Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 Nation, Diaspora, Trans-nation Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 Nation, Diaspora, Trans-nation Reflections from India Ravindra K. Jain Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI First published 2010 by Routledge 912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi 110 001 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2010 Ravindra K. Jain Typeset by Star Compugraphics Private Limited D–156, Second Floor Sector 7, Noida 201 301 Printed and bound in India by Baba Barkha Nath Printers MIE-37, Bahadurgarh, Haryana 124507 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers. Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-415-59815-6 For Professor John Arundel Barnes Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 Contents Preface and Acknowledgements ix Introduction A World on the Move 1 Chapter One Reflexivity and the Diaspora: Indian Women in Post-Indenture Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, and South Africa 14 Chapter Two Race Relations, Ethnicity, Class and Culture: Indians in Trinidad and Malaysia 30 Chapter Three From Product to Process: Sikh Diaspora in Southeast Asia 42 Chapter Four Indian Diasporic Integration in South Africa 58 Chapter Five Indians in Australia: Culture, Economy and Ecology 66 Chapter Six Home and Abroad in the New Millennium 75 Chapter Seven The Indian Diaspora and its Governance 87 Chapter Eight Indian Modernity and the Diaspora, a Civilizational Discourse 108 Conclusion Diaspora, Trans-nation and Nation 122 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 Bibliography 139 About the Author 155 Index 157 Preface and Acknowledgements The chapters of this volume were written as contributions at different times over two decades, between 1989 and 2009, mainly in response to invitations from various organizations the world over to present my perspective based on research in the Indian diaspora. There is a thematic and methodological continuity that links these chapters. Thematically, my discussion deals with Indian transmigrants in Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean region, and the Caribbean. Methodologically, I have conducted ethnographic research in most of the countries dealt with in this volume and, further, I deal with the various sites of Indian diaspora comparatively. The accent on an empirical approach and comparative sociology/social anthropology in this book is based on my training in India and abroad, where a unity of micro and macro perspectives along with a simultaneous focus on the particularity and generality of sociocultural phenomena has been the major forte. It may not be out of place to record the immense debt of gratitude that I owe to my teachers of anthropology under the leadership of the late Professor D. N. Majumdar at Lucknow University and to Professor J. A. Barnes and his colleagues in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the Australian National University, Canberra. Subsequently, long stints of teaching sociology and social anthropology at the University of Oxford (1966–74) and at Jawaharlal Nehru University (1975–2002) provided me with the opportunity to travel, teach and undertake researches globally, and thus hone my skills to view both the forest and the trees of Indian diaspora. In this volume I present some of the results of that Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 continuing journey. I am thankful to the anonymous referee of this book who remarked that the global geographical reach and wide range of comparisons were major strengths of the work. The team at Routledge have contributed significantly to the making of this book through many constructive suggestions. Finally, words cannot express my gratitude to Shobhita, my wife and constant companion, yet I must mention something that x · NATION, DIASPORA, TRANS-NATION she suggested that has made this book more coherent than it would have been otherwise. It was her insistence of the particular way in which I include the methodological section on comparison; in this she has proved herself to be a true Oxonian anthropologist. Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 Introduction A World on the Move Although Indian traders, entrepreneurs, travelers, and religious missionaries have been traveling overseas since the beginning of the third century AD, especially to Southeast Asia and the east coast of Africa, the modern Indian diaspora begins to emerge in the third decade of the nineteenth century with Indian labor migrating to the plantation economies of Mauritius, South Africa, Malaya, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the Anglophone, Francophone and Dutch colonies in the Caribbean. In the Pacific, migration to Fiji started in the 1870s and more recently, mid-twentieth century labor migration to the Gulf continues to this day. As contrasted with the old diaspora, the “new” diaspora dates from the 1950s and 1960s to UK, Canada, Australia, and USA (and more recently to other European countries). This diaspora, initially comprising economic migrants of working-class and white-collar occupations, really came into its own in the post-1960s period with an increasing number of professional migrants, including information technology specialists. The population of the modern Indian diaspora1 is estimated to be about 30 million. It can be conveniently divided into six major geographical zones, though immigrants from India are found in nearly all parts of the world. The six major geographical zones are: Africa and Mauritius, West and Southeast Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. Perhaps, in a more eco-geographical sense, the Indian Ocean Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 1 Modern Indian diaspora consists of non-resident Indians (NRIs) and persons of Indian origin (PIOs), as per Government of India categories. NRIs comprise Indian citizens who have migrated to another country, persons of Indian origin born outside India or persons of Indian origin residing outside India. A PIO is usually a person who is not a citizen of India. Anyone of Indian origin up to four generations removed is a PIO. As of January 2006, the Indian government has introduced the “Overseas Citizenship of India” (OCI) scheme in order to allow a limited form of dual citizenship to Indians, NRIs and PIOs for the first time since Independence in 1947. 2 · NATION, DIASPORA, TRANS-NATION zone and the Asia Pacific zone can be delineated. My own fieldwork experience refers to Malaysia, Singapore, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Mauritius, and Australia, though I have liberally used primary and secondary sources of information relating to these countries as well as for comparative references to other parts of Indian diaspora, especially in UK, USA and Canada. My fieldwork among Indo-Fijians was carried out in Australia. I have not counted as fieldwork my brief stopovers or conference attendance in many other parts of the world. Before outlining my comparative approach to studying Indian diaspora, let me provide brief profiles of Indian communities in the countries that are the main focus of my research in this book. The sequence of listed research sites is broadly dependent on the time spent in each. Research Sites The Indian population of Malaysia and Singapore is roughly about 2,400,000 and 20,000 respectively. Indians constitute 8.7 per cent of Malaysia and 6.1 per cent of Singapore population. The sub-ethnic com- position of the Indian population in both these countries consists of majority Tamils and minority communities of Telugus, Malayalis, Sikhs and other Punjabis, and Sindhis as well as a few hundred Gujaratis, Bengalis and Oriyas, etc. For census purposes Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Nepalis are included among “Indians”. The modern Indian diaspora in Singapore dates from 1819 and in the Federation of Malaya from the 1840s onwards. At a conservative estimate there are at least 90 community associations among Indians in Malaysia and a smaller number, but still active ones, in Singapore. The occupational structure in both these regions is changing fast; no longer is there occupational alignment by ethnic group. In Malaysia, though the majority of ethnic Indians are rural-based and working-class, there are also a sizeable number of urbanites and professionals, in proportion Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:31 24 May 2016 to their percentage in the total population. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, and civil servants are prominent among the professionals, while in the working class the proportion of blue-collar workers over semi-skilled and skilled workers has increased in recent years. My longitudinal study of Indian plantation labor (in the early 1960s and published in 1970) and ex-plantation workers in Malaysia (in 1998 and published in 2009) confirms this trend. Very recently the Indian minority in Malaysia has been in the vanguard of a movement of affirmative action for the socio- economic upliftment of the marginalized and poor. Known as the Hindu A World on the Move ¶ 3 Rights Action Force or HINDRAF (which held its first national rally on 25 November 2007), this movement is widely regarded by social science experts on Malaysia as having played a vital role in wresting from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition five states for the opposition political parties in the Malaysian general elections held in March 2008 (R.