Assignment Code: MSOE-002/AST/TMA/2022-2023

Course Code: MSOE-002

Assignment Name: Diaspora and Transnational Communities

Year: 2022-2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Answer any five questions selecting at least two from each Section. Your answer should be in about 500 words each.

Section-1

Q1) Briefly examine the nature of Jewish Diaspora.

Ans) The dispersion of Israelites or Jews from their ancient ancestral country and their subsequent settlement in different regions of the world is known as the Jewish diaspora or exile. The word Exile in the Hebrew Bible refers to the fate of the Israelites who were exiled from the Kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BCE and the Judahites who were exiled from the Kingdom of Judah in the sixth century BCE. The name "Jew" was first used in the Bible in reference to "Mordecai the Jew" in the Book of Esther, referring to the exiled Judahites.

The Assyrian exile, which Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria began in the Kingdom of Israel in 733 BCE, was the first exile. With the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, Sargon II brought to an end a three-year siege of Samaria that had been started by Shalmaneser V. The Babylonian captivity, which took place between 597 and 586 BCE under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II's Neo-Babylonian Empire, saw the deportation of a portion of the Kingdom of Judah's populace.

Before the destruction of the Second Temple, there was a long period of Jewish migration, and for the most part, their residence abroad was not forced upon them. Large Jewish communities existed outside of Judea, Syria, and Babylonia before the middle of the first century CE, as well as in Rome itself, the Roman provinces of Egypt, Crete, and Cyrenaica. After the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, when the Hasmonean kingdom became a protectorate of Rome, emigration increased.

The area was set up as the Roman province of Judea in 6 CE. In the First Jewish-Roman War, which ended in Jerusalem's destruction in 70 CE, the Judean population rose up in rebellion against the Roman Empire in 66 CE. The Second Temple and the majority of Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans during the siege. Many Jews were inspired by this pivotal event the destruction of the core emblem of Judaism and Jewish identity to redefine themselves and prepare for an extended period of displacement.

Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina as a result of the uprising Bar Kokhba led against Hadrian in 132 CE. The revolt was put down after four years of brutal fighting, and Jews were prohibited from visiting Jerusalem. Jews split into various regional groups during the Middle Ages as a result of increased migration and resettlement; these groups are still recognised today as the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia, North Africa, and the Middle East.

In addition to a string of killings, persecutions, and expulsions including the expulsions from England in 1290, Spain in 1492, and Arab nations in 1948–1973 these communities have a parallel history that is marked by many cultural parallels. Since the late Roman era until the present, despite the fact that the two branches have many distinct ethno-cultural practises and connections to their native host populations, Sephardim and Ashkenazim have shared a common sense of Jewish identity due to their shared religion and ancestry, constant communication, and population transfers.

Q2) Describe the migration patterns of Indian Diaspora to the Gulf region.

Ans) The public conversation on immigration in India is frequently dominated by migration from India to the Gulf nations. But it frequently lacks the Gulf destination viewpoint. The sensitivity and opacity of Gulf regimes toward migratory issues contributes to this uneven awareness. The one-sided perspective of the Indian diaspora in the Gulf is also a result of incomplete statistics and censorship of media and academic studies on migration.

Many Indians flocked to the Gulf region in the 1970s due to the oil boom. Despite having little chance of settling down or obtaining local citizenship, a sizable portion of them continued to work for a considerable amount of time. This helped India's foreign exchange reserve, which at the beginning of the 1990s was a relatively limited resource. On this, the Indian government moved quickly. improved banking and other infrastructure to facilitate the repatriation of foreign currency.

The interest rate on foreign exchange deposits increased as a result. It raised the concern of its migrant workers' wellbeing in west Asian nations. To prevent worker exploitation and deportation, it developed a policy and passed legislation requiring the registration of labour recruiters. India is the world's leading sender of remittances and the greatest source of overseas migrants. Indian migration to the Gulf has been a significant source of income for the country since the 1970s oil boom, and through the transfer of remittances, it has acted as the foundation of the economies of high-migration states like Kerala.

Indian migrant workers have significantly aided the Gulf States' economic growth throughout this period. However, the treatment of domestic and blue-collar expatriate workers in the region has come under increasing international scrutiny and condemnation in recent years, which has cast migration from India to the Gulf in a much less favourable light. As a result, the Indian government is now paying more attention to diaspora affairs and worker welfare concerns. Nevertheless, migrant labourers continue to complain about various types of abuse, exploitation, and suffering.

