Straight from Pondicherry: Indian diaspora in the Indian Ocean

Animesh Rai, who was at the conference in Pondicherry, shares his views on the subject of the Indian diaspora in the Indian Ocean. (above: photos from the conference, including the installation of a commemorative stele to the displaced workers from India) A very interesting read. Questions of identity and cultural influences concern all of us nowadays. Certainly New York City, with its millions of immigrants and children of immigrants and grandchildren who all have various senses of identity. That includes me. And my children.

The conference was highly stimulating and illuminating. While it covered questions of the Indian diaspora principally in Mauritius, South Africa, Guadeloupe and Reunion Island, there was an exceptionally large delegation from the latter and, hence, cultural aspects of Indian migration to that island was an important element that was explored by the conference participants and my own paper addressed the Pondicherrian link to it in terms of creolization.

While there are multiple facets to it, I approached the question of Pondicherrian migration to Reunion Island (consisting principally of indentured laborers from Pondicherry who migrated starting in the the second half of the nineteenth century onwards and their descendants) by making a comparison with the Indian population in the Caribbean who also migrated around the same time. I expressed the observation that while the Caribbean Indians experienced a greater erosion of their culture due to the larger distance which they had travelled from India, what remained of their Indianness was perhaps more "essential" than the Indianness of the migrants in the "neighboring" islands and countries of the Indian Ocean.

I also remarked that on Reunion Island today, there seems to be a new awareness whereby the values and traditions of descendants of the indentured laborers (who, in reality, were treated not very differently from slaves) which had acquired a burdensome stigma over the years has now evolved towards a glorification of the ideals of Indian tradition and culture and the "greatness" of India as a nation on a par with the West (interestingly, it seems that the film industry of Bollywood has also played a significant role in fostering a greater curiosity and interest especially among the youth of Reunion Island about Indian lifestyles as well as in synthesizing what is traditional as well as what is modern in India today); hence, one can discern, among the emigrant Indian population on Reunion Island, a shying away from espousing overt links to their parents and grand-parents to more explicit ones to India of their original ancestors which also helps to explain their return to their native land and perhaps the 'raison d'être' of this conference.

Contributed by -- Animesh Rai

All photos courtesy of Debasis Nandy

Below, photo of a conference panel, including Animesh Rai, second from left