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'Over the last twenty years or so, Indian diaspora has suddenly come of age. Shedding its minority status, it has demonstrated its inclination for becoming a majority, not in the sense of numerical superiority, but of growing up, maturing, attaining self-apprehension and self-expression. It can now look at itself, the host country, and the homeland, with a critical humor that has not necessarily dulled its passion or lessened the intensity of its engagement. Moreover, the Indian diaspora has become an important economic force, whose reputed net worth exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars. It is, at once, more mobile and cohesive than ever before, what with faster means of travel and communication. Not only has the old diaspora made inroads into the new, but the access of all the scattered peoples of Indian origin to India, the motherland, has also increased dramatically. Now, it actually seems as if this diaspora has an unprecedented ascendancy and leverage both in the host country and the homeland.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Papers presented at an international seminar held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, from the 27th to the 30th of September 2000.
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Contents indexed selectively.
Contents
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The Adventure of Indenture : A Diasporic Identity,
single work
essay
(p. 301-317)
Nandan draws on literary work by V. S. Naipaul and critical work by Salman Rushdie, Stuart Hall and Edward Said to discuss issues of identity and belonging. He mentions how the Indian epic the Ramayana offered solace to his parents and grandparents who related Rama's banishment to indenture/exile in Fiji, and he suggests that tensions between Indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians may be read in relation to the ancient fratricidal war depicted in the Mahabharata. Yet however important these two epics are to 'the Indian psyche,' Nandan believes they 'are still profoundly limited' as allegories of the Indian diaspora. He turns instead to the indenture experience itself and to Gandhi's sojourn in South Africa. The essay ends with an extract from 'Travelling into a Far Country' from Nandan's selected work Lines Across Black Waters.
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The Feudal Post-Colonial : The Fiji Crisis,
single work
criticism
(p. 319-340)This essay focuses on the coup that took place in Fiji on the 19th of May 2000. It begins with a couple of autobiographical anecdotes regarding Mishra's school days in Fiji and goes on to examine Fijian and Indo-Fijian histories. Mishra then discusses the role played by the self-proclaimed leader of the 2000 coup, George Speight, and Speight's kailoma heritage (literally 'child of love,' kailoma is used to refer to the 'part-European community' in Fiji).