Following the 1970s oil boom, there was an increase in the migration of Indian labourers to the Gulf. As the economy of the Gulf states grew dramatically in the decades that followed, the numbers gradually increased. Due to a lack of local labour, the Gulf region began to invite international employees. Due to South Asian workers' willingness to accept low-paying, low-skilled occupations, Gulf countries were especially interested in hiring more labourers from these regions.

Due to economic slowdowns, shifting oil prices, and changes in Gulf labour policies, the outflow of Indian migrants to the region has slowed while return migration has surged. The Coronavirus pandemic, which poses unprecedented health and livelihood challenges for the millions of Indians working in the Gulf as well as for the families and communities that depend on them, further clouds the future of migration from India to the Gulf and puts the Indian government to a difficult test.

Q3) What are the five patterns of Indian emigration?

Ans) Indian emigration has historically followed five major patterns that can be distinguished:

Indentured Labour Emigration

An indenture was a contract that required the immigrant to carry out the task allocated to him for a specific company for a period of three to five years in exchange for a set salary. The labourer had the option to renew the contract or find employment elsewhere in the colony at the conclusion of it. He was qualified for a discounted return passage after 10 years. Indian indentured labour migration started in 1834 and came to a stop formally in 1920. West Indian colonies, Fiji, South Africa, Mauritius, Malaysia, and Ceylon were the main importers of Indian labour.

Kangani/Maistry Labour Emigration

South Indian labour was exported to Malaysia and Sri Lanka via the kangani system of recruiting and to Burma via the maistry system. The anglicised form of the Tamil word kankani, which means overseer or foreman, is kangani. In India, a kangani used to hire coolies through this arrangement by paying their expenditures in advance. The maistry system and the kangani system were roughly equivalent, but the former was characterised by a gradation of middlemen-employers and the numerous illicit deductions. Coolies were legally free under these institutions, unlike indentured labourers. Both a contract and a set term of service were absent.

The Kangani system was in place from the start of the first part of the nineteenth century until it was finally abolished in 1938. Sometime during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, the Maistry system was introduced. It is unclear exactly how many Indians immigrated via these systems. Around ten million Indian migrants travelled back and forth from Malaysia, Ceylon, and Burma to India overall. Hindus who spoke Tamil made up the majority of the immigrants from India; the remainder were Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs.

Passage Emigration

Passage or free emigration, or the emigration of commercial castes and classes, was the third type of Indian migration inside the British empire. In South Africa, as well as the East African nations of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, where Gujaratis and Panjabis migrated mostly during and after the Second World War, passage emigration was prevalent. Indian immigration to East Africa happened after the British and other European nations "opened up" that region.

The opening of the Ugandan railway created new economic prospects both along the railway's course and in the hinterland. Indians, primarily Gujaratis, quickly became established dukanwalas. They controlled trade and business operations in the towns. Indians worked as nurserymen, tailors, barbers, saddlers, bootmakers, small contractors, moneylenders, quarry masters, dealers in lime, sand, stone, and domestic fuel, among other trades. They were also merchants of native produce. Many of these businessmen gained notoriety, and some of them enjoyed great success.

Brain Drain

Although the history of Indian emigration dates back to the early twentieth century in North America and the nineteenth century in Britain, the large-scale migration of Indians to the advanced industrial cultures of Europe and North America began in the late 1960s. These types of migration are characterised by their complete voluntariness, the emigration of highly educated professionals, and the emigration of skilled or semi-skilled industrial workers.

Labour Emigration to West Asia

The Indian migration to West Asia makes up the fifth and final emigration trend. This emigration pattern is distinct from the preceding ones in that all migrants are often "contract" employees who are not permitted to remain in their countries of destination permanently. We now know very little about any permanently residing Indian populations in West Asia from a sociological perspective. Given the volatility of the West Asian labour market, both the skill mix and the number of Indians who have emigrated there fluctuate over time.

Section-2

Q1) Discuss the role of Bollywood in the representation of the Indian diaspora. 20

Ans) Desire Temples, According to Vijay Mishra, any study of contemporary Indian popular cinema must take into account the part it plays in the lives of the Indian diaspora's citizens. He makes a distinction between two instances of the creation of diasporas. Indentured labourers were first transported to the colonies, followed by the post-1960s phenomena of economic migration to the major cities of Australia, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain.

