|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Diversities in the Indian Diaspora: Nature, Implications, Responses FROM time immemorial, a large number of immigrations from India have occurred in all directions and they have created settlements as they coalesced in the alien environment. These diasporic trends continue to fascinate sociologists, historians and anthropologists. Moreover, its practical significance in diplomacy and international relations on the one hand and socio-economic and political dynamics within India, on the other hand, can hardly be exaggerated. In recent years, the idea of "home", be it tangible or contrived, has gained tremendous academic interest, especially in the contemporary world marked by population dislocation because of many factors. From literature to politics, from cuisine to films, the imagined home in particular has come to play a significant part in the life of the diasporic Indian.
The chapters in this book are organised under five parts. The two chapters in Part VIII deal with the diaspora having its roots in Punjab, since it has a long history of migration and vibrant and significant diasporic communities. P. S. Judge distinguishes two intersecting dimensions of the diversity among the Punjabis abroad, mostly those in North America: historical heterogeneity (the colonial 1849-1947) and the post-colonial migrations and geographic heterogeneity referring to the internal cultural distinctions and prejudices on the basis of the region they belonged. According to Judge, "The more than a century-old history of the Punjabi diaspora is full of dramatic developments that could be understood in terms of nationhood, nation building and separatism". He also discusses the obsessive concern of Punjabi diaspora — community, religion and the country. Ravindra K. Jain discusses the Sikhs in South-East Asia. He has referred to B. K. Axel’s seminal work on the formation of a Sikh diaspora. He says there are four kinds of Sikh subjects — the colonial Sikh subject, the Sikh subject by the nation state, the "Khalistani" Sikh subject, and the Sikh subject constituted by Sikh studies. Interestingly, Jain develops the concept of the "Sikh Thermostat" with the gurdwara as the self-adjusting thermometer — to understand the social economy of diaspora Sikhs. Judge delineates a very pertinent problem confronting diaspora or NRI (as they are referred to in colloquial terms), "multiple homelands give rise to divided loyalties and conflicting commitments, creating ambivalence with regard to what is and what ought to be". Various studies on the Indian diaspora have generally focussed on the American, Canadian or British diaspora. Therefore, the book has a gamut of global studies — immigrations to Mauritius, South-East Asia, France, and Israel, the so-called "old diaspora"that immigrated centuries earlier to Malaysia, Mauritius and Trinidad. So, the essays highlight the civilisational moorings of such communities abroad, their dynamics of religion, caste, gender and identity construction most importantly, their identity construction in the context of their homeland and juxtaposed with their identity in the country of adoption. The case of the Malaysian Indian diaspora dates back to the earliest immigration in the 19th century, a large number of immigrants from South India were brought into work on plantations. Slavery was abolished in 1838 and this interrupted the supply of cheap labour, so in came waves of Tamil immigrants. A historical survey in T. Marimuthu’s article espouses the impact of plantation work on the psyche of Malaysian Tamils, who ceased to work on plantations but are now part of the urban poor — they are at any rate continue to be in the working class category reeling under marginalisation for the last 50 years. The saga of Mauritian diaspora is unique, as Vinesh Y. Hookoomsing explains that there was minimal native population there. It was a settler society and "is an interesting laboratory for the study of how migration and settlement can lead to the process of creating a new society, identity and nation". Bhat and Bhaskar in the next essay discuss the interesting reinvention of the ‘Hindoo’, the Tamil and Telugu identities in contemporary Mauritius. Here, various groups articulate their identities based on their ancestral language replicating the patterns of identity of the ancestral land in their present location. Part III discusses again a relatively uncharted diasporic discourse: the Bene Israelis of Maharashtra, the Baghdadi Jews, who were mainly settled in Kolkata and Mumbai, and the Cochin Jews of Kerala. Another pertinent oft-glossed-over revelation that unlike the Jewish communities in Europe, the Indian Jews faced no persecution or anti-semitism in the diaspora, chose to immigrate to Israel. Ginu Zacharia Oommen examines select aspects of the socio cultural transformation that occurred among the Cochin Jews after their migration to Israel, particularly their religions and practices. Last but not least, is the chapter, "Heterogeneous Diaspora and Asymmetrical Orientations—India, Indians and the Indian Diaspora", by N.Jayaram, the editor of this compendium, who feels that the Indian diaspora is a "heterogeneous phenomenon yet complex subsuming many phases, patterns and processes, so we cannot specifically theorise them. A realistic policy of the government must take into account the differential interests and expectations and differentially address the issues of the various diasporic communities". An interesting study that
does an in-depth analysis of the processes of assimilation, integration
and the formation of multiple identities among diasporic communities,
the book that factually analyses the civilisational moorings of
immigrant communities previously reviewed mainly through the prism of
fictional literary rendering is worth a read.
|
It
was to discuss the various facets of the Indian diaspora that the Indian
Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla, and the Institute for Social and
Economic Change, Bengaluru, jointly organised a seminar in Bengaluru. In
all, 23 scholars participated to deliberate on "Diversities in the
Indian Diaspora: Nature, Implications, and Responses".
Subsequently, these were published in a volume edited by N. Jayaram.