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Chapter One

Formations of Diaspora and Identity

This chapter studies the processes of diasporic formations over different periods of time and

at different concentration zones of the world. It looks into their similar characteristics which

assert their claim to the name of ‘diaspora,’ and their differences as groups. The chapter is

divided into three sections for categorical elucidation of the process. The first section sees the

various patterns of diasporic formations all over the world and sees how one differs from the

other conceptually. The second section is divided into two halves. The first half studies the

pattern of South Asian diaspora, the present subject of this study, settled in different parts of

the world. It sees the responses of host lands and the aspects that have made this diaspora

successful at places and unsuccessful at others. The second half of Section II deals mainly

with the South Asian diaspora settled in Britain and shows how the experiences and

aspirations of this group differs from the other diasporic groups settled in the UK. It makes an

introspective study of the relationship of the British South Asian diaspora with the other

British diasporas and its position in the host country. The third chapter gives a brief outline of

the writings that form the backdrop to contemporary South Asian British diasporic writing.

The writers and their writings mentioned are mostly by the sojourners and travellers who had

travelled to England as early as the Victorian Age. However some of the writings are by those

people who had settled and had stayed in Britain and have been recognized as the first British

diasporics. Their writings, though not always very popular, form the groundwork to the

contemporary South Asian diasporic writing in Britain.

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I. Diasporic Formation across the World

Diaspora is a contested and ever-changing term being a concept in social science. According

to the critic Jenny Robinson:

…the forces which generate diasporas create complex social, political and

economic flows and connections. Diasporic communities simultaneously

connect to their original ‘homes,’ and make connections with members of the

same diaspora within their new locality, as well as linking to diasporic

members in other localities besides their home (Robinson 79-80).

In order to understand the vast range of experiences of people that this word accommodates,

the various attitudes towards the term diaspora have to be understood. Though encompassing

diversity, the concept of diaspora has maintained certain strictness in its premises, so as not to

lose its meaning amidst blurred ideas, or so that too much elasticity does not take it away

from any concrete meaning.

The word diaspora is derived from the Greek verb speiro (to sow) and the preposition dia

(over) (Cohen). The significant diasporic dislocations in history are,

(i) migration and the productive colonization of Asia Minor

(ii) dispersion of the Jews

(iii) dispersion of East and West Africans through slavery

(iv) dispersion of the Palestinians through Israeli expansionism in the late 1940s, and

(v) Armenians through persecution by the Ottomans from the late 19th

century.

Different critics have highlighted different aspects of diasporic dislocations. For example

Robin Cohen observes that William Safran forms his notion of diaspora on the Jewish

experience, but fails to recognize the heterogeneity and the different experiences of the group.

Hence his response is negative, as for him, the Jews’ experience centres on the restoration of

36

an “exclusive homeland.” On the contrary, for Cohen, diffuse connections around the globe

can be developmental benefit. It is not the craving for homeland but “a sense of

identification,” which ties diaspora together. Cohen names the motivations for entering

diaspora as positive and negative. Negative motivation is generally for the first generation

people. The family and kin who follow them are generally guided by positive motivations.

For him diaspora does not form from victimization, but when people seek a better quality of

life outside their homeland. On the other hand, for James Clifford, diasporic existence is not

exile and home, but multiple sites of exile. Geography of diaspora is built around multiple

localities (Clifford).

Different diasporic groups all over the world form several patterns, and one group defines

itself in relation to the other groups or the host country, resting its identity on the basis of

difference. That is why Jenny Robinson feels:

An important aspect of understanding identity is the distinction between what

we might call ‘relationality’ and ‘hybridity’. On the one hand one group’s

identity can be defined by what another group’s is not (i.e. in relation to one

another) and at the same time the two groups can influence one another and

evolve new cultural mixtures (hybridity). As a result we see the emergence of

complex social hierarchies based on perceived and subtle characteristics of

difference (Robinson 92).

As the diasporic groups vary on the basis of their history, background or on the basis of their

acceptance by their present lands of stay, similarly they too vary on the basis of their

generations, for the response to the diaspora changes with generations. Diasporas contribute

to the home economy, as well as influence homeland politics. Governmental policies of the

homeland too show a concern for the diasporic groups settled in different corners of the

world. Diasporas have shattered myths of homogeneity and have created significant rifts in

the socio-political surface of the host countries, as well. As Arjun Appadurai sagaciously

observes, “terms as ‘democracy’ are master-narratives…diaspora across the world, especially

37

since the 19th

century, has loosened the internal coherence that held these terms and images

together in a Euro-American master-narrative and provided instead a loosely structured

synopticon of politics” (Appadurai 36).

William Safran another diasporic critic in his seminal article “Diasporas in Modern Societies:

Myths of Homeland and Return” categorizes various diasporic communities according to their

characteristics. The Armenian diaspora community he professes is based on― (i) common

religion, (ii) language, (iii) collective memory of a nation, (iv) memory of persecution and

genocide (v) influence of Church on them, and, (vi) contribution to the host culture, science

and modernization. The Polish community forms a diaspora by their― (i) national

consciousness (ii) common language, and (iii) culture. Safran writes of the Polish

community― “during World War II...Poland was the largest country in the world: its

government was in London, its army was in Italy, and its population was in Siberia” (Safran

85).

Safran further claims that the Portugese immigrants are diasporic by dint of their diasporic

consciousness, the Turkish community by its hope of return and the Flemish speaking

Belgians by their detachment from particular linguistic centres. However he (Safran) proposes

that the Magyars of Transylvania have no diaspora for they are only politically detached from

their motherland, and not dispersed. He badges the Gypsies as the “truly dispersed people” for

they (i) face political powerlessness, (ii) are subject to persecution, and are (iii)

“metadiaspora” in their economic rootlessness (iv) have no myth of return, and (v) no story of

national sovereignty. The Palestinians on the contrary, have (i) memories of homeland (ii)

collective myth of the homeland (iii) desire to return, etc. The Chinese diaspora has a typical

38

confined structure giving rise to “enclave” economies, which again is the result of the

prejudice of the host countries.