According to Mishra, the migrants of this second phase have fundamentally altered Indian interpretations of the diaspora and redefined cultural forms that regard this diaspora as one of their major receivers. They are commonly referred to as NRIs. Bollywood serves the purpose of connecting the country to the diaspora and fosters an atmosphere of fictitious unity among the various linguistic and national groupings that make up the South Asian diaspora. According to Mishra, the relationship between the imagination and social life must be deterritorialized and made more universal.

When South Asia is reduced to a homogenised monoculture with an orientalised picture of India serving as a stand-in, such an interpretation of Bollywood becomes difficult. By presenting individuals in Main Street Vancouver and Southall, London with shared emotional structures that in turn foster a global sense of communal togetherness, Bombay film educates a restricted ethnicity that finds its imaginative realism through a certain style of movie.

Here, Vijay Mishra poses fundamental queries about where one belongs, what it means to be rooted, and how Bollywood fits into these identity disputes. The study by Marie Gillespie, which explores what it means to be British and Indian and asks anthropological questions about how Britain and India are perceived in relation to young British Asians' viewing habits of Hindi movies, is also instructive in this regard. She claims that Indian movies are affecting how young people in Southall, London, view the continent, particularly for those who have never visited India in person.

The increased popularity of Bollywood movies and the South Asian diaspora raises the possibility that Bollywood's style has some form of cultural value beyond its financial value. Thus, it would also be oversimplified to analyse Hindi cinema as purely escapist amusement. Rajinder Dudrah makes a strong case for the need to consider escapist entertainment in more nuanced terms. According to him, it is important to study Bollywood cinema as "part and parcel of cultural and social processes and elaborated on, though not primarily, by an interaction with genuine social themes."

The Bombay film has been disregarded by scholars far too frequently since it is so difficult to categorise, making it problematic to apply methodology used to analyse Hollywood movies to this picture as well. There is a case to be made for the development of fresh approaches to understand Bollywood cinema in its own terms. According to some, Bollywood might be considered as a centrifugal force opposing Hollywood's efforts to homogenise cultures within the context of globalisation. As a result, "the spread and fragmentation of India's dream space has been facilitated by the commercial cinema's global circulation, whose spectacle and storey have spawned a variety of fantasies for diasporic populations and others."

Q2) Write a note on the socio-cultural linkages between Indian diasporas.

Ans) While the relationship between India and the Indian diaspora has received a lot of attention, the relationships inside the Indian diaspora communities are given comparatively less thought. In order to represent and uphold a culture distinct from that of the countries in which they live, diaspora communities frequently maintain close ties to both their country and culture of origin and to communities from other nations with a similar social history. People of Indian descent from Trinidad and Guyana have been able to marry and form kinship relationships because they have a lot in common.

India is exceptional for the scope of her diversity, which is mirrored in her diasporic populations, in terms of languages and regions, religions and sects, castes and subcastes, rural and urban, food, and fashion. Therefore, it is not unusual to find vast networks among the Indian diaspora based on language and location, religion, and caste. Examples of such vast, worldwide networks include the Hindu and Sikh diasporas. Similar to this, there are diasporic groups founded on linguistic or regional identities, like Punjabis.

The distance between nations, as well as the shared historical experiences, sociocultural conditions, and political situations of the countries, are all factors that might play a role in determining the ties between members of the Indian diaspora. Individuals of Indian ancestry in Guyana and Trinidad share more characteristics with one another than do people of Indian ancestry in other regions of the world. Both parties have a history of wedlock and are connected through a network of relatives.

Asians who were originally from Uganda but have now relocated to the United States or other nations continue to stay connected with their families and former home country. A sizeable number of Fijian Indians settled in several continents after leaving their homeland. They stay connected with members of their family who live in Fiji as well as in other countries such as New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and so on. When members of the same family relocate to different countries, they maintain contact with one another and eventually meet up again. The majority of the time, these families have a robust financial basis in addition to an extensive network.

In certain circumstances, the idea of a diaspora culture appears to be diluted as diaspora populations pass through their second, third, and fourth generations. Intercultural marriage, successful assimilation into the dominant community, and the fading of hopes for a future return cause the diaspora sentiment to erode. In many of these situations, the reasons for diaspora attachment become irrelevant. In several nations, Indian diaspora has these kinds of experiences. In several regions of African and European nations, people of Indian descent have blended with the local population through marriage.