10 India vs. Regional/ Linguistic Identity

1. INTRODUCTION

In current discussions on the Indian diaspora, the notion that there is no one single Indian diaspora as a homogenous entity has widespread acceptance. Just as within India itself there are many diversities and heterogeneities, in the diaspora also Indians are internally differentiated in many ways. Based on the social affiliations and positions they carry from India, Indian diasporic populations can be differentiated broadly at least on five counts: region, language, religion, caste, occupation and class.

Whether and in what way these affiliations interleave and interface with each other, and further how the categories of region and language co-exist along with a pan-Indian identity, is the first important issue in this module.

Secondly, it is important to distinguish between affiliations on the one hand and identities which are based on affiliations, on the other. Cultural identities, as Stuart Hall (1996: 1)argues persuasively, are constructs. This recognition has arisen and the task of deconstruction conducted within a variety of disciplinary areas, all of them critical of the notion of an integral, imaginary and unified identity. Earlier, identity was thought of in essentialist terms, as a collective or true self hiding inside the many other, more superficially or artificially imposed selves which a people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common and which can stabilize, fix or guarantee an unchanging ‘oneness’ or cultural belongingness underlying all the other superficial differences (Ibid: 3-4) .

The concept of cultural identity in present day scholarship entails an acceptance that identities are not givens, nor rigidly fixed, nor singular. They are flexible, fluid and an individual or group can have multiple identities simultaneously; they are constructed “across different, often intersecting and antagonist discourses, practices and positions…..actually identities are about questions of using the resources of history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being; not ‘who we are’ or ‘where we came from’ so much as what we might become” (Ibid: 4). So no longer can we think about identity in the old way , but the term and concept are still needed because without it, certain key questions cannot be thought at all (Ibid: 2). Identities are thus assumed and deployed, and sometimes also given by others. Affiliations are inherited at birth or acquired in the course of one’s life trajectory, which may then be inherited or not.

Thus while affiliations of migrants from India are carried along with them, and are recognized and partially lived out in the diasporic context, whether they function as identities and if so, whether they carry the same meaning as in India and what the adaptations and changed meanings are in the new location is the second issue of relevance. There is no one answer to this question and it has to be answered case by case. The assumption that religion or language or caste are carried and deployed by migrants in a fixed way in whichever place they migrate to is not borne out empirically.

Thirdly, it is necessary to recognize that in some ways, there are greater diversities among Indian diasporic communities than even within India, since the historical time of emigration, and the geo-politics of the destination country, its culture and society and its policies towards immigrants bring in new factors of differentiation.

The old diaspora that migrated during colonial times has a different relationship with India and Indian cultural and religious traditions than the new diaspora who migrated in the second half of the 20th century even where they belong to the same regional, linguistic and religious background. We see this, for example in the different terms used to describe those Tamils in Malaysia and Singapore who were colonial migrants and those Tamils who have migrated or reside temporarily in the two countries for professional reasons only in the last half a century or so – ‘locals’ and ‘expats’ respectively. Again 20th century migrants to the US from India keep their separate identity vis-a-vis Indians who have migrated to the US from the colonial diasporas in the Caribbean. Social mixing between the two groups is limited. The policies of Gulf countries towards rights of citizenship and freedom to practice religion in the public space for immigrants are strikingly different from those of say Canada or USA, and they result in different kinds of diasporic dispositions. There is even a question mark on whether migrants to the Gulf can be considered to be a diaspora at all. Then Nepal, Srilanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc are geographically contiguous with India. Except for Pakistan, there is constant back and forth movement of people across borders and such diasporas across’ borderlands’ to use Roger Rouse’s (1991) term, are of a different character altogether.

1.1 Significance of recognizing diversities in the diaspora

The term ‘Indian diaspora’ is a fashionable one and is widely used in popular discourses including policy, media and business. The growth in size of overseas Indians and their larger-than-life presence in Indian psyche has led to the popular adoption of the term diaspora. But as Jayaram (2011:2) points out, uncritical use of the term ‘Indian diaspora’ leads to a “terminological conundrum”, concealing the many fundamental diversities among the overseas Indians , making the plural ‘ Indian diasporas’ a more meaningful term than the singular ‘the Indian diaspora’.