Now coming to the Black diaspora, legalised slavery which began in 1502, had brought more

than 12 million West Africans and Caribbeans to the North and South America, and Britain as

slaves. The history of slavery remains at the core of their life’s struggles and this remains in

the collective memory of the Blacks. The tremendous torture, the abuse, the brutal treatment,

the physical assault of the Black diasporic people is unique to this group. Michael Hanchard

suggests that Black diaspora lends, “a transnational dimension to black identity,” and he

defines the African diaspora as “a human necklace strung together by a thread known as slave

trade, a thread which made its way across a path of America with little regard for national

boundaries” (Hanchard 40). There are (as Jenny Robinson comments regarding Africa) “three

distinct phases of outward movement of people from Sierra Leone and from West Africa

more generally. The first phase is associated with slavery, the second with commonwealth

citizens seeking livelihoods in the colonial ‘motherland’, and the third with a response to the

post-colonial crisis of development.” (Robinson 85).

The official beginning of coloured immigration into Britain is marked by the arrival of

Empire Windrush on the English coast with 492 Jamaicans at Tilbury Docks in 1498. With

this started the steady flow of immigration from the rest of the world. The arrivals came from

the British Commonwealth nations and thus they had British passports which gave them

access to England. The immigrants into Britain can be broadly categorized into three

groups― the Caribbean, people from the Indian subcontinent and people from Africa

(Gilroy). The Caribbeans were denied access to the United States by the McCarran-Walter

Act of 1952 and with the barring of entry to this destination; the English speaking West

39

Indians had access only to Britain. The largest number of West Indian immigrants arrived

from Jamaica, while other countries as Antigua, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St.

Kitts, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago also contributed to the lot. The 1950s saw the maximum

influx of people from the West Indies to Britain (Patterson).

Unlike the Black diaspora, the South Asian diaspora does not have any history of slavery. On

the other hand this diaspora is to a great extent similar to the Palestinian diaspora. South

Asian diaspora is deeply rooted in the myth of homeland or land of origin by dint of its

culture and an Eastern heritage of spirituality and mysticism, which stands in opposition to the

materialism of the West. The South Asian diasporic people may not always return, but they

never tread very far from their desire to return, even if the desire is mythical. The community

feeling is stronger in case of South Asian diaspora for their history of belonging to the same

nation before India’s independence. Moreover the South Asians form patterns not only on the

ground of nationalistic origin, but on the basis of their religion and language as well. The

Muslim community spreading over Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, all come

together though they belong to different nations. Likewise the Bengalis, whether from

Bangladesh or West Bengal in India become one in their linguistic pattern and common

culture. Similar is the case with Hindi or Urdu speaking groups in the sub continent. Hence

the South Asian diaspora has several interlinked connections forming a close-knit pattern.

II (a). The South Asian Diaspora across the World

Unlike the black diasporics, South Asian immigrants to Britain were either the lascars or

ayahs or those working as soldiers in the British army. These people share an immigrant

40

history of more than four hundred years. They were primarily bonded labourers who were

freed after the independence of India and the consequent formation of the adjacent countries

as Pakistan and Sri Lanka (Brown). After the announcement of freedom several returned to

their past land, while a considerable number from this group refused to return. These people

form some of the early diasporics of South Asian origin. In rubber, tea and sugar plantations

all over the world, in places as Burma, Malaya, Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Caribbean

Islands, Fiji and Mauritius, labourers from the Indian subcontinent were hired as girmityas.

These girmityas or the indentured labourers after the expiry of their contracts, mostly decided

to stay back purchasing land and property. However the condition varied as per the local

government policies regarding citizenship and stay in foreign land which altered constantly.

In the case of the South Asians working in the Caribbean Islands, they were given ready

citizenship by the imperialist British government. As Susan Koshy observes of the South

Asian diaspora which she terms as “one of the oldest, largest and most geographically

diverse” (Koshy 2), in the “Introduction” to Transnational South Asians: The Making of a

Neo-Diaspora:

One can contextualize the changing modes of labour migration from South

Asia by looking at the role they played in creating a flexible and expanding

labour pool that helped mediate the shift from mercantile to industrial to

finance capital in the colonial and post-colonial periods. No other diaspora

offers this comprehensive a view of the continuous renovations in forms and

modes of migrant labour because no other diasporic population has been at the

centre of these shifts for such an extended period of time (Koshy 3).

With the Partition of India in 1947 and the formation of Pakistan started an influx of a second

group of immigrants from South Asia to Britain. The South Asian diasporic group or the

travellers from the Indian sub-continent increased largely with the change in configuration of

the sub-continent. The independence of India caused such upheavals that several were forced

to flee and several migrated willingly, for independence had opened avenues for migration.

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Also, migrating to England was made convenient by the British policy of allowing admittance

and citizenship to the people of the erstwhile colonies.

The 1960s saw a third trend in migration whereby the immigrants were voluntary migrants

and unlike the first group of unskilled labourers like household workers, etc., this group

comprised skilled workers. Beginning from 1960s, till the 1970s showed a change in the lives

of the immigrant South Asians all over the globe. In 1960s after the independence of Kenya,

Uganda and Tanganyika, the South Asians living in these countries were offered British

citizenship and the right to settle anywhere in the United Kingdom. But the huge number of

immigrants coming to Britain spurred the Immigration Act of 1968 which checked the influx

of the South Asians to Britain in case they did not have one parent or grandparent born there.

This led to severe crisis which was made further acute by Idi Amin, the then president of

Uganda, chasing the South Asians out of the state in 1972 (“Light…). Immigrants from Africa

to the United Kingdom can be broadly divided into two groups, blacks and Asians. The blacks

form a small minority group arriving from Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. The larger group

of immigrants from Africa, includes people shifted after the exodus of Asians from East

Africa, the twice migrants or repeat migrants. These expelled South Asians faced open

confrontation in Britain. Britain was further divided into “green” and “red” zones with low

and high concentration respectively, of already existing South Asian population. The then

entering South Asian groups were directed to the green zones and were prevented from the

red ones (Brah). The immigrants had to undergo several inhuman tests as DNA tests and X-

rays of the children to detect their age and so on.

