We, the students and academicians of Pan India Ambedkarite Law Students’ Forum (India) stand in unconditional solidarity with the protesters in Minneapolis raising their voice against the institutionalized murder of George Floyd by the police officer Derek Chauvin. Post the gruesome murder of Floyd, riots and protests have broken out in many parts of USA and once again the world is watching America’s hate regime trying to brutally suppress racially driven State and police brutality on the most marginalized populace of African- Americans. Floyd’s alleged crime was using a counterfeit currency note. A crime for which he was physically restrained and asphyxiated to death by Chauvin who kneeled down on his neck for 8 minutes and continued to do so after Floyd became unconscious. Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe” have now become a rallying point for protesters and allies worldwide. His words find an echo in the anxieties of many Blacks and are igniting a fury of long-held sentiments to centuries of white supremacy and quotidian racism. Similar daylight murders of the African American people starkly portray a similar agony. It has become urgent and essential to rightfully call these murders, “lynching without a rope.” Not surprisingly the reaction of the oppressed community which has been the target of not just fatal police shootings but also state induced legalized discrimination in every sphere of life, to mass organize and expand the BLM movement to not just the internet but also on the roads is being condoned by many who are in positions of power or are from traditionally socially and politically powerful communities. It is important to understand that in the case of state-sanctioned violence, the oppressed have every right to speak and act for their dignity and self-respect. America’s newest enemy, therefore, is not a black rioter but a self-respecting individual who calls a spade a spade. The protests are having an international impact wherein most marginalized groups are coming forth in support and are articulating their experiences. The international right-wing regime of Trump, Bolsonaro and Modi stands to be toppled and dismantled because Black isn’t just a colour; it is a rallying cry for the solidarity of the oppressed and the unity of the marginalized.

In India, the Dalit, Adivasi and Queer movement has always been an ally to the civil rights movement of the African Americans. The analogy of alliance between the caste system of India and racism in America has a long and sustained history. In 1873 Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, the father of social reform dedicated his critical book “Gulamgiri” (Slavery) to American abolitionist “in an earnest desire that my countrymen may take their example as their guide in the emancipation of their Sudra Brethren from the trammels of Brahmin thralldom.” In 1940, Dr. Ambedkar contacted W.E.B. Du Bois to inquire about the National Negro Congress petition to the U.N., which attempted to secure minority rights through the U.N. council. Dr. Ambedkar in the letter writes that he had been a “student of the Negro problem” and that “[t]here is so much similarity between the position of the Untouchables in India and of the position of the Negroes in America that the study of the latter is not only natural but necessary”. In 1980’s nearly 100 years after Mahatma Phule’s Gulamgiri, an organization led by Dalit youths, writers and activists named themselves the “Dalit Panthers,” having taken inspiration from the Black Panthers of U.S. In their manifesto, issued in 1971, the Dalit Panthers wrote: “From the Black Panthers, Black Power was established. We claim a close relationship with this struggle.”

In the tradition of this continuing solidarity, we extend our unconditional support to the Black Lives Matter campaign and uphold the ongoing series of protests by the Blacks and allies as a new beginning in which the marginalized speak for themselves a language of universality and equality, liberty and fraternity and free themselves from the slavery and the racism of the American system.

Aatika Singh and Dipankar Kamble
on the behalf of
Pan India Ambedkarite Law Students’ Forum
4^th June 2020