Recognition of these diversities is of course needed to build the conceptual and theoretical infrastructure in the field. Given the importance that Government of India has attached to wooing the diaspora for national development, the recognition and analysis of diversities becomes also a practical necessity (Ibid: 18 ).

2. LANGUAGE AND REGION

Among the basic structural and cultural diversities within the Indian migrant population which need to be taken into account when profiling a diaspora, the most striking ones are regional and linguistic background. In India itself, region and language are two very important categories of differentiation which make for what used to be called ‘sub national’ identities at a time in the first decades after independence when they were considered to be incompatible with a national identity. Region and language are not identical though they do overlap to a large extent.

India’s linguistic diversity is legendary. Probably no other country encompasses so many different languages belonging to several families. Grierson ’s Linguistic Survey of India, (1903) the first of its kind, conducted in the late 19th and early 20th century, noted 733 languages and dialects. A more scientifically structured survey by the People of India Project (Singh and Manoharan1993: 11) found that the total number of languages claimed as the languages spoken at home and with kin- groups was 325, not counting the dialects. The recent People’s Linguistic Survey of India led by Ganesh Devy documented in 2010, 780 living languages in India (Livemint 16.8.13). Despite his observation that the smaller languages are dying out, and even allowing for some limitations in all the studies, it is undeniable that the linguistic repertoire in India is still considerably vast and dense.

After independence, the task of dividing the country into viable administrative regions was taken up by the Government of India which set up the States Re-organisation Commission. Its report submitted in 1955, identified language as the basis for the formation of states. Even though this principle had some limitations, it did provide a broad framework at that time, and it was applicable to several, though not all states. The States Reorganization Act came into force from Nov 1, 1956, 14 states and 7 union territories were formed at that time. Subsequently, many new states have been formed on the basis of felt needs and demands of the people, sometimes for economic and developmental reasons, sometimes on the basis of tribal identity and so on.

The most recent state that has come into being, taking the states tally to 29, is Telengana, carved out of Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh itself got a state identity on the basis of language, after separating from Madras state in 1953, following a very vigorous and emotional campaign. There a historically composite region was divided on the basis of language. The carving out of a new state of Telengana from Andhra Pradesh in 2014 also followed a long, bitter and emotional campaign but it was not on the basis of language. Rather, the people of Telengana region felt neglected and discriminated against and a separate state was demanded to give them justice and meet their legitimate aspirations. Here a linguistically homogeneous state was divided on the basis of regional aspirations.

The experience of states reorganization and formation of new states since independence alerts us to the fact that while language is of great importance in forming the self-identity of a people, sometimes it gets overtaken by other factors, and as such language cannot be essentialised into identity.

When it comes to understanding regions in India, there are several ways of classification.

A fairly common accepted way of classifying regions in India is as follows:

    Northern (speaking Hindi and its dialects) region

Southern region comprising of the 4 states which speak Dravidian languages

Western, Central and Eastern regions forms smaller regional units.

North East with the seven states forms yet another region.

Parts of Odisa, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh form a contiguous geographical space that can be called the tribal region of Middle India.

This is of course only one classification. There are other ways to look at it. Irawati Karve (1953) for example, classifies the regions based on language family as well as kinship practices: the Northern zone includes all the states from Punjab to Assam that speak Indo Aryan family of languages, the Southern zone comprising of the 4 major states that speak Dravidian languages namely Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Then she talks of a Central zone which is a bridge between North and South comprising of Maharashtra and small parts of Gujarat. North east and Mundarian speaking tribal Middle India are the other two zones.

There are also, within a language based region, sub regions, which while subscribing to the overall linguistic/regional culture and ethos, pride themselves on some distinct features – dialect, cuisine, music, etc. Still, in many states like Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and others, common language does give a sense of regional identity.

