This Article First Appeared In The Scroll On July 25, 2023.
In early 1932, Nilla Cram Cook got a jolt of unexpected news. Reports in Indian media informed her she was fasting unto death in support of a campaign to allow Dalits into Mysore’s Chamundeshwari Temple when she was doing no such thing. Somehow, without her knowledge or consent, Cook, an American woman living in India, had become an unlikely spokesperson for a fight against casteism.