Colonial forces, indenture labour system, the rift between countries, and upheavals in

societies of newly forming governments, the religious fratricide in Bangladesh, the communal

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riots during the Partition of India and the ethnic wars in Sri Lanka all had led to severe crisis

in South Asia. This spurred chain migrations and massive shifts which made South Asian

diaspora one of the largest diasporas globally, surpassed only by the African, Chinese,

European and the Jewish who lived outside their homelands (Clarke, C., C. Peach, and S.

Vertovec). Thus people from the Indian subcontinent made their home in several parts of the

world, of which the larger concentration centres are in UK, USA, Canada, the Caribbean

Islands and the Middle East. While the history of migration to the UKs and the Caribbean

Islands saw the first immigration from the Indian subcontinent, the settlers from South Asia

were mainly those working as menial labourers and for lowly paid jobs. The greater number

of immigrants was mainly coolies. Those migrating to Britain too suffered from this

succumbing to jobs of inferior ranks as only few white collar jobs were available to the

immigrants. On the contrary those arriving in USA were mostly those who had come seeking

high paid, white collar jobs. This has become even more prominent after the explosion of the

IT industry and at present the United States is the mecca of professionals and engineers.

S.V.Chindhade, an Indian diasporic critic in his “The Marathi Literary Diaspora in the US and

the UK” writes of the number of professionals immigrating to Britain had been 36,000 every

year. “This affinity for Britain,” he writes, “had resulted from the colonial affinity”

(Chindhade 78). However the recent inflation and the crash of the IT industry has to a certain

level thawed the craze for shift to foreign lands. The 9/ 11 incident has evoked a trauma and

has wiped off the glamour a bit, but still the craze persists. Canada is another place which

alike USA can claim the advent of a big portion of the skilled professionals from all over the

globe and most importantly from the Indian subcontinent.

The United States has ever been a land of immigrants and though now no more a melting pot,

has still remained “a diasporic switching point” (Appadurai 14). Britain does not have any

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such melting pot background and hence the diasporic experience of the people living in

Britain is significantly different. While the American society is multicultural, the British

society is not. The dominant culture plays a leading role in the society. In Britain, the South

Asians were considered as just immigrants or outsiders, and only of late have acquired the

status of ethnic minority. The pluralistic society of America has prevented the South Asians

from many of the racial attacks they have suffered in Britain. The United States has proved a

much more convenient migrant location for more than one reason. In US the bans and

restrictions on immigration were much lesser than in the case of Britain. In the latter days the

entry requirements to Britain were much restrictive than to the US. Moreover the US passed

the Immigration and Naturalization Act (1965) to enhance the immigration from the Third

World countries. The South Asians, especially Indians, entered into the US and found much

congenial atmosphere than those that had migrated to Britain.

South Asians have also made home in the Middle East, but this diaspora is different from the

other settling lands. Though the salary of the people added to the remittances of the country of

origin, the Middle East failed to prove permanent homes to these South Asians, mostly from

Pakistan and India of whom the majority were Muslims. The governments of the Middle East

countries had been much reluctant to give the right of citizenship to these people. Coming

from different places of South Asia they formed a kinship pattern which led to a single

member bringing in several other members of the family. This continued unabated till the

1960s when the token system was brought in for the labourers and one member of the family

could easily avail tokens for the other family members. Professor Myron Weiner names the

South Asian diaspora in the Middle East as “incipient diaspora.” As Prakash C. Jain develops

upon Weiner’s theory of “incipient” diaspora:

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…an “incipient” diaspora can be defined as a relatively sizeable group of

foreign workers in industrial and oil-producing economies who are ethnically

distinct from the host population and who are ‘allowed to remain in their host

country only to work’ but are not entitled to become citizens. As such they live

in ‘a state of legal and political ambiguity, economic insecurity and as social

outsiders’ (Jain 103).

Now regarding the indentured labourers who had travelled widely, most indentured South

Asian labourers came from northcentral and northeastern India and only few came from

Southern India, from the Tamil and Telegu speaking states. Most of them were Hindus,

though some were Muslims as well. The influx of South Asian labourers to different parts of

the world concentrated mainly around Trinidad in the Caribbean, Guyana in South America,

and Mauritius off the coast of Africa in the 1840s; and in the 1860s to the British colony of

Natal in South Africa. The 1870s marked the immigration to such regions as the Dutch colony

of Surinam and the 1880s saw the same to Fiji. The indenture system however was abolished

in the 1920s, but the immigration process continued unabated (Kelly).

The South Asians who arrived in Fiji in large numbers in the form of coolies or girmityas

were mainly from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in India. In the first phase after the expiry

of the tenure of work, and in the second with the abolition of the indenture system, several

Indians returned to their homeland, but a large portion still preferred to stay back. However

even among those who preferred not to return but to stay back, in no time (a major part of this

group), faced discrimination in the hostland society. Hence they doubly immigrated to such

work areas as Australia and New Zealand under work permit. The 1880s had seen the

restrictions on the migration of non-British immigrants in Fiji, and later formalization of the

same in the 1899 Immigration Restriction Act. This law was however transformed in 1986

and this in turn spurred huge South Asian immigration to New Zealand. Mass migration of the

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Indo- Fijians to this site created a new pattern in New Zealand’s South Asian diaspora. The

violence by the military coups on the Fijians of Indian origin in Fiji in 1987, after the

independence of Fiji in 1970, and the consequent transformation of the immigration act,

triggered another surge of immigration to the Pacific Rim countries of Australia, New

Zealand, Canada and the United States. However with the Trans- Tasman Travel Agreement

of 1973, which opened avenues of free movement between New Zealand and Australia, the

Indo-Fijians already settled in New Zealand, further managed their way to Australia (Gillion).

The Indian sub-continent even found a suitable home in Mauritius. Though the immigrants

are mostly from India, Mauritius is a powerful site for South Asian immigration as this

diaspora influenced the homeland economy and politics to an even extent. The Gujarati

businessmen and merchants, along with the Tamil and northern Hindus and the South Indian

Muslims claimed a big share over the island’s economy. Moreover during colonial times,

there was a beginning of nationalism in Mauritius which influenced India’s politics greatly.

