The paper explores mobilization to reduce the deepest inequalities in the two largest democracies, those along caste lines in India and racial lines in the United States. I compare how the groups at the bottom of these ethnic hierarchies—India's former untouchable castes (Dalits) and African Americans—mobilized from the 1940s to the 1970s in pursuit of full citizenship: the franchise, representation, civil rights, and social rights. Experiences in two regions of historically high inequality (the Kaveri and Mississippi Deltas) are compared in their national contexts. Similarities in demographic patterns, group boundaries, socioeconomic relations, regimes, and enfranchisement timing facilitate comparison. Important differences in nationalist and civic discourse, official and popular social classification, and stratification patterns influenced the two groups’ mobilizations, enfranchisement, representation, alliances, and relationships with political parties. The nation was imagined to clearly include Dalits earlier in India than to encompass African Americans in the United States. Race was the primary and bipolar official and popular identity axis in the United States, unlike caste in India. African Americans responded by emphasizing racial discourses while Dalit mobilizations foregrounded more porously bordered community visions. These different circumstances enabled more widespread African American mobilization, but offered Dalits more favorable interethnic alliances, party incorporation, and policy accommodation, particularly in historically highly unequal regions. Therefore, group representation and policy benefits increased sooner and more in India than in the United States, especially in regions of historically high group inequality such as the Kaveri and other major river Deltas relative to the Deep South, including Mississippi.

本文探讨了动员以减少两个最大民主国家中最严重的不平等现象，这两个国家是印度的种姓制度和美国的种族制度。我比较了从1940年代到1970年代这些种族等级制度最底层的群体，即印度的前贱民（Dalits）和非裔美国人，如何为追求完全公民身份而动员起来：专营权，代表权，公民权利和社会权利。在国家背景下比较了两个历史上高度不平等的地区（卡韦里三角洲和密西西比三角洲）的经验。人口统计学特征，群体边界，社会经济关系，政权和特权时间的相似性有助于比较。民族主义和公民话语，官方和大众社会分类的重要差异，分层模式影响了这两个团体的动员，选举权，代表权，同盟关系以及与政党的关系。人们认为，该国显然早于印度就包括达利特人，而不是美国的非裔美国人。与印度的种姓不同，种族是美国的主要和两极的官方和大众认同中心。非裔美国人的回应是强调种族话语，而达利特的动员则提出了更加疏远边界的社区愿景。这些不同的情况使更广泛的非裔美国人动员起来，但为达利特人提供了更有利的种族间联盟，政党合并和政策适应，特别是在历史上高度不平等的地区。因此，