Mumbai: How does a public intellectual describe his duty as an inheritor of the legacies of Mahatma Gandhi and American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr? If he is Anthony Monteiro, a distinguished American scholar, he proudly declares from the podium: “I am standing upon [their] shoulders...”Monteiro, one of the fiercest champions of African-Americans’ struggle to live with liberty and dignity, an exponent of the work and legacy of renowned sociologist WEB Du Bois, lifelong opponent of apartheid, and an activist who admires Gandhi for inspiring the African-Americans to resist oppression and imperialism through non-violent resistance, was in Mumbai on Tuesday as part of a six-city tour. His ‘Peace Pilgrimage’ talk hosted by All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation drew a houseful at Marathi Patrakar Sangh. “I am an ordinary American. I must say that the American nation is in an existential crisis. Around 80% of Americans feel that America is going in the wrong direction. Around 62% of American youth prefer socialism to capitalism, while 34% of the youth prefer communism,” said Monteiro (81). With a gamchcha on his shoulder—a gift from the organisers—the scholar-activist emphatically retraced the relationship between African-Americans and Indians. He recalled Du Bois’s statement from the 1950s: “The greatest human achievement of the 20th century was the independence of India.” He said the 20th century witnessed many revolutions and yet, Du Bois saw India’s independence as the biggest achievement of humanity. Underscoring the contributions of Gandhi and MLK Jr to their respective countries and the recognition accorded to them in turn, he said: “If Gandhi is the father of India, Martin Luther King Jr is the father of the new American nation.” He recalled that MLK Jr would stay at a close friend’s apartment whenever he visited New York. The friend saw that he suffered from serious bouts of depression, but MLK Jr refused to see a doctor, he said. “My visit to the psychiatrist will be reported in the media and then they (white supremacists) will sneer at me,” is how he would brush aside his friend’s suggestions to take medical help. He called the US-backed Israel-Iran war “an American defeat”. “Iran is stronger than it was before the war,” he said. “Donald Trump overstepped and went beyond the mandate of the American army. He miscalculated that Iran would collapse after the death of its spiritual leader. Trump wanted war to weaken Iran. Today, the US is weaker, Iran is stronger.”
