Diasporas and their Homelands: An Introduction
by Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schnepel
According to a recent survey of the United Nations, there are more than 120 Million people in the world who are not living in the countries in which they were born. Many of these have come to their new places of residence in order to stay. Hence, movement away from home is often followed first by a temporary dwelling, and then by permanent settlement in a new host country. This was also true in the past. Consequently, the figure given above must be increased significantly if we wish to include the children, grandchildren and even remoter descendants of those who are living in a country conceived to be different from one’s original home.
On this study day, we wish to direct our attention to those peoples or communities in the world who have started a new life abroad and settled down in a foreign country, but who still have a sense of having come from and even belonging to elsewhere. Such forms of society are conveniently labelled ‘diasporas’ in contemporary debates, making use of a term which is quite old in origin – it derives from ancient Greek – and which, for a long time, tended to be associated chiefly and exclusively with the experiences of the Jews. This paradigm is taken up in the first paper on this study day and is also addressed the ‘Introduction’ to Cohen’s book Global Diasporas, which the organizers have suggested reading in advance. Let us therefore briefly remind ourselves that Cohen distinguishes between five types of diaspora: 1) victim diasporas; 2) labour diasporas; 3) imperial diasporas; 4) trade diasporas; and 5) cultural diasporas. While this categorization will help many of us situate our individual research topics and problems within a wider and more comparative scheme, here I simply wish to highlight the obvious fact that other criteria might lead to other or further distinctions. In my own paper I simply wish to highlight some aspects of the study of diasporas, especially in the study of the relationship between diasporas and their homelands, by discussing the example of the Indian diaspora. To be clear at this point, my paper is not about the Indian diaspora as such, but merely to use it as a representative paradigm when thinking about the problems and themes that emerge when we study diasporas.
According to statistical figures issued by the Indian government a few years ago, there are roughly twenty million Indians living abroad today. These are distributed as follows:
Without analysing the figures in detail, some things spring to mind immediately: The Indian diaspora as a whole is spread over all five continents. In 11 countries there are more than half a million Indians, in 22 countries more than 100,000, and in 48 countries more than 10,000. In absolute figures the largest Indian diasporas can be found in the Gulf States, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hosting the largest numbers. Other large diasporas can be found in the USA and Great Britain, with 1.7 million and 1.2 million respectively. As far as Southeast Asia is concerned, in Myanmar (formerly Burma), there are 2.5 million, in Malaysia 1.6 million, in Canada 800,000 and Mauritius 700,000. In the Caribbean there are altogether 1.2 million Indians, mostly in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.
These figures highlight some of the more common problems that arise in studying diasporas anywhere. First of all, they indicate the necessity of going beyond in situ studies of any one single diaspora. In order to study one specific diaspora sensibly, let us say Indians on Mauritius, it is necessary to have at least an idea about the distribution and the total of members of Indian diasporas across the world. Initially, this is just a matter of numbers, and so far we have had a look at absolute numbers only, but these will give any in-depth study an initial idea of the relative importance of a given diaspora to the homeland and in comparison to other diasporas with the same origin. This quantitative aspect should then, of course, be extended to matters concerning the economic standing of a diaspora (is it rich or poor, influential or insignificant), or whether remittances back to the homeland are substantial or small, etc. But some figures, like those given above, should also be seen in relation to other groups that confront a particular diaspora in the host country. Adopting this relative dimension, and coming back to our example, we see that although some of the Indian diasporas mentioned above may be smaller in absolute terms, they are much more important in relative terms. In the United States example, the figure of 1.7 million Indians may seem high, but not in comparison to the total population of the country. This can be compared to the example of Mauritius, where absolute numbers are just about a third of those in the United States, but where Indo-Mauritians make up roughly 68 per cent of the population of Mauritius, which is 1.2 million altogether.
Hence in discussing the figures above, one should also consider the relative size of a diaspora,in three basic respects: 1) relative to other diasporas of the same kind (that is, in our example relative to all other Indian diasporas spread over the globe), 2) relative to other groups within the host country (we will examine this by discussing the Mauritian case more thoroughly in a short while; and 3) relative to the size of the population of the home country. As far as the latter is concerned, while 20 million Indians may seem a lot in absolute terms, it is not in light of the fact that there are now more than a billion Indians living in India. Other countries, for example the Philippines, and of course the Irish and the Jewish diasporas have much higher ratios of diaspora to home populations, and sometimes the diasporas of a country may even be larger than the home population.
