Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory

295 Pages·2007·2.318 MB·English

by  Gijsbert Oonk

publication series
Edited Volumes 1
Global Indian Diasporas
G
Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and The-
l
o
ory present new historical and anthropological research on South
b
Asian migrants world-wide. The authors share a strongly ambivalent a
l Exploring Trajectories of
feeling towards the mainstream issues highlighted in the ‘South I
n
Asians in diaspora’ discourse, such as the emphasis on the migrants’ d
i Migration and Theory
relation to their homeland and the reproduction of Indian culture a
n
abroad. Therefore, this book can be read as a fi rst attempt to focus

D
on the limits of the diaspora concept, rather than on its possibilities
i
a
and range. From a comparative perspective – with examples from s Edi t ed by Gijsbert Oonk
p
South Asian migrants in Suriname, Mauritius, East Africa, the UK,
o
Canada and the Netherlands – this collection shows that in each of r
a
these regions there are South Asian migrants who do not fi t into the s

Indian diaspora concept. Thus we attempt to stretch the concept be- ›

yond its current use by highlighting empirical cases, which raise the
G
question about the limits of the effectiveness of the diaspora as an i
j
s
academic historical/sociological concept. b
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Gijsbert Oonk is Associate Professor in Non-Western History at the
O
Erasmus University in Rotterdam. o
n
k
‘No concept is any good unless it can be questioned. No scholar
(
e
is any good if he or she follows fashion slavishly. By testing the d
term “diaspora” almost to destruction the authors in this richly-re- .)
searched collection have both revealed the limits of the concept and
taken it in new, creative directions.’
— Robin Cohen, Professorial Fellow, Queen Elizabeth House, Univer-
sity of Oxford
isbn 978 90 5356 035 8
amsterdam university press
www.aup.nl
9 789053 560358
amsterdam university press
Oonk_def.indd 1 31-10-2007 8:41:11
Global Indian Diasporas
Publications Series
SeriesEditors
MaxSparreboomandPaulvanderVelde
EditorialBoard
Prasenjit Duara (University of Chicago) / Carol Gluck (Columbia University) /
Christophe Jaffrelot (Centre d’E´tudes et de Recherches Internationales-Sciences-
po) / Victor T. King (University of Hull) / Yuri Sadoi (Meijo University) / A.B.
Shamsul (Institute of Occidental Studies / Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) /
HenkSchulteNordholt(RoyalNetherlands InstituteofSoutheastAsianandCar-
ibbeanStudies)/WimBoot(LeidenUniversity)
The IIAS Publications Series consists of Monographs and Edited Volumes. The
aim of the Series is to promote Asia-Europe Studies. The Series includes com-
parative researchon Europe andAsia andresults fromcooperationbetweenEur-
opean and Asian scholars. The International Institute for Asian Studies stimu-
lates scholarship on Asia and is instrumental in forging research networks
amongAsiascholarsworldwide.
TheInternationalInstituteforAsianStudies(IIAS)isapostdoctoralresearchcentre
basedinLeidenandAmsterdam,theNetherlands.Itsmainobjectiveistoencou-
rage theinterdisciplinary and comparativestudy ofAsiaand topromotenational
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Forfurtherinformation,pleasevisitwww.iias.nl
Global Indian Diasporas
Exploring Trajectories of
Migration and Theory
Edited by Gijsbert Oonk
Publications Series
Edited Volumes 1
Cover design:Maedium, Utrecht
Layout: The DocWorkers, Almere
ISBN 978 90 5356 035 8
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© IIAS /Amsterdam University Press, 2007
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 7
1 Global Indian Diasporas: ExploringTrajectories of Migration
and Theory
Gijsbert Oonk 9
PART 1 CRITICALHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
2 Multanis andShikarpuris:IndianDiasporas in Historical
Perspective
Scott Levi 31
3 ‘WeLost our gift of Expression’:Loss of theMother
Tongue among Indians in East Africa, 1880-2000
Gijsbert Oonk 67
4 ContextualisingDiasporic Identity: Implications ofTime
and Space on Telugu Immigrants
Chandrashekhar Bhat and T.L.S. Bhaskar 89
5 Separated by thePartition?Muslims ofBritishIndian
Descentin Mauritus and Suriname
Ellen Bal and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff 119
6 A ChanceDiaspora: British Gujarati Hindus
John Mattausch 149
PART 2 CRITICALSOCIOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES
7 Contested Family Relationsand GovernmentPolicy:
Linkages betweenPatel Migrants in Britain and India
MarioRuttenand PravinJ. Patel 167
8 Diaspora Revisited:Second-Generation Nizari IsmailiMuslims
of Gujarati Ancestry
Anjoom Amir Mukadam and Sharmina Mawani 195
9 Bollywood and theIndianDiaspora: Reception ofIndian
Cinema among Hindustani Youth in theNetherlands
Sanderien Verstappen and MarioRutten 211
