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Du Bois's Dark Princess, Kautilya's Arthashastra, and the Welfare State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2021

Eric Strand
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Abstract

W. E. B. Du Bois's novel Dark Princess (1928) has become a paradigmatic text for left internationalism and Afro-Asian solidarity. Du Bois's hybrid progressivism enchants the American welfare state by giving it an intellectual genealogy that emphasizes Eastern political thought. Dark Princess engages with the Arthashastra, an ancient work of political theory that was ostensibly written by the chief adviser to Chandragupta, who unified the Indian subcontinent. The Arthashastra, and the legend concerning its composition, stimulated a Du Boisian fantasy of global leadership, one that parallels the contemporary recuperation of the Arthashastra for power politics. However, the Arthashastra's discussion of social programs and infrastructure also introduces the concept of the welfare state. Interweaving the Arthashastra with Black life in Chicago, Du Bois gives the progressive activist Sara Andrews a surprising agency. Today the most important aspect of Dark Princess is its vision of an antiracist and culturally syncretic New Deal.

Type
Essays
Information
PMLA , Volume 136 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 72 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Modern Language Association of America

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