The Indian example leads us into further dimensions and facets that any diaspora study will have to deal with. Let us consider the distinction between PIOs and NRIs on the list. PIOs are “Persons of Indian Origin”, NRIs “Non-Resident Indians”. This distinction points to an important politico-legal issue. PIOs, more often than not, are citizens of the nations they live in, whereas NRIs are still of Indian nationality, though they may be living in, for example, Great Britain or Saudia Arabia. Some may have dual citizenship. The politico-legal status of the members of a diaspora, which of course is much more complex than just being a question of citizenship, is another important issue of any diaspora study. What are the political and legal frameworks, possibilities and obstacles which exist for diasporas as a whole, their subgroups or their individual members?
Looking more closely at the PIO/NRI distinction also opens up an important historical perspective. Most Indians collected here under the rubric of PIO came to their host countries in the nineteenth century as indentured labourers to work on plantations. Most countries with PIOs are consequently tropical and subtropical ex-colonies. NRIs, by contrast, overwhelmingly live in European, North American or Arab countries and went there only after World War II, either from India or as so-called ‘twice migrants’ from the colonies, such as Indo-Fijians who have gone to New Zealand, East African Indians in England or the like. Upon further examination, we can also see that, in the first wave of migration in the nineteenth century, the overwhelming majority of migrants came from the lower castes, and even had untouchable and tribal backgrounds. The second move consisted of many more Indians from the higher strata of Indian society, and many of the most recent migrants are highly qualified, working as managers, doctors, professors or computer experts. These observations show how important it is to examine the historical trajectories which a diaspora has undergone, as well as the social, cultural or economic backgrounds of the various members or subgroups of a given diaspora. In a large and heterogeneous country such as India, these may be quite diverse. In a nutshell, in order to understand a diaspora in depth, it is necessary to look at both its ‘roots and routes’ (Gilroy).
Further crucial aspects of the study of diasporas are revealed if we look more closely at another example, that of Mauritius. Let us first consider the composition of the Mauritian population. From one perspective, of the 1.2 million citizens of Mauritius, 68% are of Indian origin, 27% are Creoles, 3% Chinese and 2% French. However, certain other criteria were used in the last official government census, carried out in 1982, where the Mauritian population is given as consisting of 52% Hindus, 16% Muslims and 3% Sino-Mauritians, with 29% belonging to the category of the ‘General Population’. Obviously, the first two categories have been created along religious lines, while the third refers to the country of origin, namely China. Hindus and Muslims both come from India, but after independence and the partition of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947, the Indo-Mauritian category used in the earlier census was split into the categories of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ so that events in the homeland led to a concomitant reshuffling of identity criteria in the diaspora. The fourth and final category of the “General Population” is an amorphous one, including Creoles, French and ‘Coloureds’ (i.e. the ‘mixed’ descendants of French and Creoles). In order to complicate the matter still further, the ‘Indian’ section of the population can also be divided according to where exactly on the Indian subcontinent one’s ancestors came from and what their (presumed) ancestral languages were. The majority of the ancestors of today’s Indo- Mauritians came from the north of the subcontinent, mostly from Bihar, and were originally Bhojpuri-speakers. About a third, however, came from the south, which in its turn implies a further division between Telugu- and Tamil-speakers. There are also groups in Mauritius who claim that their ancestors were Marathi- and Gujarati-speakers from the west of India. Finally, using the criterion of religion again, almost a third of Mauritians are Christians, mainly Roman Catholics, a category which covers all the groups belonging to the ‘General Population’, as well as most Sino-Mauritians and many Tamils. Hence, the situation in Mauritius becomes very complex when all the other groups of the host country are considered as well. And to do this, I suggest, is essential in diaspora studies.
The situation in Mauritius is even more complex than I have just described it. A number of other criteria, most importantly caste and class, could also be applied, which would mean creating yet other sub-groups and/or overlapping groups of belonging. All these ‘identities’, or better, all these criteria for ‘making and unmaking differences’ play an important role, not only in the census, but also for the actors themselves in their socio-cultural, political, economic or religious lives. Take the language issue, which in Mauritius is quite important. The official language of Mauritius is English, though only a few people speak it well. Many Mauritians speak French very well. However, the majority of people in their everyday interactions speak a French-based Creole. This might settle the matter if language were not a very important ethnic marker in Mauritius. Thus, most people of Indian origin would say that Hindi is their ‘ancestral language’, even though actually it was Bhojpuri, Tamil or Telugu. Some Indo-Muslims today even claim that Arabic is their ancestral language. Both these dominant groups object to Creole becoming the national language or even the dominant language of teaching in the schools and universities, even though they speak it all the time. This position is because these groups do not wish the Creoles to obtain any advantages on account of ‘their’ language’ being given prime status. All in all, then, English is an accepted national language, not although hardly anyone speaks it, but because hardly anyone does.