2.1 Language and Region in the Indian Diaspora

When it comes to the Indian diaspora, not all the regions and languages are represented equally. States with high emigration are Punjab, Gujarat, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In the colonial period, the regions of Bihar, East UP and Madras Presidency had high emigration rates. The uneven distribution of regions and languages has to do with the needs and demands of the receiving countries and their policies that willy-nilly focused on particular kinds of migrants from specific regions. Also geographical proximity of certain regions to certain countries resulted in migration. The colonial regime for instance recruited indentured labour mainly from Tamil and Telugu regions and from Bhojpuri speaking regions for their own complex reasons. The Gujarat coastline, its proximity to eastern Africa and the Gujarati inclination and tradition of trade made them too a prominent diasporic presence in the African continent. South east Asia with its closeness to south east Indian coast has attracted Tamil migrants. There are many such examples.

Two of the largest regional/ linguistic diasporas from India are from Punjab and Gujarat, and despite many internal diversities, presently they maintain a strong regional cum linguistic profile. We will discuss them briefly to understand how region, language, caste and religion intersect in forming cultural identity.

2.2 Punjabi Diaspora

Punjabis constitute a large and prominent part of the Indian diaspora, especially in North America and UK. As a proportion of Indian immigrants, Punjabis constitute 45% in UK (of which 65% are Sikhs), 20% in Canada, 11% in USA. For an account of the strength, spread and contribution of this diaspora (see Chanda and Ghosh 2012).

In Punjab, both contemporary and pre-partition, language and region overlap to a large degree, and form the basis for a very powerfully articulated notion of Punjabiyat – i.e., Punjabi-ness – which the diaspora has also espoused. Nevertheless, there are internal heterogeneities and in various situations, the differences surface, diluting or even contradicting a regional/linguistic Punjabi diasporic identity. At the same time, there are occasions when a unified Punjabi identity is asserted.

Judge (2011) identifies two situational markers along which heterogeneity emerged in the Punjabi diaspora– historical period of emigration and geographical location of migrants. Speaking mainly about North America, he argues that colonial period and post independence period migrations were distinct. In the colonial period, the migrations were both voluntary and indentured and contract labour. They were mostly from the present day Indian Punjab from specific sub regions which were also characterized by differences in occupational profile and power structures. After 1947, the volume of migration increased and spread of destinations widened considerably, and thus internal heterogeneities also were greater.

Rise of nationalism in the colonial period, and the discrimination faced in the hostlands triggered loyalty to homeland of India, over riding other divisions like caste, religion and region.

Caste and religion are two major axes along which Punjabi diversity could be mapped. Caste wise, even though Punjabi society has been relatively egalitarian due to the influence of Islam and Sikhism, a variety of castes exist and all these are also to be found in diasporic locations and both among Hindus and Sikhs. In terms of religion, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Ad-Dharam are the major religions.

While language was a powerful unifier, these other differences did come into play. But still, language was more than a vehicle of communication, it was the symbolic centre, allegiance to which became the touchstone of group identity. When under certain circumstances, a group was identified as different on some other criterion, it was accused of betraying the language. And a transnational identity encompassing both Indian and Pakistani Punjabis could also be forged by taking recourse to the bond of language (Ibid: 32).

During the 1970s, 80s and part of the 90s, Sikh separatism and militance expressed through the Khalistan movement not only affected Punjab but had its ripples in the Punjabi diaspora as well. It was often cited as an example of Long Distance Nationalism, and sections of the Punjabi Sikh diaspora were actively engaged in supporting the movement in India through moral and material means. It created a rift between Sikh and Hindu Punjabis and had several violent repercussions but eventually it subsided and a common Punjabiyat reasserted itself. So even though, for a while, regional/linguistic identity was overtaken by religious identity, it came back into prominence after a couple of decades.Currently, caste divisions, especially among Sikhs in the UK have become prominent and have given rise to competitive politics and hostilities between the Jats on the one hand and the Dalit groups like Valmikis and Ravidaias on the other (Chanda and Ghosh 2012).