The other hinterland of South Asian diasporic formation is Canada. South Asian immigration

to Canada began at the beginning of the 20th century, mostly from Punjab. In Canada, most of

the South Asian immigrants worked in the sawmill industry. However the Canadian

government in 1908 barred the immigration of people who entered the country through

continuous voyage via other countries, and not directly from their native countries. This in

turn affected the immigration from South Asia for it was not possible to enter Canada under

certain conditions (Oberoi). Thus immigration remained considerably low till the 1940s. After

World War II restrictions were gradually loosened and immigration legislation in 1962 and

1967 consequently made the restrictions lax. Before 1962 most immigrants from South Asia

were men from Punjab. After 1962 the influx shifted from Sikh men from the Punjab, to both

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men and women from Punjab. Moreover Hindus from Gujarat, Bombay and Delhi as well as

Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh, Christians from Kerala, Parsis from Bombay, and

Buddhists from Sri Lanka, all came to Canada. On the other hand, the South Asians

transmigrating to Australia were mainly those with scholarships and aspirations for the US.

As Voigt- Graf observes, “For some, Australia has become a stepping stone on a route

eventually reaching the United States, a country which continues to be the ultimate aspired

destination for many Indians” (Voigt- Graf 143).

The South Asian professionals were as well drawn to European countries like Austria and

Germany. Moreover the liberal policies of Germany proved a haven for Tamil refugees

fleeing from the conflict in Sri Lanka. The contract and free labourers of South Asian origin

migrated to Malaya, then a British colony, to tap rubber. In the later part of the 19th

century,

Indians migrated to Myanmar, to work on the plantations. Moreover, another group of

workers from South Asia, mostly from Gujarat, Punjab and Goa, migrated to British East

Africa to build railways, and afterwards stayed back as low ranking civil servants.

Due to the colonial legacy, the South Asians were accepted into the British society as de facto

British citizens. Apart from the sea-men, the others were those who joined the armies during

World War I. Thus the South Asian population immigrating to Britain were mainly, (i) the

Gujaratis from the coastal districts of Saurashtra and around the gulf of Cambay, (ii) Punjabis

from Jullunder, Doab, and some Christians and Hindus around this region, (iii) Punjabi

Muslims from undivided India, in the Barani, in and around the districts of Mirpur, Jhelum,

Rawalpindi and Gujarat and even from Chach, Faisalabad and Lahore, (iv) Bangladeshis from

the district of Sylhet, and (v) Tamils and Sinhala-Buddhists from Sri Lanka. The South Asians

in Britain had entered as a part of the Commonwealth, and had ever enjoyed the right of

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citizenship. However in spite of the official rights, the immigration acts one after the other,

thwarted the immigration of the ‘blacks,’ while the grim rules attributed the status of second

class citizens to them.

The 1962 Immigration Act restricted the admission to Britain, even to those who had

employment vouchers. This was however applied only to the “blacks”, and though the Irish

immigrant population exceeded the South Asians, the law was directed solely at the latter.

The 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act introduced quota system for labour vouchers. The

quota system for labour vouchers was also introduced in 1965 and this mechanism tightened

immigration further. During this period the National Front, a fascist organization was formed

which aimed at the repatriation of ‘black’ British people. The Commonwealth Immigration

Act of 1968 was passed hurriedly by the Labour Government as a panic measure to check the

influx of Kenyan Asians with British passports from entry into Britain. This act, overtly racist,

was substantiated by Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. The 1968 Immigration Act

removed the right of entry of British passport holders unless they had a “substantial

connection” with the U.K.― i.e. unless at least one parent or grandparent of the applicant was

born in Britain. Several who had already immigrated, and did not fulfil this basic requirement

as per the Act were forcefully banished from the country. By this act a non-partial

Commonwealth citizen could no longer enter the U. K. for stay, unless he had a work permit

from a specific employer. Also dependants were admitted for the duration of the work permit

only. The Immigration Act of 1971 ended all “primary immigration” and made black

immigration temporary and only for specific jobs. Racial harassment and undue policing of

immigrants were legitimized by law, for example they could deport individuals if it was

“conducive to the public good” (“Roots). Though the Race Relations Act had been passed in

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1966, which had made racial hatred illegal, this act had failed to tackle racism in employment

and problems in housing. Moreover racism was institutionalized.

In America on the other hand, the scenario became just the reverse. In 1965 the law enforcing

national immigration quotas was scrapped. South Asians along with the Latin Americans

flowed in and the period from 1990s to 2000 saw the largest immigration. The situation in

America was then taken up by most of the First World countries, especially Britain, who had

formerly confronted immigration into the country. This spurred a reaction from the

immigrants and hence this was also the time which saw the development of writing on and by

the South Asians. As Hanif Kureishi remarks, the 1970s as “...politically conscious seventies,

[when] there was, in TV and theatre, a liberal desire to encourage work from unmapped and

emergent areas. They required stories about the new British communities, by cultural

translators, as it were, to interpret one side to the other” (Kureishi xv-xvi).

II (b). The South Asian Diaspora in Britain

After the relaxation in the grim clauses of the Immigration laws, a great number of South

Asians settled in Britain and formed big communities of South Asian people. While most of

them flocked together in the suburbs and ghettoes, several moved up to London attracted by

its multicultural ambience. The South Asians had to fight for their recognition and assert their

claims as rightful citizens in the face of severe confrontation from the natives. Also they had

to assume their separate identities from the Africans and the Afro-Caribbeans, that is the

official Black diaspora, for they too came to be recognized as Blacks in the 1950s. The

confrontation faced by the South Asians was not only from the natives but also from other

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diasporic groups who were struggling for their share of Britain. Thus the South Asians faced

the dual challenge of having to acculturate with both the natives on the one hand, and the

other diasporic groups settled in the land, on the other.