The issue of identity is therefore complex This is so, because, if different criteria (e.g. language, race, origin, religion) are adopted different distinctions will be made and because there has been a lot of syncretism or mixing – the art of metissage, Mauritian sometimes say. It is also so, because other criteria, such as gender, class, education or political affiliation, could be added, making the picture even more complicated. Ultimately, the identity question is also complex because the question of who one is shifts dynamically, depending on situational dynamics and relativity (i.e. who is speaking to or dealing with whom, in what situation, for what purpose, etc.).
Without explicitly mentioning it, I have included the issue of the homeland within our diaspora problematic. For, in this play of negotiating and contesting identities in a country like Mauritius, where all the different groups have initially come from somewhere else, the issue of the mother country or homeland constitutes an important ideological fact. Images of the homeland and traditions, or, better, imagined and invented traditions, play an important role, and they do so in the present and for contemporary political, cultural, social, economic and religious purposes. This is true, even though, for most Mauritian groups, whether French plantocrates, African ex-slaves or Indian ex-indentured labourers, their descendants came to the islands more than a hundred years ago. Moreover, their actual links to their respective homelands are weak. I have met, for example, many Indo-Mauritians who have family in Paris or London and who visit Europe frequently, but only a few who know any relatives in India, let alone who want to go there. Nonetheless the idea of India plays an important part in the here and now of their multi-cultural Mauritian life.
This is not to say that actual relations with India play no role at all: in fact, they are growing stronger by the day. There are several reasons for this. One is that India is becoming more and more powerful in the world and thus becoming increasingly attractive to Indo-Mauritians, as more and more business connections are opened up, leading to transmaritime economic and political links between Mauritius and India. Another reason, closely connected to the first, lies in the fact that in both India and the Indian diasporas, this re-emergence of India as a power to be reckoned with in the world has reverberations in the social and cultural spheres. People in India are becoming proud to be Indian, as are PIOs and NRIs all over the world. Yet another reason – and again it is connected – consists in the fact that, for approximately five years now, the Indian government has been re-structuring its policy towards PIOs and NRIs. It is now much easier for diasporic Indians to obtain a visa for India, to send their children to school there and so on, and it has also become more secure and more profitable to transfer money back into India in order to reinvest profits made abroad in Indian businesses. This is, of course, one major reason for the new policy of India towards its diasporas: the country wants to increase its remittances, which so far have been relatively low when compared, for example, to the remittances of Chinese diasporas back to China All in all, then, the homeland is an important factor, both as an idea in the identity politics of multi-cultural diasporic settings, and, in factual terms, in the socio-cultural, economic and political relations between India and its diasporas.
A final point must be made here. Conventional diaspora studies often compare what is going on in diasporas with what can be found in the homeland. As far as our paradigm of India is concerned, possible research questions include the following: How does Hinduism change, both in terms of belief and ritual, when Hindu communities find themselves transplanted far away from home, for example, in Trinidad or Manchester? What happens to caste and concepts of purity and pollution when Indians are living in quite different social and economic surroundings? These and other related questions are important and valid. However, I wish to point out one implicit and even explicit assumption that is often made when pursuing these questions, an assumption which needs to be questioned: this is the fact that, in many studies, the homeland is taken as the original, as the yardstick, so to say, against which the so-called ‘copy’ of the diaspora is measured according to its presumed degree of deviation from the original, from the true and normative archetype (See also Vertovec Hindu Diaspora 2000: 1-2).Some such an assumption is inherently faulty, because the homeland, of course, is not as clear or as monolithic as such comparisons imply. Given how vast India is, how heterogeneous in all its social, cultural, economic and religious aspects, one has to ask in what respects India’s diasporas differ from or conform with it.
I would even go further and turn the argument around, asking whether there is an original, authentic India, or indeed any other homeland. The answer is: Yes, there is a “homeland”. But this is less in the actual homeland itself, as a hard reality, than in the diasporas, as an ideal and image, as a soft reality, if you wish. In other words, what is truly Indian, or Greek or Armenian or Jewish or whatever, initially cannot be found in India, Greece, Armenia, or Israel, but rather in the fantasies and imaginations of Indians, Greeks, etc. living abroad, the fantasies of people living in diasporas concerning their homelands or assumed homelands. One could even claim that authentic homelands are very often first invented abroad before these inventions are brought back to the homelands and sometimes made real in them. As far as India is concerned, we need only refer to Gandhi, whose idea of ‘traditional India’ was created in England and the South African diaspora, from which it was brought to India and made real to a certain degree. In this view of things, diasporas are often not the offspring, but the creators of their homelands; they are the originals, the homelands the copies.