2.3 Gujarati Diaspora

Today, people of Gujarati origin can be found in as many as 129 out of the 190 countries listed as sovereign nations by the United Nations. Gujaratis comprise around 33% of the Indian diaspora worldwide. The US has the largest number of Gujaratis — 15 lakh. The UK has the next largest (seven lakh) followed by Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Historian Dwijendra Tripathi says the state’s long coastline has helped Gujaratis in forging business ties with people of other cultures. (TOI 2.1.2015)

The Guajarati diaspora is a complex one, composed broadly of four groups – the 19th and early 20th century diaspora in East and South Africa, those who migrated from East Africa to UK in the1970s following Idi Amin’s hostile policies and those who later relocated from UK to North America. And of course the fourth group is composed of emigrants directly from India in the second half of the 20th century: mainly skilled professionals and entrepreneurs. To use the vocabulary of diaspora studies, they are single, double and triple diasporas respectively. Despite such heterogeneity in location and time of emigration, this diaspora is relatively well-bonded as a community, and Gujarati region and language function as cementing factors. In the old diaspora, ie in East and South Africa, the Gujarati migrants came mainly for business and trade, and included both Hindus and Muslims. The religious divide did not have high salience, and the common regional and linguistic origins were powerful unifiers.

In the present day Gujarati diaspora, especially the new diaspora, Hindus and Muslims do not share the same kind of amity that was prevalent in the old diaspora. Recent developments in India that have increased communal tension and hostilities have had an impact on this

Among Hindus, no doubt caste is an internal divider, but there is some evidence that caste functions mainly for regulating marriage and that for every day social and community life, regional and linguistic bonds define community. Giving the example of community and caste associations of Gujaratis in Toronto, Ganesh (2011: 176-77) details the multiplicity and simultaneity of these varied range of associations. Associations such as Gujarati Samaj and Gujarati Cultural Society based on regional/linguistic identity are powerful.

Below them are caste associations such as Vanik Samaj and Patidar Samaj of Toronto. At the next level are sub caste associations like Surati Patidar Mandal, Chovisgam Patidar Samaj of Toronto. In addition, there are Gujarati Hindu religious associations such as Shri Swaminarayan Satsang Mandal of Toronto, Sanatan Mandir Cultural Centre and Jain Society of Toronto. All these organizations maintain large, independent memberships with of course some obvious overlaps. Their separate identities come to the fore when they are in competition with each other, as for example in the annual Raas Garba competition. They also cooperate with one another and participate in the activities of the umbrella organizations for Gujaratis, namely Federation of Gujarati Associations (FOGA) and the FOGA Charitable Foundation. The few pan- Hindu organizations like the Canadian Council of Gujaratis mobilize around fewer issues and meet less frequently, as also the pan-Indian associations like the Indo-Canadian Associations. Each level of organization – religious, caste, national, linguistic/regional becomes salient for particular purposes, and for social networking for routine everyday activities the last is the most significant.

3. LANGUAGE MAINTAINENCE, CULTIVATION AND SHIFTS

The relatively uniform socio -historical circumstances of the colonial period have led to a significant body of research focusing on language adaptation, change, maintenance and decline .The following section is drawn largely from Mesthrie (2006). While a number of languages like Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi were spoken in the various countries of the colonial Indian diaspora, Hindustani, i.e. a composite dialect of Urdu, Hindi and its various dialects like Bhojpuri, Magahi, Awadhi, Kanauji, Braj, etc was the “lingua franca” of the migration traffic (Ibid: 90). It also evolved in location specific ways and is given the term ‘Overseas Bhojpuri-Hindi’ to distinguish it from the dialects in India. But OBH is also region specific, and this process of development of a new dialect from existing dialects is called ‘koineisation’ (Ibid: 92). But given the complex socio-linguistic milieu in which the colonial emigrants found themselves, with multiple colonial and Indian languages prevalent, a pigdin or creole language specific to the location emerged for inter ethnic contact – In Fiji, Natal, Caribbean, etc. (Ibid: 91).

