|
|
However, the Punjabi immigrants had to face racial prejudices
from the host society. The feeling of ‘otherness’, in fact,
forced the immigrants into a closely knit group although the
caste differences between the Jats and the Mahtons did not
decrease. But then the objective was never to diffuse the
existing caste system; rather the motive was to use the
instrument of economic success to earn respect for those placed
lower down on the caste ladder. The cultural heritage and the
ethnic linkage of the Punjabis helped them in reclaiming their
‘home’. As Salman Rushdie writes, "Exiles or emigrants
or expatriates are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to
reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into
pillars of salt". Archana Verma locates this cultural group
within the social set up of their own country and also within
the multiculturalism of a western country. The emigrants of
Punjab map out a culture-specific territory which caters to
their needs of being allied to their native land.
The author
examines the process of migration in terms of its
"spiralling patterns" and emphasises the fact that it
is, in fact, a two-way process. The changes that occur on social
and territorial platforms as a result of immigration cannot be
studied in isolation because both the immigrants and their
families living away from them "evolve together". The
success of Punjabis in the lumber industry abroad contributes to
the progress of Paldi village and upward mobility of their
families. At the same time this increases the disparity between
the families of the emigrants and other families. With a
detailed study of class networks and family organisations
validated by interviews and village records, the book
contributes to the studies on migration and Indian diaspora. The
book, in a way, reiterates Bikhu Parekh’s idea of an Indian
diaspora subject who is "like a banyan tree, the
traditional symbol of the Indian way of life, he spreads out his
roots in several soils drawing nourishment from one when the
rest dry up. Far from being homeless, he has several homes, and
that is the only way he has increasingly come to feel at home in
the world".
|
"OUR
truest reality is expressed in the way we cross over from one place
to another, we are migrants and perhaps hybrids, in but not of any
situation in which we find ourselves. This is the deepest continuity
of our lives…" In recent times, people are more open to the
idea of migration and displacement. This has led to the creation of
a community that is in a constant state of mobility and flux. An
important section of this community comprises the immigrants from
different countries who have left their homes for greener pastures.
Although they are physically displaced, yet they manage to sustain a
bond with their motherland through cultural and ethnic ties.
