Words slide, slip, perish, decay with imprecision, but some continue to assail the amnesia of time. Among the famous words of the last century that continue to have a rare resonance in this one, are those from Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ oration. They were delivered at the civil rights march on Washington and tomorrow marks its 40th anniversary. This gives us an occasion to revisit that catalytic event. Why did these particular words live on amidst the general detritus of spoken language? I am indebted to my friend, sports commentator and historian of popular culture, Mike Marqusee, for a new insight into the speech. In his forthcoming book, Chimes of Freedom, Marqusee recalls that King had not meant to speak extempore and that the text he had read out from did not even have the ‘I have a dream’ passage. He was reading from the prepared text when Mahila Jackson, the grand dame of the Black spiritual, shouted, “Tell them about your dream, Martin. Tell them about your dream.” It was not just the ringing oratory with which King delivered the words, it was not just their poetic and emotive quality, it was not just the practical advice it offered, it was the melding of language and moment that gave it that something-indelible quality. Today, the desire it expresses — “to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood” — may appear overly idealistic. Its appeal for non-violence — “We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence” — may not sound radical enough. Its advocacy of inclusion — “I have a dream that. one day, right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers” — may sound almost naive. Today, in fact, King’s words have been cynically employed to argue their precise opposite, with groups like the conservative Washington-based legal advocacy group, Centre for Individual Rights, using the formulation that individuals should not be judged by the “colour of their skin but the content of their character” to buttress its stance against affirmative action. Yet through all the vicissitudes of time, despite inadequacies and the decay caused by over-use and abuse, King’s text continues to survive like a “stone of hope” hewn out of the “mountain of despair”; a universal testament of faith in the human spirit. For us in India, King’s speech is relevant for at least three reasons. First, because Gandhian philosophy went to shape King’s vision. Two, because of the parallels — some which work and some which don’t — that are drawn between race and caste. Three, because of its strong advocacy of social justice, not just as an ideal but as a lived reality. Tucked away in The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr are some passages on King’s India connection. Evidently, his first acquaintance with M.K. Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent social protest dated back to the days when he was at the Crozier Theological Seminary training to be a pastor. Not many in this country know about the month-long trip he made with his wife, Coretta, to India in February 1959 — “I come as a pilgrim,” he told waiting reporters. He later commented, “We were looked upon as brothers, with the colour of our skins as something of an asset.” A conversation with a group of African students in India led him to defend his position on non-violent resistance. The students pointed out that non-violent resistance could only work in a situation where the ruling elite displayed a conscience. King responded by saying, “True non-violent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be a recipient of violence than the inflicter of it.” A year later, he had occasion to test these insights during the lunch counter sit-in movement in Greensboro, North Carolina, which is today considered an great instance of disciplined non-violent action against segregation, with students tenaciously continuing to demand equal service at variety store lunch counters in city after city. As for the similarities between caste and race, it is a complex issue. Dalit intellectuals have argued that since caste is based on discrimination that goes back several centuries, one that has built into it the uniquely perverted concept of untouchability, it is a far more monstrous social system. Interestingly, King — since his visit was mediated by Gandhians — did not gain any great insight into India’s caste reality, although he commented that India appeared to be faster at its attempts to integrate its untouchables than the US was in integrating its Negro minority. A simplistic conclusion. Possibly, if King had lived longer — he was assassinated at 39 — he may have gained a more nuanced understanding of caste. In a sermon he delivered in 1965, he recalled that during his visit to India he was introduced by a principal of a Dalit school in Kerala as an “untouchable from the US”. The description both shocked and peeved him. “Then I started thinking about the fact: 20 million of my brothers and sisters were still smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in an affluent society. And I said to myself, ‘Yes, I am an untouchable, and every Negro in the USA is an untouchable.’” Finally, the sheer power and unity of that 1963 march for real, demonstrable, realisable equality and entitlement, still has the power to awe. That it helped midwife the civil rights legislation in the US two years later was just one small consequence of a multiplier event that had an impact, not just in the US but on the world, not just in the sixties but to this day. “Instead of honouring a sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad cheque which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’. But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. So we have come to cash this cheque — a cheque that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.” For us in India, these words come as a reminder that we, too, have a bad cheque that needs to be honoured.
