India’s ‘Whitey on the moon’ moment

The Chandrayaan-3 moon mission was not for all Indians.

On August 23, 2023, India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully landed on the moon, making India the fourth country in the world, after the United States, the USSR and China, to achieve such a feat. It was a proud moment for a young, post-colonial nation just 75 years into her freedom. Tragically, it was also India’s very own “Whitey on the moon” moment.

In 1970, soon after the US became the first country in history to land on the moon, African-American jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron released his famous spoken word poem “Whitey on the moon”, criticising the Apollo space programme as a white man’s vanity project completed at great expense and with complete disregard for the deep poverty and exploitation being experienced by Black Americans at the time.

“The man jus’ upped my rent las’ night.

‘cause Whitey’s on the moon

No hot water, no toilets, no lights.

but Whitey’s on the moon

I wonder why he’s uppi’ me?

‘cause Whitey’s on the moon?

I was already payin’ ‘im fifty a week.

with Whitey on the moon”, sang Scott-Heron, accompanied by conga drums.

The poem quickly became a hit among Black Americans, who were angry that their country had invested in – and was shamelessly celebrating the completion of – an expensive space programme that did not involve or benefit their communities, while they were struggling with medical debt, high taxes, underemployment, urban decay, high rates of incarceration, and racial discrimination among other fundamental problems.

The parallels between the US society at the time of the Apollo mission described in this poem and modern-day India in the aftermath of its own landmark moon mission are difficult to ignore.

As Indian scientists –