The population of South Asians arriving in Britain before the 1950s was much more

compared to the Afro-Caribbeans. Only after the 1950s the population of the Caribbeans

increased. The South Asians settled in the Southall area of London; whereas the highest

concentration of Afro-Caribbean settlement could be seen in Lambeth, Camden and North

Kensington. The relationship between the South Asians and the Blacks too repaired after the

riots in 1958. Such organizations as the West Indian Standing Conference (1958) came into

existence from such riots. On parallel ground Black uprisings (of the Asians) began in

Southall in 1979 where Asians opposed a provocative National Front pre-election rally, and in

July 1981, a confrontation broke out. However the Afro Caribbeans were outrightly badged as

criminals in contrast to the Asians (Procter). The Blacks in Britain suffered from greater

unemployment, poorer housing, education and inferior health status. They lived in insecurity

of their lives much more than the Asians. In spite of the co-habitation and the increasing

understanding among them, a big portion of the Asians still strongly opposed their aligning

with the Blacks. In spite of all the hopeful promises of friendship at the social level, the

relationship was not keen or intimate. The sense of fear of an alien culture made the Asians

shirk from the company or even the thought of a Black. On the contrary, both the South

Asians and the Caribbeans were akin to the British in spite of their hatred for the latter. They

were much more familiar to the whites due to the interaction during the colonial period and in

the later ages as a repercussion of it. The type of feminism which the South Asian feminists

follow is more akin to the experience of the white, middle class, heterosexual women rather

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than Black feminism which has lesbianism and lesbian continuum as its characteristic

features.

In Black Skin, White Masks Frantz Fanon, scholastically portrays how the power of Western

discourse not only created a notion of the “other” that put forward a picture of the East as

other in the eyes of the West but the notion of otherness penetrated deep into the psyche of

the colonized, who in their turn perceived themselves as “other”. This thought process began

from the days of colonization and the British affected the thought process of the colonized

(Fanon). This played a functional role in the Asians and the Blacks’ admiration of the West

and their coming to Britain to enjoy the same status as the British, the ‘goras’. This in turn

formed the consciousness of the migrants, what Frantz Fanon calls, “individuals without an

anchor, without horizon, colourless, stateless, rootless….” (qtd. Braziel and Mannur 237). It

was at the same time self-defeating, and hence several critics trace disillusionment at the root

of the formation of these diasporas.

With the creation of the South Asian British national space, the South-Asians began more

formal organizations than meeting in groups. They accumulated in the concentration areas of

immigrant population. In such casual meetings and formal organizations, apart from

discussing problems, several festivals and rituals as Diwali, Eid, etc. too were held. These

turned out to be political and cultural associations and proved places for social gathering of

the immigrants. In Bradford, Gujarati Indians started a group in 1959 called Bharatiya

Mandala with the aim of forming solidarity within the group, and upholding the culture of the

same (Shukla). The Sikh immigrants had earlier formed the Indian Workers’ Association in

the 1930s to fight for India’s freedom. South-Asian immigrant communities mostly centred at

such locations as Bradford, Southall, Wembley, etc. With the passage of time these groups

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produced a link among themselves and with the countries of origin. Susan Koshy, the popular

diasporic critic observes that the South Asian diasporic group had a peculiar power of

imbibing different trends and forces of other cultures and naturalizing the discourses of the

white West and other settler groups into South Asian ethos:

South Asians played a crucial role in indigenizing white-settler claims to

national membership in the absence of autochthonous rights, and in

naturalizing diverse discourses of black, Creole, and indigenous nationalisms.

Thus, the South Asian diaspora offers a powerful heuristic for identifying the

interplay of local contexts and global structural forces in producing the social

exclusion of religious and cultural minorities in modernity. It thereby allows us

to access a global history of race, citizenship, and labour during a period of

capitalist expansion when the very meaning of these categories was being

invented (Koshy 4).

The South Asian diaspora in Britain is a huge cultural mix for they have different cultural

backgrounds and historical rooting. Prevalent religious norms are different with different sub

groups. It is not a unified diaspora and groups are often at conflict with each other on grounds

of religious or linguistic difference. The South Asian diaspora is not a cohesive school, rather

ambivalent voices arise. Various sub-groups primarily negotiate their identities as South

Asian and then renegotiate them in relation to other contexts. From the very beginning, the

immigrants had to make several adjustments within the broader term “South Asian”. They had

to compromise several of their cultural traditions and social customs in the face of resistance

of the natives in their day-to-day lives. The Sikhs were prevented from wearing turbans; the

Muslim women prevented from wearing burkhas or veils in their places of work or in the

schools. The Pakistanis were often referred to as smelly, smelling of curries; the Bangladeshis

as living in packed rooms, practicing mystical religions, etc. However the Hindus’

acculturation process was smoother as they lacked apparent cultural markers unlike the Sikh

men or the Muslim women (Vertovec). Moreover the hybridized groups of English speaking

people who had migrated from the cities easily got assimilated into the host country. Thus

52

specific groups had a better scope of assimilation than the others, depending on their

adaptability.

Compared to those in the UK, the South Asian creative writers/artists in the USA enjoy a

comfortable place and a far more visible identity. They are less vulnerable to racialist attacks

in the US for they were initially considered Caucasians and hence whites, comparable to the

South Asians in UK who are considered blacks. This demarcation in the latter case becomes

significant as the South Asian diasporic subjects are used as mediators between the Europeans

and the Caribbeans and at times used as weapons against the Blacks, that is the Africans and

Afro- Caribbeans (Assayag, and Bénéï 6-7). The term “Black” becomes highly political as it

is alternately used to refer to the Afro-Caribbean group with or without encompassing the

South Asians. This differentiation between the Africans and Caribbeans resulted in the term

“South Asian” and hence the same is also highly politicized. Susheila Nasta, a South Asian

diasporic herself, being born in Britain and living for the most part of her life in Germany,

Holland and India, understands the intricacies of the notion of home and the label South Asian

as:

Like ‘home’, the term ‘South Asian’ is, of course, an invented one. Introduced

in Britain in the 1970s as another ‘ethnic’ label to divide and rule, yet another

physical signifier of racial difference which developed a political purchase

following the expulsion of the Ugandan Asians under Idi Amin, it has its own

difficulties. Often used in government censuses as a means of distinguishing

Britain’s black and Asian populations, it inevitably flattens a diverse range of

backgrounds which stem from complex religious, linguistic and regional

histories. In addition, the use of ‘South Asian’ only seems to make sense when

viewed from within a context such as Britain, an environment in which

ethnicity has frequently been falsely homogenized (Nasta 6).

