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Mapping Migration, Gender, Culture and Politics in the Indian Diaspora: Commemorating Indian Arrival in Trinidad

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Mapping Migration, Gender, Culture and Politics in the Indian Diaspora: Commemorating Indian Arrival in Trinidad Mapping Migration, Gender, Culture and Politics in the Indian Diaspora: Commemorating Indian Arrival in Trinidad Author(s): Kalpana Kannabiran Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No. 44 (Oct. 31 - Nov. 6, 1998), pp. WS53- WS57 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4407325 Accessed: 04-09-2017 06:51 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic and Political Weekly This content downloaded from 59.90.31.67 on Mon, 04 Sep 2017 06:51:09 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Mapping Migration, Gender, Culture and Politics in the Indian Diaspora Commemorating Indian Arrival in Trinidad Kalpana Kannabiran Literature suggests that Indianl womnenl came to Trinidad as already iindepetndent wometi who made a conscious decisioni to move out of the tliffictult social situations which confronted them in India. These included deserted womien, practisiing prostiturtes an0d brahmltiin widows. BuLt soot enough they were constrained to accept the androcentric ideal of Indiannlless which was cotermiinus with subordination. The image of the Trinidadianl Hindlu woman is therefore far froml empowering. The renewal of Hindul energy in specific forms and in specific contexts has not only meanlt grcappliing with the erosion of political space in a racially polarised polity and reclail?ing it but also co nfronzting the derogatory images of the commlunity that are based on the inzstitutionalised derogation1 of wviomene's rights wvithiin the commnunity. THIS paper began as a reflection on what There has been in the past decade a spate A cursory look at the contemporary the terms comlnunalism and religious funda- of writing on religious fundamentalism. experience of these two communities is mentalism mean; what are the contextu- more specifically on Hindu nationalism very similar despite these critical differ- ally specific ways in which 'communalism' both in India and the diaspora. There are ences in historical experience. The Vishwa gets played out; would a radical difference groups in the United Kingdom, the US and Hindu Parishad has a flourishing network in context pale into insignificance against elsewhere particularly fighting the that embraces both realities. The cry of the weight of manifestations of a cultural polarisation of Sikhs, Hindus and Mus- Hindu nationalism is getting increasingly ethos that are similar, comparable or con- lims in the wakeofOperation Bluestar, Babri strident across these regions and some- tinuous on the surface? Or, is it on the other masjid and the increasing violence against where along the way the difference fades hand necessary to go beyond surface simi- miinorities and dalits in India. There are away. As one takes a closer look, how- larities and attempt to understand realities also groups of immigrants in these coun- ever, the difference takes sliape yet again. and correspondences without losing sight tries who support and host events featur- From the standpoint of popular conscious- of historical specificities'?These questions ing the BJP-RSS, or pro-Khalistan groups. ness in India, immigrant communities in arose in the course of a six-week visit to Clearly therefore, there is a live link bet- the UK. the US and Canada are tied to images Trinidad to dialogue with East Indian ween the mainland and the diaspora, both of affluence, of achievement and have a groups on the issue of domestic violence. in the arenas of fundamentalist politics high recall in the minds of the middle and It is necessary to clarify at the outset and democratic resistance to this politics. upper classes across communities in India. however, that my own location in the work And resistance has been integrally multi- Trinidad and countries with similar his- that I did in Trinidad was complex. As also cultural and anti-racist. not stopping at tories especially of indentureship on the my interaction with Hindu/Indian com- being anti fundamentalist/anti communal other hand do not evoke this recall. The munities there. The complexity had largely [Grover 1996]. reasons for this are to be sought not just to do with the ways in which Hindu re- However, the UK and the US have very in the fact that migration took place more ligious belief and practice intersected with dlifferent diasporic histories than for in- than a century ago, but also, and more impor- everydlay life, and the forms which the stance, Fiji, Surinam, Trinidad, Guyana or tantly, because the migrants belonged discourse on the mainland [India] took. South Africa. The latter have a history of primarily to the lower castes/classes and The