English was the language of prestige and was often in use along with the local creole. Native language usage got rarer. Still, native language, OBH was maintained to varying degrees in the different locations, and no single explanation can be given for why some locations maintained it better than others (Ibid: 93). Length of time as a diaspora is cited as a reason, but Mauritius which has the oldest Indian (colonial period) diaspora has preserved it better than later destinations like Caribbean or South Africa. It is argued that English is a ‘killer language’ and diasporas in non-English speaking locations preserve home language better, but the example of Fiji, an English colony with the best preserved Fijian Hindi contradicts this. Another explanation given is that industrialised and urbanized destinations maintain home language poorly, but then why is Bhojpuri obsolescent in Guyana which is largely rural.

Indians in the diaspora have not been negligent in promoting their languages and, apart from literary works, they have also publishing newspapers and journals . They have usually been multi-lingual, responding to the difficulty of communicating with any Indian diaspora, which is inevitably multilingual.

Mauritius in particular has been proactively promoting Bhojpuri through associations and institutions. Dr. Sarita Budhdhoo is one of the pioneers whose contribution to the strengthening of the language is well-recognized through the activities of the Bhojpuri Institute of Mauritius and Bhojpuri speaking Union.

Interview with Dr. Sarita Budhdhoo

In the post-independence diaspora, in UK Punjabi is the most widely spoken language followed by Bengali (many from Bangladesh) and Gujarati. In US, Hindi, Gujarati and Punjabi are the most frequently spoken. In these English speaking countries, Indian migrants, with their education in English back home, switch to English at home as well, and for the second and subsequent generations, ancestral languages remain a symbol of identity rather than a vehicle for communication(Ibid: 94).

4.      LINGUISTIC CULTURAL IDENTITY VS ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE

It is an instructive and ironic observation that although linguistic affiliation is a powerful mobilizer of diasporic identity, and the contents of this identity may include cultural practices in food, dress, festivals and ceremonies, music and dance , yet members of the diaspora especially the second and later generations may not actually include knowledge of or fluency in that language. The survival of mother tongues or home languages in the diaspora and their dynamics with other languages is highly variable. Diasporas in English speaking countries like US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc switch to English as home language pretty quickly, since they have already had exposure to and familiarity to and in many cases fluency in English.

In a study of second and third generation offspring of Indians in the US, Samarth (2013) finds that multilingualism exists in Indian diaspora, and many different languages are spoken at home, however, the transfer of home languages to the next generation depends upon many factors. The heavy use of English causes the attrition of home languages, and the Indian diaspora is aware of the fact that home languages are very important for maintaining Indian culture and identity, however, there is not enough efforts and motivation of parents and their children to speak and practice home languages. His study also shows that home languages survive with phrases and vocabulary related to mainly food, kinship terms, and religious and social rituals and ceremonies.

Ganesh (2015) demonstrates through two examples – that of South African Tamils and of Srilankan Tamils in Europe that mother tongue retention in the diaspora is influenced greatly by political factors. She describes how Tamil refugees from Srilanka who are migrants in Europe fiercely guard their mother tongue, since Tamil identity is their political plank in the longstanding struggle with Sinhala government. The dissemination of Tamil language to the children is given prime importance and weekend Tamil schools flourish with the aid of multicultural policies of European governments. Language is extended to culture and thus classical music, dance, religion, temple based devotion, etc. are promoted and propogated in the hostlands. (Ganesh 2014, 2015). On the other hand, in South Africa, where Tamils migrated as indentured labour and have settled for more than a century, Tamil as home language has practically disappeared among the current generation (Singh 2008: 9). In 1991 census, English was registered as mother tongue among 95% of Indian origin voters (GOI 2000: 85). Interestingly enough, lack of knowledge of Tamil does not preclude a strong sense of Tamil identity. As argued by Ganesh (2010: 32), as a counter to the alleged dominance of Hindi and Gujarati Indians in South Africa, Tamil identity is being mobilized as religion and culture rather than as language or literature. Eisenlohr (2007) describes and analyzes the case of Mauritius to throw light on the way language functions not just as a vehicle of communication but as a cultural element whose persistence may yield clues about the production of diasporic identity and that of nationalism (Ibid: 774). He makes the distinction between language of every day communication and allegiance to the ‘ancestral language’, which may not be in use at all but which becomes a device in the creation of “ethno-national” communities (Ibid: 784) .