The English perceived the colonized as stereotypes and both the terms “Blacks and South

Asians” are such stereotypes. As Rushdie states, “Meanwhile, the stereotyping goes on.

53

Blacks have rhythm, Asians work hard. I’ve been told by Tory politicians that the

Conservative Party seriously discusses the idea of wooing the Asians and leaving the Afro-

Caribbeans to the Labour Party, because Asians are such good capitalists” (Rushdie 138).

Moreover this process is further abetted as the immigrants themselves conform to these labels

as entry into the First World incites an urge to be accepted into dominant culture.

Its mentioned earlier, people from four countries of the Indian subcontinent namely, India,

Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka form a considerable part of the diaspora in Britain, where

by the year 2000, Indians formed the largest ethnic group and the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis

combined with the Indians constitute the largest ethnic community in Britain and almost 4%

of the total population of that country. Rozina Visram observes that the South Asians’ visit to

Britain dates back to the 1720s, when travellers and princes stepped on the land of the whites

to educate themselves in the latest trends of industrialization or to formally receive education

at the foreign universities. The South Asians landed in Britain as seamen, but later found jobs

with the foremen. They took up menial jobs which were not taken up by the natives, and as

Roger Ballard observes, “…although this was initially regarded as a temporary measure― no

less by migrant workers than by their employers― it set in motion what eventually proved to

be a process of reverse colonization. Imperial transactions had manifestly ceased to be a one-

way process” (Ballard 197).

The major concentration sites of the South Asian diaspora in Britain are Greater London,

West Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. While the Sri Lankans settled in

Greater London, especially Ealing, the Indians concentrated in West Midlands, especially

Wolverhampton, the Pakistanis settled in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and the Bangladeshis in

Tower Hamlets, Greater London. While Indians took up jobs in the Southeast and Midlands

54

region, and are mostly present in the suburbs of London, the migrants from Pakistan found

their centre in the textile town in the north. Pakistanis reside in the industrially declining areas

and have a large majority of skilled, manual workers. On the other hand, the Bangladeshis

comprise the semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Though the South Asians from different

countries settled in fixed zones, the second generation however stepped out of the enclaves

and they now form a major part of the diasporic community in the West. Harold G. Coward,

John R. Hinnells and Raymond Brady Williams in their book The South Asian Religious

Diaspora in Britain, Canada, and the United States, opine, “the broad demographic picture of

the communities of a much younger population than that of the majority white population

…Almost half of British Pakistanis were born in Britain, just under half of British Indians

(41%) were born in Britain, as were 36% of British Bangladeshis” (Coward, Hinnells, and

Williams 85). Monica Ali, while speaking of the growing immigration of the South Asians in

Britain, mentions how her white mother Joyce had got married to Hatem, a Bangladeshi

student. She reminiscences:

Though they (Hatem and Joyce) had little to do with his family after that, the

Alis were content in Dhaka and would have stayed there had the civil war not

broken out… I think when my mum went off to get married, there weren’t

many Asians in the area, and the ones that there were tended to be

professionals― doctors, things like that. But when she came back, eight years

later, there had been a whole wave of immigration, and the social acceptability

stakes had declined dramatically (Lane).

Moreover the political mobilization of the diasporic communities in the West created much

upheaval in the homeland society. Gurharpal Singh cites instance of power lobbying of the

South Asian diasporic groups in the West: “…the well-publicised contributions to President

Clinton’s election campaign by the high-tech US lobby or the controversial dealings of the

Hindujas with New Labour in Great Britain have brought the issues and concerns of the

diaspora to the forefront of everyday politics” (Singh 1). The diaspora highly manoeuvres the

55

lives of the homeland community by dint of the overbearing effect on the economic and

political life. Singh further observes:

…the contemporary fascination with the subject in India arises from the

economic potential of overseas Indians, by way of their ability to radically

transform the fortunes of the ‘homeland’ economy. Since the beginning of

economic liberalization in India (1991), Non- Resident Indians (NRIs) have

played an active role in foreign direct investment in India. Their contribution

has been recognized by the government of India, which has decided to grant

them special economic and legal concessions (Singh 1).

Immigrants from the Third World to the First have been interpreted in various ways at

different points of time. They have been given the relaxation of an insider’s status, the status

of Commonwealth citizens and have been derided from time to time or outrightly chased out

of the country. Thus the South Asian diaspora constantly oscillates between security and

chastisement as per the whim of the government of Britain. Though from time to time the

immigrants are interpreted and named as politically persecuted or refugees the naming is

nothing other than the guile of the superpowers. Ambalavaner Sivanandan reveals this politics

of labelling as he observes:

At first, these politically persecuted refugees were economically “invisible.” In

the 1950s and 1960s, when Britain needed all the workers it could lay its hands

on political refugees and economic migrants were all the same: they were

labour. It did not matter that the Punjabis were fleeing the fallout of partition:

what mattered was that they were needed in the factories of Southall… In other

words, the definition of political refugee and economic migrant became

interchangeable. So that, just four years later, British Asians from Uganda

were deemed acceptable as political refugees because they, unlike the Kenyan

Asians, belonged by-and-large to the entrepreneurial class and could contribute

to Britain’s coffers. “British,” “alien,” “political,” “economic,” “bogus,”

“bona-fide” ― governments choose their terminology as suits their larger

economic or political purpose (Sivanandan).

