Looking At India Through African Eyes
An Educational Tour Of India
 
Santal Woman
 
 
by Runoko Rashidi
 
On April 13, 1999 I returned from a successful tour of India entitled "Looking at India through African Eyes." It was a sixteen day educational tour designed to explore the historical, cultural, social and anthropological components of ancient and modern India from our own perspective--an African perspective.
 
The tour was coordinated by Allen Travel Service--an African American travel service based in Washington,
D.C. that handled all of our travel needs. It was my first tour and my third trip to India overall. The tour was of historic significance--being the first such trip planned and actually carried out.
 
On the tour, accompanied by numerous local people and sixteen African American brothers and sisters (all experienced travelers), we visited many of the significant temples, tombs, castles, palaces, museums and assorted great monuments in India, including the Taj Majal (reputedly built out of grief for an Ethiopian woman) and described as "poetry in marble," Amber Fort and the Palace of the Winds, the National Museum in New Delhi, the massive Konarak temple in Orissa, the Buddhist temple caves at Ajanta and the magnificent colossal rock cut temples at Ellora.
 

Women of Orissa, India
 
In Patna, in Bihar, we stood on the banks of the Ganges River. We visited the major cities of Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Patna, Calcutta, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Trivandrum, Mumbai, Aurangabad and the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri. Overall the people of India were kind and considerate towards us. The Black people of India themselves (the original inhabitants of the land) were wonderful to us and embraced us as family. Among the Black folk we interacted with were the Dom, Santals, Mundas, Dravidians, Dalits and Adivasis (Tribals).
 
We visited them in their homes, offices and villages, rural communities and urban slums, university and academic settings. During our travels we encountered a mosaic of Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Parsis, Sikhs and Animists. Some of them engaged in the religious practices of our ancient African foreparents.

Sometimes the sense of oneness and community seemed almost mystical and magical. Most of the time the spiritual connections between us were also tangible. Everywhere we went we re-established bonds of
brotherhood, sisterhood and familyhood. The individuals in our group were treated like visiting dignitaries, as ambassadors, and I was treated like a prince. At times it was overwhelming.
 
We were guests of honor at numerous receptions, cultural programs and educational forums, many of whom were sponsored or initiated by the publication Dalit Voice: The Voice of the Persecuted Nationalities Denied Human Rights, founded and edited by V.T. Rajshekar.
 
Everywhere the Ancestors and Great Ones were with us. At a major reception in New Delhi the keynote speaker, Union Health Minister Dalit Ezhilmalai, focused on the life of Malcolm X. At a program in Bhubaneswar the moderator, Dr. Radhakant Nayak, who reminded us of John Henrik Clarke, closed the afternoon with a stirring recital of Claude McKay's glorious poem of resistance "If We Must Die!" In Trivandrum I was presented with three ceremonial Ankhs made of coconut shell and adorned with red, black and green beads.
 
At an airport reception we were greeted with shouts of "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!"
 
We were hosted by Black youth groups who told of their life stories and village origins, their hopes, their dreams and aspirations. We were entertained by scores of singers and drummers and dancers. We met with Black women's groups who performed skits portraying family life and a vibrant new spirit of resistance to domestic violence and centuries-old oppression.
 
We visited some of the most downtrodden communities on earth, witnessed the miseries of the Black Untouchables of India and were guests on university campuses. In a program in Chennai we were hosted by Bishop Ezra Sargunam of the Evangelical Church of India where I was the guest speaker with Dr. K. Ponmudy, a major Dravidian scholar, in a program designed to address the Black and Dravidian movements.
 
In Orissa I saw and photographed the blackest human beings I've ever seen. In fact, it was my impression that the blackest people were here the most highly esteemed and considered better than the others who were not so dark! In one city, at an elaborate and heartfelt public ceremony, we presented school supplies to the entire student body of an aspiring educational institution followed by cash contributions for the continuation of the work.
 
We saw ourselves not merely as tourists but at visiting family members come to try to make things better.
"Looking at India through African Eyes" was a resounding success and an incredible high.
 
 
Woodabi Woman of Mali, West Africa
 
I came away from India convinced that African people around the world are on the rise and that there is a revolution going on in the hearts, souls and minds of Black people everywhere. It was a great triumph and for me personally clearly only the the first in a series of tours to India and other sojourns with African people around the world. Africans Unite!
 
The First World Books
For more information visit
 
 
Runoko Rashidi is an historian, public lecturer and writer engaged in a love affair with Africa. He is currently organizing educational tours to Kenya and Tanzania in April 2001 and Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand
in November 2001. For information contact Rashidi at RRashidi@swbell.net.
 
This article was published courtesy of Mr. Runoko Rashidi
Copyright © 2000 Runoko Rashidi. All rights reserved.

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