its demise. The Panthers were ideologically conflicted between the Buddhist-aligned faction led by Dhale and the Marxist faction led by Dhasal. Whereas Dhale was inspired by the Ambedkarite movement, which incorporated peaceful struggles, demands for constitutional rights, and, most importantly, Buddhist conversion, Dhasal was inspired by the Communist Party of India (CPI)—to which he declared open allegiance—and a collective struggle against class and caste exploitation. These groups contended with each other about which ideological orientation should dictate the political and emancipatory strategies of the movement, considering that Dhale believed in the capacity of Buddhist conversion to create a new religious and cultural identity for Dalits, while Dhasal believed religion had no place in the broader emancipatory struggle. Marxism was essentially interpreted as a tool to understand how ruling elites retained the caste system through minor concessions.

There were other issues, however, that also plagued the movement’s long-term success, such as limited financial resources, social capital, and political support. Arguably, the most important of these was the fact that the Dalit Panthers could not secure social capital or political support from Dalits themselves. Their loose, unorganized network operating on a case-by-case basis was unable to appeal to the Dalit masses or other struggling groups, including Adivasis, the working class, Naxalites, and Muslims. The Dalit Panthers’ utopian ideological goals were not followed by practical, concrete solutions that could actually ensure Dalits their political and social emancipation from the caste system. Furthermore, without resources to contest police cases filed against them in court, the threat of police action and retaliation demoralized the entire activist base, forcing them to operate only in Dalit ghettos until their street presence became trivial. Many came to view the Dalit Panthers as a frivolous challenge to the political establishment.

The Panthers were overshadowed by a more pragmatic political party known as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984. The popular collective term “Bahujan” refers to the “majority mass,” and it replaced the acclaimed political term “Dalit.” Bahujan represents majority or socially marginalized communities as opposed to minority or social elites. The Bahujan identity politically connected deprived caste groups, serving as a union for all marginalized groups under the leadership of the Dalits. They promoted themselves as the instrument of democratic change, capitalizing on the idea that political power was accessible to the Dalit population. Their electoral victory in Uttar Pradesh showcased that Dalits could pursue their struggle for equality within mainstream politics and did not, in fact, have to use radical measures to further their cause as the Dalit Panthers insisted. The lack of clear political guidelines ultimately cost the Dalit Panthers their efforts and revolutionary vision. The Dalit masses believed their matters should be addressed through electoral democracy by a competent political party within a liberal-constitutional framework. As a result of internal strife and political repression, Dhasal and Pawar announced the dissolution of the Dalit Panthers on March 7, 1977.

Scholars’ opinions differ widely on the legacy of the Dalit Panthers movement, with some arguing that it was short-lived and others arguing that it altered the political imagination of the Dalit collective. One important way in which the Dalit Panthers’ influence has carried on is perhaps through the Communist Party of India (Marxist). While the Marxist-Leninist party in India influenced the Dalit Panthers rather than the other way around, the two groups were inextricably intertwined through a collective struggle against class and caste exploitation. In 2013, the general secretary of the party, Prakash Karat, highlighted how neoliberal economic policies like privatization were causing landlessness among Dalits and that effective land reforms were needed for Dalit emancipation. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has also strive to change its social composition by inducting people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The socialist undertones of the Dalit Panthers’ ideology continue to live on through this major political party, which holds a notable regional presence in several states.

In historical perspective, while the Dalit Panthers were short-lived and fractured by internal ideological divides, their impact on the Dalit political consciousness remains profound. By drawing direct inspiration from the Black Power movement in Oakland and translating its radical self-defense and anti-establishment ethos into the alleys of Mumbai, the Panthers radically disrupted the passive political status quo of 1970s India. They proved that marginalized communities across the globe share a common thread in their struggles for dignity and social justice. Though pragmatic electoral politics eventually overshadowed their revolutionary militancy, the Dalit Panthers successfully shifted the boundaries of Dalit art, literature, and resistance, leaving behind an indelible blueprint for cross-border solidarity and radical emancipation that continues to resonate today.