56

III. South Asian Writers in Britain

While the South Asian dias poric group in Britain has a history of more than four hundred

years, South Asian diasporic writing in Britain has a history of no less than two hundred and

fifty years. Rozina Visram observed in her Ayahs, Lascars and Princes that by 1880s the

Indians had been in British Isles for hundred and fifty years, a history which was almost as

long as British colonialism in India (Visram Ayahs). However the early writings by the

people of South Asian origin in Britain were mostly non-fictional writings. Some of the works

attributed to this phase were also the works written or compiled during their stay in their

homelands which were later published from England as the writers came to Britain. The first

works were mostly travelogues and memoirs written by the sojourners and travellers mostly

during their brief stay in Britain. The writers from the Indian subcontinent who scripted their

accounts of the West during their stay either as students or scholars of the eighteenth century,

as Itesa Modeen, Mir Muhammad Husain, Abu Talib Khan, et al, or as Western educated elite

of the nineteenth century as G. P. Pillai, B.M. Malabari and several others, form an important

part of the creative writing that forms the backdrop to the later works which followed. As

Visram writes in another seminal work on the history of “Asians in Britain” in the text

bearing the same title:

…it was between 1886, the year of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, and

1911, the coronation of George V, that there was a flowering of travel accounts

in English by Indian visitors, some of which had first been written as articles

and letters in newspapers and magazines, or delivered as lectures, and later

converted into books to inform and interpret Britain for their countrymen and

would-be travellers. Not all were literary men in the accepted sense of the term

and the quality of their writing is variable. But there is a rich seam, witty,

satirical and informative, revealing a keen eye and shrewd, perspective

impressions of Britain, London, the chief city of the empire— and by

extension, of the empire itself (Visram, Asians 105-6).

57

Apart from these visitors or sojourners who documented their travel accounts, there were

another group of South Asians in Britain as Sake Deen Mahomed, J. M. Tambimuttu and

others who stayed in Britain and were involved in professional works in the country and wrote

about the land and even worked on other fictional genres. Many other writers as Noor-Un-

Nisa Inayat Khan who handled the Indian legends of the Jataka tales, Ananda Coomaraswamy

who focused on Indian art and sculpture, and Savitri Chowdhury who wrote on “Indian

Cooking” also prevailed the sphere of South Asian British diasporic creative writing. Mulk

Raj Anand, one of the Big Threes in Indian English fiction, too had brought out two of his

novels from Britain. Some of Mulk Raj Anand the novelist and critic’s early novels, including

Across the Black Waters (1940) and The Untouchable were written and published in Britain.

His other works include Letters on India (1942) and ‘A Lascar Writes Home,’ (1941)

published in Our Time, vol.1, no.2. South Asian British diasporic writing thus form quite a

profound backdrop ranging over a big span of two and half century before the overflow of

South Asian British diasporic fiction from the middle/late of the twentieth century.

Sake Deen Mahomed, after arriving in Britain, had set up his own The Indian Vapour Bath

and Shampooing establishments in Brighton. His popular recognition as dealing in oriental

and romantic profession provided him the appointment as Shampooing Surgeon to King

George IV, which continued under William IV. His book The Travels of Dean Mohamet,

published in 1794 in Cork, Ireland was written as a series of letters to an imaginary friend.

Written in the genre of eighteenth century travel writing, it is the first book to be written and

published in English by an Indian. Mahomed’s Travels, apart from the accounts of the

Europeans and of the physical landscape of India, portrayed the Indian society in the cities

and towns and even the Muslim society from the perspective of an Indian. His profession as a

shampooing surgeon, made scope for another work, namely Shampooing, or Benefits

58

Resulting From the Use of The Indian Medicated Vapour Bath, As Introduced Into This

Country, by S. D. Mahomed (A Native of India), first published in 1822. Though not much is

heard of his descendants, his grandson Arthur George Suleiman, a medical student at Guy’s

and later a doctor at Bournemouth had authored The Treatment at the Bournemouth Mont

Dore. Published in 1889, the book was an important text in the British Medical Association.

Another Asian to have left a wide account of his life in Britain is Albert J. Mahomet. This

first British-born Indian photographer was also a preacher and teacher by profession. His first

work From Street Arab to Pastor is a worthy work of social history. Published in 1894, the

book describes the life of the poor in London’s East End, the workhouses of London and

Norfolk, and brief delineation of life in general in Victorian England. Goerge Edalji, the

victim of the notorious Edalji Case, which had made him prey to unfair charges against him,

with overtones of racism, also contributed to this phase. A brilliant student of law he was the

author of Railway Law for the ‘Man in the Train’ published by Effigham Wilson in 1901. The

next contributor to this field is Agnes Janaki Mazumdar, the youngest daughter of Womesh

Chandra Bonnerjee, an Indian lawyer and a Western-educated Indian nationalist. Born in

Calcutta in 1886, her family memoir, Pramila, provides a glimpse of the life of the family

members in Britain. In her memoir she gives a brief picture of the racial prejudices of the

natives of Britain and the numerous insults that were hurled at them. However Mazumdar’s

record is mainly a record of family events and of friends and relatives, and was privately

published in London. The year of publication remains unrecorded.

Another writer of Asian origin in Britain was Cornelia Sorabji. The first woman ever to study

law at a British University in 1889, she was also a social reformer and barrister. Between the

Twilights (1908) and The Purdahnashin (1917) reveal her concern for women and her work as

59

a social reformer. Among her books are the two autobiographies, India Calling (1934) and

India Recalled (1936). She also wrote fiction and other works on India. Her Queen Mary’s

Book of India was written to raise funds for the Indian Comforts Fund during the Second

World War.

Prince Ranjitsinghji, popularly known as Ranji, was an important figure in the history of

English cricket. A cricketing genius and an owner of a huge property in Connemara, he

confronted the stereotype of a black ‘native’ and instead shared an almost equal platform with

his British counterparts. The pride of the people of the Indian diaspora, he had been an icon

during the heights of Victorian Imperialism. The diary of his tour, With Stoddart in Australia,

published in 1898, established him as an author of his times.

A big number of the South Asian travellers and sojourners who had been to London in the

Eighteenth and Nineteenth century and had published accounts of their travels and lives in

London were Muslim scholars. A recognized Muslim scholar, Mirza Abu Talib Khan’s travel

accounts from 1799-1803 appeared in two volumes in English translation by Charles Stewart

in Britain in 1810, as The Travels of Mirza Abu Talib Khan, in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Mirza Itesa Modeen’s Excellent Intelligence Concerning Europe from 1765 appeared in an

abridged version, accompanied by an Urdu version, in 1827. However other works which

followed were the Persian texts of other visitors as Munshi Ismail and Mir Muhammad

Husain.