Mauritius is an unusual case of an Indian diaspora, which is in a majority (two thirds of the population) in the country. Thus there is a large pool of Indian origin persons, which gives scope for internal diversities to get expressed and enables competition. Hindus at 52% and Muslims at 17% of the total population consider themselves as separate communities. The Hindus are divided into a large North Indian (particularly Bihar) and smaller Tamil, Telugu and Maharashtrian groups, even though among Muslims, such differences, though existing, are not highlighted. The larger category of Muslim is considered to subsume other differences. The Indo Mauritians speak a version of Creole for communication, and many also know Bhojpuri.

The significance of Indian ‘ancestral languages’ namely Hindi, Tamil, Telugu in Mauritius today lies in the state sanction and support for the teaching, propagation and celebration of these languages as markers of diasporic group identity. The modern, standardized forms of these languages which the state endorses, were not spoken by the migrants of the 19th century; they spoke Bhojpuri or colloquial forms of the other languages. Nor are these languages used for every day communication 775. The state has thus, through its policy of “disciplinary multiculturalism” actively encouraged the formation of ethno-linguistic communities built around the notion of Indian ancestral languages. It is noteworthy that in the early days of migration, during the British colonial period, the population was officially divided into ’Indo Mauritians’, ‘Sino Mauritians’ and ‘General Population’. After the second world war, however, in the background of growth of religious communalism among Indians, through activities of Hindu Mahasabha and Arya Samaj, and the crystallization of the categories of Hindu and Muslim, standardised Hindi as an ancestral language became a rallying identity of Hindus. However, the ground reality was that Tamil , Telugu and Marathi groups could not identify with this Hindi, and the governmental policy had to give status of ancestral languages to these other groups and to Urdu, which Muslims identified with. (Ibid:778-79).

This is the history that has resulted in an official division of the Indo-Mauritian Hindus into Hindi speakers, Tamil speakers, Telugu speakers and Marathi speakers. Such classificationsvia ancestral languages is considered useful by the state for controlling ambiguous social and political consequences of rapid industrial development, but upholding ‘tradition’ (Ibid: 776).

4.1 Indian vs. Regional/Linguistic Identities

Indian identity is an important component of diasporic identity; it is the mode through which the diaspora presents itself to the host and is so perceived. Yet everyday social interaction within families and within the community revolves around regional-linguistic identity. Social mixing, community festivals etc. are largely within this group. Indian identity is also displayed on special occasions like Independence Day or Republic Day or Diwali. Indian identity also comes to the fore for business, trade and govt. related activities. Miss India contests in the diaspora are a recent phenomenon, and are an example of burgeoning nationalism. Such a relatively mild expression of nationalism is seen when the diaspora is fairly well-settled and has been accepted in the hostland. Even so, the immigrants are identified as ‘Indians’ or as ‘Asians’ and not as ‘Gujaratis’ or ‘Punjabis ’. But in situations where there is some hostility towards them, the diaspora clings to the comfort of a national identity, and often it is thrust upon them as well. Whether it is South Africa or Malaysia or Fiji, there is a kind of racial/ethnic identification of Indian migrants as ‘Indians’ and thus this identity is also adopted by the Indians themselves as an external marker, not withstanding regional/ linguistic identities asserting themselves internally. Another kind of situation where nationalistic sentiments are espoused by diaspora involves crisis or significant situations in the homeland, where emotion and sentiment are mobilized in support of the homeland. The efforts of the Indian diaspora in the US to bail out India from the foreign exchange crisis and its lobbying for India’s ‘nuclear deal’ with the US are examples of ‘Long Distance Nationalism’.

Conclusion

In sum it can be said that linguistic and regional identities are an important component of diasporic identity making. They are in dynamic interaction with national (Indian), religious and caste loyalties. These are not necessarily incompatible, but which ones will prevail at a given moment is contingent and not predictable.

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