10 Contested Equality: Social RelationsbetweenIndianand
Surinamese Hindus in Amsterdam
Brit Lynnebakke 235
11 Afterword: Stray Thoughtsofa Historian on“Indian”or
“SouthAsian”“Diaspora(s)”
Claude Markovits 263
Bibliography 275
Contributors 291
Acknowledgements
It all started during a quick lunch at the History Department of the
Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Netherlands. A few months
after I returned from my fieldwork in East Africa, I talked with my col-
league the IIAS Professor Henk Schulte Nordholt about my experi-
ences in the field. We discussed how the growing interest in the con-
cept of ‘diaspora’ fostered new ideas and academic ventures in the
areas of migration and identity studies. Inspite of this apparent inter-
est, we agreed that many scholars tended to focus on their own subject
areas and their own ethnic groups. Therefore, I proposed a rough idea
to set up a broad, comparative conference on diaspora. This conference
would not only include specialists on the South Asian diaspora, but ex-
perts on Chinese and African diaspora as well. The idea was that spe-
cialists in the field of the South Asian diasporas would be confronted
with ideas and concepts from other regions. In addition, they would
presenttheir own findings to fellow specialists.
With the support of IIAS, the conference ‘The South Asian Diasporas:
The Creation of Unfinished Identities in the Modern World’ was held
at the EUR in June 2005. Many – but not all – articles in this book
were written as a result of that conference. In line with the original
idea, I invited two ‘outsiders’ to share their knowledge and opinions
with us. Kim Butler (Africanist at the University of New York) pre-
sented a keynote lecture ‘Diaspora Kaleidoscope – Or Colliding Dia-
sporas? The Meta Diaspora Concept and the Mini-Diaspora Realities’.
Here, she reminded us of the ambivalent relationship between a popu-
lar academic concept and day-to-day realities. In fact this ‘ambivalence’
became the centre of the discussion in the two-day conference. Leo
Douw (Universiteit van Amsterdam) also shared his knowledge of the
Chinese diaspora discourse. I am grateful to them both for their valu-
able inputs.
I would like to thank the following institutions which provided finan-
cial support: IIAS, the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research
(NWO), The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
(KNAW), the Trustfund and the Faculty of History and Arts of the
EUR, Furthermore I would like to thank Theresa Oostvogels (EUR),
Marloes Rozing (IIAS), WiekeVinkand Gaby van Beek (EUR students)
who made fantastic contributions at the organisational level which
made theconference run smoothly.
Gijsbert Oonk
HistoryDepartment(FHKW)
ErasmusUniversity Rotterdam
1 Global Indian Diasporas
Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory
Gijsbert Oonk
Introduction
There are currently approximately 20,000,000 people of South Asian
originlivingoutsideofIndia,PakistanandBangladesh,withthemajor-
ity in Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania.1 Although there are regional
variations in their adaptations, in many ways, they display a common
‘Indian’ identity.2 They may want their children to prosper in their
adopted countries, but at the same time they may prefer them to adopt
Indian family values, marry other Indians, and share their common
culture. In other words, many South Asians living overseas tend to re-
produce their Indian culture, values, language, and religion as much
aspossible.3Moreover,manySouthAsianmigrantsarecurrentlytrying
to re-connect with their homeland, either through modern mass med-
ia, the Internet, or personal visits. These re-connections are often seen
as romantic rendezvous with the historical past and their ‘original
roots’.4
Within, academic ‘Indian diaspora’ literature, the reproduction of
culture in an often-hostile environment and the relation to the home-
land are key features of the diaspora concept.5 Nevertheless, in this col-
lection, we emphasise a rather different approach. The authors, during
their fieldwork and archival research, realised that there were quite a
few overseas Indians who were not interested in re-connecting with
the homeland. They felt that the Indian Government was excluding
them from their historical roots, as in the case of many Muslim In-
dians after Partition and Indian Africans after their expulsion from
Uganda by Idi Amin. In the case of ‘twice migrants’ like the Hindusta-
nis in the Netherlands, we find that they may identify with both India
and Suriname. Moreover, it has been shown that in cases where In-
dians do reconnect with their ancestral villages, the relationship with
family members has grown ambivalent and is sometimes experienced
with noticeable discomfort. In other words, re-connection with one’s
homeland is not self-evident. It happens or it doesn’t. Though some of