Another major group that contributed to Asian writing in Britain comprised the nineteenth

century travellers and other professionals who were people of different religious and cultural

groups. Some of the nineteenth century’s contributions include Diary of an Overland Journey

60

from Bombay to England by the marine engineer, Ardaseer Cursetjee, published in London in

1840; followed by the Journal of a Residence of Two Years and a Half in Great Britain by the

two ship-builders Nowrojee and Merwanjee, published in 1841. Several works by Indian

princes also made their way as E. W. West edited Diary of the Late Rajah of Kolhapoor

During His Visit to Europe in 1870, published in 1872. Other works include S.

Satthianadhan’s Four Years in an English University, published in Madras in 1893; Rakhal

Das Haldar’s The English Diary of an Indian Student, 1861-62, published in 1903 in Dacca;

and Mary Bhore’s “Some Impressions of England,” published in Indian Magazine and Review

in 1900.

The different scholars wrote in their works their reception in the Western society and how

they accepted the West. Modeen commented on how the Western eyes gazed at him with the

curiosity of watching a spectacle. Khan in his Travels wrote elaborately of the houses, parks,

streets, clubs, of the Oxford which ‘resembled in form some Hindoo temples,’ the free mixing

of the women, etc. Jhinda Ram’s My Trip to Europe, published in 1893, T. N. Mukherjee’s A

Visit to Europe, published in 1889 in Calcutta, speak of similar wonder in the eyes of the west

for an Eastern visitor. P. C. Mozoomdar in his Sketches of a Tour Round the World, published

in 1884, G. N. Nadkarani’s Journal of a Visit to Europe in 1896, published in 1903; and

Mehdi Hassan Khan’s “London Sketches by an Indian Pen,” compiled in Indian Magazine

and Review (March 1890) all provide descriptions of Victorian England and the

idiosyncrasies of the British people.

Another important writer, poet, journalist and social reformer, B. M. Malabari had visited

England in 1890 to campaign against child marriage and enforced widowhood. In his The

Indian Eye on English Life, Malabari rejects the pretensions and patronizing of the West:

61

…the patronizing Englishman does us as much harm as he who disparages and

decries our merits…we should be treated exactly as equals, if we deserve to be.

You must not give us less than our due— equal justice and no more (Malabari

65).

Another visitor to Britain, the traveller Hajee Sullaiman Shah Mahomed noted several

characteristics of the Western society as gender division in separate reading tables in the

library in his Journal of My Tours Round the World 1886-1887 and 1893-1895, published in

1895. Other works include Reminiscences English and Australasian (1893) by N. L. Doss;

Reminiscences England and American Pt II, England and India (1888) by A. L. Roy; England

and India (1893) by Lala Baijnath; England to an Indian Eye (1897) by T. B. Pandian;

London and Paris Through Indian Spectacles (1897) by G. P. Pillai and some other works as

well.

Apart from the travellers, and sojourners, another group of South Asian people who had lived

at one or other time in Britain had also contributed to the literary field in Britain. J. M.

Tambimuttu, a Tamil from Sri Lanka was the founder editor of Poetry London. Krishnarao

Shelvankar, writer and journalist for the Hindu newspaper from 1942-68, authored The

Problem of India. A critique of colonialism, the book was published as a Penguin Special in

1940 but was banned in India. Kaikhosru Sorabji, composer and pianist, was also a significant

writer and critic. Apart from his two-volume collected essays, Around Music and Mi Contra

Fa, he has written several reviews, essays, letters and articles. On the other hand, living and

working in Britain, Savitri Chowdhury’s insights into the new land and home is scripted in I

Made My Home In England and Indian Cooking, both popular books at the time.

Another writer Noor-Un-Nisa Inayat Khan became well-known for her children’s stories, and

was also a musician and the founder and teacher of the Sufi movement in the West. While her

62

children’s stories are compiled in Le Figaro, her Twenty Jataka Tales Retold focuses on the

Buddhist fables; Ananda Coomarswamy’s Dance of Shiva brings together Indian mythology,

and art and sculpture in a single work. Dadabhai Naoroji, involved in British national politics

and member of the Liberal Party had also authored Poverty of India, as an economic critique

of colonialism. The Parliamentary Leper, a pioneering study of the race relations in Britain in

the 1960s was written by Dr Dhani Prem, the Labour Councillor in Birmingham, and

published in Aligarh in 1965. Apart from these works, several other writers have also made

significant contributions to the literature of South Asian British diaspora, which remain

beyond the purview of the limited corpus of this research work. These works from the early

days of South Asian immigration into Britain mark the diaspora’s beginning of creative

response in multiple genres.

These different literary accounts of the travellers, sojourners and the adapted citizens to

Britain in their experiences have represented centuries of encounter. The responses evoked as

a result of the same bring in curious sentiments of admiration and repulsion at once. This

feeling which spurs what goes in the name of diasporic angst had thus begun much earlier

than the pronouncement of the term. Antoinette Burton in the seminal text on Asians in

Britain At the Heart of the Empire studies the contribution of Pandita Ramabai at Cheltham

and Wantage, Cornelia Sorabji at Oxford and Behramji Malabari in London. According to

her:

The accounts that these three left of their experiences in the British Isles in the

1880s and the 1890s suggest that the United Kingdom could be as much of a

“contact zone” as the colonies themselves…Their experiences also provide

historical evidence of how imperial power was staged at home and how it was

contested by colonial “natives” at the heart of the empire itself. By investing

Indians’ negotiations of colonialism in metropolitan localities, students of

Victorian culture can more fully understand how Britain itself has historically

been an imperial terrain— a site productive not just of imperial policy or

attitudes directed outward, but of colonial encounters within (Burton 1).

63

Having looked into the processes of diaspora formation in this chapter, and also at the early

writing on the same that emerged out of Britain in particular, an attempt will be made in the

next chapter to examine the theories that propose to define diaspora and the allied areas

connected to the same. In this process it would also be seen how far the theories evince

practical truths.

64

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