An international E-conference on “Migration, Diaspora and Sustainable Development: Perspective, Policies, Opportunities and challenges” was jointly organized by Global Research Forum on diaspora and Transnationalism(GRFDT), Migrant Forum in Asia(MFA), and Center for Research on North America (CISAN), from 2nd to 5th November, 2020.
The session that was held on the third day (4th November, 2020) titled Diaspora and Global Culture IIbrought together scholars from wide ranging disciplines such as Sociology and Literature to name a few. The session was chaired by Prof. Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Distinguished Professor, Film and Media, University of Lincoln, UK and coordinated by Dr. Feroz Khan, GRFDT.
Home Away from “Home”
Dr. Yatinkumar J. Teraiya (Kamani Science and Pratapray Arts College, Gujarat) talked about the concept of diaspora, which according to him has gone through a lot changes in its affiliations and interpretations. The search for uniqueness within the global culture renders one to attempt to preserve their own cultural heritage in different time and space in turn giving birth to the formation of one’s unique identity in a home away from ‘home’. Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories in the ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ portray such concerns of expatriates’ in their attempt to preserve their own cultures in the mainstream culture of the foreign land. In the first story, Lahiri through Shobha’s recollection of her experiences of rice ceremony in homeland highlights her loss and her constant attempt of using traditions to bind herself to the past belonging. The estranged marriage of Shobha and Shukumar starts to mend when suddenly there is a power cut. According to the speaker, “darkness during the power cut discloses their inner state of mind by exposing their expatriate psyche and provides them a platform to recollect their past and tackle the problems of the present time and share their grief with each other.” In the story, Mrs. Sen’s’ Lahiri portrays the cultural anxiety of a woman who migrated to US with her husband. She shares her thoughts with Eliot. According to Mrs. Sen, everything good is there is India. Eliot learns that for Mrs. Sen, ‘home’ is India and not the apartment where she stays in USA. The presenter mentioned about Aban Shukla’s comments on Lahiri’s portrayal of her characters and said that according to Shukla, the characters in Lahiri’s stories reside in two cultures – actual American experiences and the memories of an Indian living.
In the story, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, set in the background of Bangladesh Civil War in 1971, Lahiri attempts to provide a global picture inside the Indian domestic life in America. Mr. Pirzada, a Pakistani scholar away from home and family in New England finds himself in distress when the Indo-Pakistan War breaks out. The final story, The Third and Final Continent highlights the positive effects of immigration. The narrator of the story who gets a job of a librarian in MIT, settles in USA and waits for his wife, Mala to arrive in the US. The same year USA lands on moon. This is an indication that USA, a well-developed country holds better prospects for the narrator and his wife. However, the story shows how the couple ensconces themselves into American culture and leads a happy life.
Siddis of PattharKuan : Ameliorate Their Present and Revitalize their Past
Dr. Manish Karmwar (University of Delhi) focused on the Siddis who are African diaspora communities living in Patthar Kuan, an old city in Ahmedabad. The crux of his discussion focused on absorption of these Afro-Indians in the cultural and social matrix of India. In order to address the question as to how Indian culture has been augmented by the African culture, the speaker traced the history of African presence in India over the ages. While tracing the history of Siddis in Ahmedabad, he focused on the creation of the cities in 1411 by the noble Ahmed Shahin which the new rulers embarked on building programmes in their capital, Ahmedabad for the residence of the Siddis. However, the Siddis are aware that they have been in the city for 600-700 years. The Siddis residing in Patthar Kuan are mostly Hindi speakers except for the spiritual guru Baba Ghor, whose ancestors had come to Gujarat around 14th Century, A.D. He also mentioned about the important historical places such as Dargah of Sidi Bashir, Sidi Saiyyed Mosque. The latter building was built by Siddi Saiyyed in Ahmedabad famous all over the world for its art forms and window architecture.
“In Medieval Ahmedabad, there were twelve gates or entry points to the city built by Ahmed Shah and it was Siddis who guarded the entire city or entrance to make certain that the goddess of wealth or Lakshmi won’t abandon the city. These gates are Tripolia gate, Delhi gate, Astodiya gate, Dariyapur gate”: Dr. Manish Karmwar.
In his recent field research, he has used oral sources to put forth a genealogy. Dr. Karmwar said that although the people are aware of the presence of the mosques here which are famous worldwide, they are oblivious of the fact that those were built by the Siddis. These Siddis used to serve the Sultan’s army long back but when the Gujarat kingdom declined, they played an important role in building the city of Ahmedabad. He ended his talk by stating the conclusions that he could draw from his interviews. He said that the Siddis of Patthar Kuan still feel alienated from the mainstream Indian society. They demand for their Scheduled Caste reservation in the education sector. They are however active in the cultural sectors like music and dance but Dr. Karmwar feels that they should also be enrolled in other sectors such as military, sports as they used to be in the medieval period.
Acculturation among the Tibetan Refugees in India
Ms. Shweta Rathore and Mr. Jatin Lalit Singh (G D Goenka University and Galgotias University) based their research on the minor field survey and through interviews with the Tibetan Refugees settled in Majnu ka Tilla, Aruna Nagar, New Delhi in order to situate the actual status of the refugees. According to them, the Tibetan refugees have gone through the process of acculturation and got acclimatized with the culture of the host country, yet they have curved a niche for themselves in order to preserve their own home identities. Most of the Tibetan refugees in India belonging to the age group of 20-30 years have accomplished their education in India and are influenced by Indian culture and values. Although they have always preferred teaching the Buddhist texts in their monasteries and in Tibetan language, their adaptation to mainstream culture have made them communicate in English and Hindi too.
