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M. Nagloo & Chinniah Jangam

Post On:April 18, 2021

Opinion By Gopala Krishna

It was quite fascinating to read the article on Shri Nagloo, but Chinniah Jangam ji. One could feel the palpable excitement in tone and tenor of CJ.You can read the article on Shri Nagloo here.
 
We need to acknowledge the effort and passion of CJ in researching the contents for the article.By his own admission he inadvertently confirmed that there was opportunities for Dalits in India. Well that is not the subject of this article here.
 
There is this interesting psychological transmigration of adopting other’s pain, both ways. In this article we now see the adaptation of Black History month celebrations to Dalit suffering and it has given birth to the term “Dalit History Month”
dalit history month
 
Academicians in the Black community seem to take the Dalit pain and apply it on to their history as is seen by this book,
wilkerson-main
 
So here is the amusing angle. Black writer Isabel Wilkerson whose ancestors were pushed into pain by whites is borrowing the White Portuguese term of Caste to verbalize and validate their pain. While Dalit writer Chinniah Jangam whose ancestors were subjugated to pain by Upper castes of India is borrowing Black terminology to validate his historical pain. Either way, The term “caste” sounds to have great value in the world of writing. Quite a rewarding and potent academic tool today.
 
But congrats to Oprah in that she was able to create a black identity independent of white supervision. While our dear CJ is struggling in that dept. It does sound that his academic freedom is limited to a very sharply demarcated area of academic activity. For example he missed to mention in the article was the fact that Mr.Nagloo made his fame & fortune by appeasing the Aliens. And he was not alone.Many upper castes did the same job of appeasing the white masters.Some are doing it to this day even after political independence. Howdy CJ!