Feeling Brown, Thinking Black: Translating the Black Panther from Lowndes to Bombay

Abstract

Abstract: The archive of exchanges between Dalit and Black intellectuals exhibits the significance of imagining and translating minoritarian relations in the late twentieth century. The formation of the Dalit Panthers—an anticaste organization that declared its affiliation to the Black Panther Party in 1973—presents one such translational moment, revealing the affective power of brown/ness in consolidating minoritarian worlds that are concomitantly conceived in their opposition to coloniality, caste, and white supremacy. I trace the evolution of the Panthers' relationship through the journey of its iconography, from its initial sketching in Lowndes to its circulation in Marathi little magazines in the 1970s and its reappearance in Rahee Punyashloka's print series The Panthers Is an Elusive Beast (2021).