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The Great Indian Diaspora – A Preface
By Francis C. Assisi
“I choose the word ‘diaspora’ for the
transplantation of my community from India during the second
half of the nineteenth century, because it carries
psychological connotations of deep sorrow and suffering,
inconsolable mourning along with everlasting feeling of being
torn inside. It conveys a mixture of emotions which are not
present in the more traditional word, emigration, commonly
used to designate those who, individually or in great waves,
choose and decide at one particular time to leave their
homeland for new skies that they believe to be more clement
and welcoming”. Lotus Vingadassamy-Engel, from the West
Indies, in a lecture delivered at the India International
Centre, 1991.
“To study a banyan tree, you not only must
know its main stem in its own soil, but also must trace the
growth of its greatness in the further soil, for then you can
know the true nature of its vitality. The civilization of
India, like the banyan tree, has shed its beneficent shade
away from its own birthplace. . . . India can live and grow by
spreading abroad - not the political India, but the ideal
India.” Rabindranath Tagore commenting on the Indian
diaspora in a letter to his friend C.F.Andrews, 1921.
In the countries to which they have settled,
the People of Indian Origin have done remarkably well, even
though their links with India may be shattered or at least
frayed.
Among them are billionaires, Nobel
prizewinners in science and literature, poets, politicians,
feminist scholars, post-modern intellectuals, leading figures
in computer science, researchers on the cutting edge of
emerging technologies, respected educators, hardworking nurses
and doctors.
Even the literary and art productions of
India’s diasporic communities represent both a celebration
and an incisive critique of the different cultural spaces they
inhabit. All this has been publicized widely and in good
measure in the diasporic media.
Everywhere, they have also been enslaved,
abused, harassed and victimized. It continues to this day –
in Trinidad, in Fiji, in East Africa, in Myanmar, in Sri
Lanka, in the Gulf countries, in Britain, in Canada, in the
United States and elsewhere.
And this will be their story.
Whether it is the story of the solitary
Indian living in the Cape Verde islands off the African coast
(in the Canary Islands), or the people of Indian origin
forcibly removed from the Indian ocean island of Diego Garcia
to make way for American B-52s, or the nearly 3 million
settled in North America, or the nearly 20 million scattered
in other countries in the world, we shall attempt to unravel
their truth as well as the myth in the saga of the great
Indian diaspora.
In doing so, we shall look at the moghuls as
well as the paupers, the intellectuals as well as the
cyber-coolies, the artist as well as the entrepreneur, doctors
as well as nurses, educators as well as sexual predators, the
nobel-class scientist as well as the scientist who is doomed
to slog forever as a research fellow, the hip-hop artist as
well as the diasporic dance teacher…
We shall unravel hate crimes against people
of Indian origin, as well as criminal tendencies among Indians
living abroad, including spouse abuse. We shall explore why
the health of Indians living in the developed world is cause
for concern. We shall explore the good, along with the bad and
the ugly.
It’s going to be a broad canvas.
In parts of the world, the People of Indian
Origin continue struggling to redefine their place in an
environment that for most part remains hostile towards them.
And this too after more than 150 years during which they lost
much, but managed to preserve what was essential: their
Indianness.
In the Caribbean, for instance, says
Vingadassamy, “The blacks reproach us the very last drop of
Indian blood still running in our veins, while on our side we
claim that very last drop as a birthright”. The fact is, as
Vingadassamy explains, “In the eyes of the blacks, who
constitute the majority of the local population, we are
forever this foreign minority whom they attack and insult
fiercely in their political propaganda, and whom they intend
to throw back into the sea, according to their own words”.
With reference to countries where the ethnic
relations involving Indians have become complicated, Hugh
Tinker, an authority on the Indian diaspora, has raised the
following key issues: “ . . do the Asians [Indians] create
their own difficulties by their own way of life, and by
remaining separate from the host society; or do their troubles
arise mainly from excess of chauvinism or racism in the
country of their adoption? Do they offend because they are,
visibly, both pariahs and exploiters in alien societies? Or
are they scapegoats, singled out for victimization because
their adopted country (or its Government) needs an alibi for
poor performance in the national sphere?"
However, I will reserve the last word for
Lotus Vingadassamy of Reunion in the Caribbean: “Throughout
the historical development in India since the time we left, we
suffered the sufferings of our fathers land, and rejoiced in
its achievements...The same law of Return that was voted by
the Hebrews for their scattered people should be voted. In
that same way, we would certainly ask Indian nationality for
those of us who might wish it. I think that we have deserved
it”.
francisassisi@hotmail.com
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