New Perspectives on the Indian Diaspora

Ruben Gowricharn

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032253510
• eBook ISBN: 9781000412611
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book critically examines new perspectives on the transformations in the Indian diaspora. It studies the changing perspectives on the historical background of the diaspora and analyses fresh and emerging views in response to new configurations in diaspora relations. The volume highlights the transformation of the old Indian diaspora into a new ensemble in which economic, ideological and cultural forces predominate and interact closely. It looks at various themes including Indian indentured emigration to sugar colonies, comparisons between labour migration from India and China, the Girmitiya diaspora, the Indian diaspora in Africa and the rise of racial nationalism, India's soft power in the Gulf region, and the repurposing of the 'Hindutva' idea of India for Western societies as undertaken by diaspora communities.

Lucid and topical, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of diaspora studies, migration studies, political studies, international relations, globalisation, political sociology, sociology and South Asia studies.

1
Introduction

New forces, new perspectives on the Indian diaspora

Ruben Gowricharn

Shifts in diasporas

Despite its ubiquitous popularity, the concept of diaspora has been heavily criticised in scholarly literature. Consider four criticisms. According to Anthias (1998), the term diaspora is overused and under-theorised. While she acknowledges that ethnicity is foundational for defining a diaspora, it privileges the origin in constructing identity and solidarity. Brubaker (2005) observed that the term has been stretched to accommodate various cultural, intellectual and political agendas, displaying a dispersion and disparate use that he labelled a diaspora of (the concept of) ‘diaspora’. Moreover, the concept has been deprived of its catastrophic undertone, as well as of its power to make distinctions. Ang (2003) argues that diasporas make distinctions between biological and cultural outsiders and are, similar to the nation state, exclusionary. In her view, the diaspora ‘postulates the existence of closed and limited, mutually exclusive universes of ethnic sameness’ (Ang 2003, p. 146). And Alexander (2017) pointed out that the concept is unclear about three pivotal issues: dispersion, homeland orientation and boundary maintenance.

The literature on the Indian diaspora is largely disconnected from this conceptual critique. In an older strand of literature, diaspora (including the Indian diaspora) equalled outmigration and settlement (i.e. Clarke et al. 1990). The bonding between the homeland and the overseas ethnic community was presumed rather than disclosed. It was first and foremost derived from identification and relatedness. These diaspora relations were constructed using societies as frames of reference, for example between India and the UK (see many examples in Lal et al. 2006). In this perspective the nation state features as the homeland rather than the parochial community. And it remains unclear how many generations ago the diaspora community should have emigrated from the homeland in order to be excluded from the diaspora (Alexander 2017). In many respects, diasporas were conceived as once and for all constructions.

Nowadays it is common sense to say that the Indian diaspora is in transition to a new diaspora or even a neo-diaspora (Chatterji and Washbrook 2013; Hedge and Sahoo 2018; Koshy and Radhakrishnan 2008). What this new diaspora will look like is difficult to say as the transition is still going on. The old configuration is being transformed: previously the focus was on outmigration, dispersion, composition of the communities and geographical location. It was a historical focus that has produced many accounts of a static Indian diaspora in which only one homeland, India, predominates. However, recent scholarly effort is concentrated on a few communities in Western societies that are important in terms of resources, specifically remittances and investments, and as market outlets, for example Bollywood products (Chatterji and Washbrook 2013). As a result, there is a strong tendency to reduce the Indian diaspora to bilateral relations between India and a few prospering overseas communities. That might be understandable if diaspora relations are considered as productive relations that need to serve the homeland.

However, the last three decades have witnessed the proliferation of a few major forces that cause shifts in the Indian diaspora and that also have affected the perspectives on it. One is the increasing emigration and the establishment of parochial communities abroad. While that was not a new phenomenon, the new parochial communities are highly entangled with a global Indian nationalism (Jayaram 2011; Mishra 2016). The second is the global impact of Bollywood. This force is often dismissed as entertainment, but in many overseas communities Bollywood is a form of identity (Bandyopadhyay 2008; Gowricharn 2020b; Kaur and Sinha 2005). A third development consists of the increased activities at the periphery of the Indian diaspora such as the Caribbean. Communities in this segment have become active which shifts their position in the old diaspora configuration (Gowricharn 2017; Hedge and Sahoo 2018). As a result of these three forces, the Indian diaspora is reconfiguring and new perspectives have emerged, both on the history of the bonding as well as on the contemporary diaspora. However, the impact of the shifts as well as the perspectives are different for each segment.

This introduction sketches the major forces that have determined the shifts and given rise to new perspectives on the Indian diaspora. Shifts and perspectives are intertwined and have affected the old diaspora. The forces and perspectives have changed the way we look at the diaspora. That is the topic of this book. The book is therefore divided into three parts: new perspectives on the history of the diaspora, newly emerging perspectives, and global forces. The next sections briefly outline the features of the old diaspora and highlight the most conspicuous new forces that typify the new Indian diaspora today.

The old diaspora

Scholars tend to emphasise that the Indian diaspora is heterogeneous, thus contradicting the assumption of an ‘ethnic sameness’ as suggested by Ang (2003). For example, Van der Veer (1995) pointed out that historically overseas Indian communities have realigned with their parochial homeland, following d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction: New forces, new perspectives on the Indian diaspora
• Part I: Historical perspectives
• Part II: Emerging perspectives
• Part III: Global forces
• Index