difficult moment of that complexity giving birth in a sense, to the Indian marginalised sections. I n Trinidad on the that I found myself trying to negotiate diaspora. Unlike theUKand the US, whose other hand, imagining India seems to cons- constantly was the way in which I, a Hindu history begins post Partitiion, these coun- titute the core oflndo [Hindu] Trinidadian Indian woman froml India was 'placed' in tries have a history that dates back 150 consciousness. The relationship between relation to the larger historical relationship years to the period of British colonialism. diasporas and 'the mainland' therefore are of the people with the mainland/mother- T'his stark difference in historical location, uneven and unequal to begin with. land. Yet another twist to this complexity it appears, accounts for the very different CONTEXTUALISING INDIAN ARRIVAL was the fact that I was in Trinidad at the terms in which racism is experienced by invitation ot a women's group that con- difterent groups. One living in/fighting The experience of the English speaking sisted primarily of women of African racism in the 1970s, another inheriting Caribbeana has been shaped by histories origin, with the stated purpose of further- history of indentureship to white planta- of slavery and indentureship. ing an inter ethnic dialogue on women's tion owners, having replaced peoples of they came in ships. rights, especially on the problem of do- African origin on the plantations at the end From across the seas, they came. mestic violence in the Indian community. of slavery, thus inheriting a racial Britain, colonising India, transporting her chains To problemnalise the issue of hindutva in polarisation on both sides. Again unlike from Chhotanagpur and the Ganges Plain. the course of this work was far from easy Britain where the Indian family is barely Some came with dreams ofmi Ik-and-honey and most times not accepted. The other 20 years old [Grover 1996] the Indian riches, contentious issue that is foregrounded in family in Trinidad is 150 years old. There fleeing famine and death; this entire discourse on the identity of the are written histories of indentureship, and dancing girls, diaspora is that of cultural citizenship. of the East Indian community in Trinidad. Rajput soldiers, determined, tall, Economiic and Political Weekly October 31. 1998 WS-53 This content downloaded from 59.90.31.67 on Mon, 04 Sep 2017 06:51:09 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms escaping penalty of pride. tious issue as several Muslims still iden- Ch: so we are sailing, we are sailing, Stolen wives, afraid and despondent, tify with India both in terms of self de- Aboard the Fatel Rozack [Raviji 1995]. Crossing black waters, scription and collaboration. Presbyterians Having left India unable to cope with Brahmin, Chaminar, alike, define themselves as representing a resis- oppressive conditions of colonialism, hearts brimful of hope [Espinet 1990]. tance to Hindu orthodoxy, the primary Indian migrants set out in search of a better Having come to Trinidad, however, a tension between them and Hindus being life, only to be confronted with a similar significant proportion of the Indian popu- on the issue of conversion. Hindus have oppressive reality in the new land, where lation chose to remain in Trinidad after a nostalgic affinity to India, both their they were situated at the bottom of the indentureship rather than be repatriated to ancestral homeland and the religious centre hierarchy. "They had consolation, how- India. Between 1870 and 1900, the Indian of Hinduism. While there is a distancing ever, in the story of Lord Rama as he community in Trinidad was transformed both culturally and politically and a rec- journeyed into the wilderness and sur- from a group of immigrants into a com- ognition of a radically different location, vived those tremendous hardships. They munity. This process involved the shift of yet India shapes Trinidadian East Indian were making the same journey with the Indians from immigrant wage labour into [more specifically Trinidadian Hindu] bhajans and other songs as their only line peasant proprietorship, from estates into consciousness in significant ways.3 of communication to Him...Life was very villages and a reordering of social relation- Within Trinidad, there appears to be a difficult when they arrived...the Ramayan ships in ways that were congruent with gradual shift in Hindu self perception from and Koran provided a source of spiritual this shift. Mohammed (1975) argues that a religious group within a larger ethnic sustenance as they chanted the various ethnicity and gender identity were inter- community, to a religio-ethnic community, verses under the flambeaux ol tin lights locked in the affirmation of this emerging race and religion being key determinants within their rooms" [Boodoosingh 1993].
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