Talking about the Tibetan colony in New Delhi, the speakers said, it is “self-sustaining,” it has a school, two health clinics and a place of worship. The place is renowned for its monastery. Their economic life mainly centers around running restaurants and shops. They thus preserve their own tradition through selling their own cuisines, traditional ornaments, accessories used for worship and rituals. There is also the prevalence of marriage outside their own community.
However, some of the socio-economic datas given by the presenters highlight upon the actual socio-economic experiences of these people living in that area. 40% of the people are denied proper job opportunities and securities. 32% of the people feel alienated as they are unable to celebrate their festivals freely. 69% of the people feel that they are satisfied with the higher educational opportunities. 38% of the people feel that they can perform inter-community marriages. 68% of the women are dependent on the male members of their family.
“When the question of permanent and proper settlement came, 39% weren’t satisfied, 61% were”: Ms. Shweta Rathore and Mr. Jatin Lalit Singh
Thus, the speakers concluded by stating that cultural preservation is of utmost importance for the Tibetan refugees in India and they are able to do it through their schools, monasteries and libraries.
Language of the ‘Home’ As a Means of Fostering Homeland
Ms. Ratna Bharati B (Ambedkar University, Delhi) focused on a variety of themes in order to put forth her views on how the use of language enables the creation of one’s identity in diaspora communities through her field survey conducted in 2015 at Radhakrishna Temple called Comunidade Hindu de Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal. The study included interviews with teachers, students and their parents during Gujarati language classes. According to her, most of the children have never paid a visit to India. The teachers who are born in Kenya and Mozambique have roots in India, mostly in Diu and Porbandar. The Gujarati classes provide a social space for the children where they speak in Gujarati as a rule enabling them to foster an ‘imagined India.’ The Gujarati diaspora in Portugal are inhabited by those people who have travelled from Diu, Gujarat to Mozambique and then to Portugal.
“The Gujarati classes are conducted at the temple premises on every Saturday from 3 pm to 6 pm. The academic sessions are held from September to June every year. Students are divided into two groups- primary and secondary”: Ms. Ratna Bharati B
The learners within the age group of 3-8 years are taught Gujarati alphabets while little matured learners are made to do a set of complex activities in the form of songs. However, there are no students above the age of 15 years. Students are taught Mathematics, riddles etc. An 11 year old boy who was half Portuguese and half Indian when interviewed said that it was easier for him to learn Gujarati when explained in Portuguese. But, he was optimistic that he could learn it from his grandfather staying in India. Thus, Gujarati served as a means of strengthening the transnational familial relationships.
Music as a Means of Identity Creation
Ms. Shaziya Khan (University of Hyderabad) focused on the inter-cultural music in the diaspora communities which enables the creation of one’s own identity and thus helps in the formation of social groups and community. In Indian diaspora, music serves as a unifying link with homeland through “homeland sound” giving a voice to the marginalized in the host countries. The speaker through her detailed case studies of Indo-Caribbean music and interviews put forward her viewpoints on the Chutney music which is a popular music form among the Indians in Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, Mauritius and in South Africa. The lyrics of chutney have gone through layers of changes from being religious in nature to being bolder. The lyrics of chutney soca have been heavily westernized resulting in the formation of a ‘hybrid vocabulary.’
Ms. Khan also talked about the introduction of chutney in Hindi feature films like Gangs of Wasseypur. Songs such as Wo womaniyaand I am hunter for the first time made chutney a genre of mass appeal.
“Evolution of Indian music in the diaspora is a complicated tale of fusion and contradiction, illustrating how popular music can destabilize the notion of originality, authenticity, purity in favour of creativity through continuous remixing and recycling musical knowledge”: Ms. Shaziya Khan.
The Shaping of ‘Nostalgia’: ‘Homeland’ and ‘Foreign land’
Ms. Neelam Mittal (University of Delhi) while talking about “what constitutes the diaspora?” took up some of the issues like the status of the multicultural kids and the kind of nostalgia that is expected of them. Concomitant with degree of ‘nostalgia’ is the concept of old and new diaspora. It has been seen from the World Statistics data that99% of the diaspora never made their way to homeland. Ms. Mittal focused on Ashima in The Namesake in order to show how the emotional turmoil of Indian diaspora in the US in general and an Indian housewife’s struggle and adaptability alone in a foreign land in particular shapes ‘nostalgia’. In the course of the novel, we find that Ashima’s adaptability to a foreign land makes Calcutta, her birthplace foreign in its own way. According to Ms. Mittal, culture and economic repercussions go hand in hand. The cultural anthropologists talk about transcendence of narrow ethnocentrism when different cultures come to terms with each other with an economic impact severe enough in the global capitalist world that makes insularity go unnoticed.
Srija Mukhopadhyay is currently a final year Master’s student in the Department of History at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Her research interests include history of empires, decolonization, international migration, international security, foreign policy, cultural diplomacy, gender and feminism.