I think growing up with lots of family and Indians has made me more secure in my identity. Some kids who didn’t have strong cultural ties may have more conflicts. That said, all Indian-Americans are now reconciling

with their dual identities” says Karuna Jobanputra, a young Indian American who hails from a family that migrated to the United States in 1960s, a time when many Indians were moving out of the country in search of work and a better life.

This is a common story of any third or fourth generation Indian who has grown up in the US or any other country in secure settings. “In the UK, where I was born, multiculturalism is promoted. As a result, Indian heritage and British upbringing are both part of my identity. Indian culture thrives in the UK. Indian food, for example, is now accepted as a part of British cuisine and most people are familiar with Bollywood films. Within the Indian community itself, Indian languages like Hindi and Gujarati are widely used even among second or third generation British-Indians born outside India. But we’re also aware that we are British and this side of our identity becomes much more apparent when interacting with the wider UK population, at school or work,” states a journalist of Indian origin.

Karuna, who has an extensive family in India and visits often says, “Every family is different even within a bracket of shared culture. It also depends on how open immigrants are to experiencing American

“ culture, food, or the other cultures that are here. It is somewhat crucial for survival and flourishing to acclimate in new cultures, and personally I think Indians have learned to do it well, without compromising their values or customs. But then there are some who chose not to interact, and I think it may cause challenges to being “successful”.”

Retaining Indian culture

It is true that the non-resident Indians (NRIs) and the people of Indian origin (PIOs), despite being forced to regions such as Mauritius, Reunion Island, Guyana and East Africa as indentured labour during the British colonisation and emigrating to developed countries such as the US, Canada and European countries that offer shimmering opportunities and hopes in latter part of the 20th century, have managed to stay close to the cultural roots of their nation.

Rajaram Munuswamy migrated to France nearly three decades ago to study telecom engineering and has stayed back since. Married to an Indian woman and now with two children, Munuswamy feels he was never really cut away from the Indian culture. “Indian culture in the French-speaking countries has survived through the day to day commodities such as food, clothing, visual and verbal mediums such as temples and languages respectively,” says Munuswamy, who is also the secretary general of Gopio International, a body of Indian diaspora spread across over 50 countries.

That Indian culture can thrive in the community, even nearly two centuries after it migrated from India to a foreign shore can best be seen in the celebration of festivals like Diwali in the Reunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, lying between Mauritius and Madagascar. Even though the PIOs of the Reunion, numbering about 350,000 or 45 percent of the total population of the island today, had lost all contact with India for nearly 200 years, the island is home to several beautiful and fairly authentic Hindu temples, built in the typical South Indian fashion, which are lit up for the Diwali celebrations each year.

The dark sideBut it is not just the vibrant or

colourful aspects of Indian culture that are transported to the distant lands. Some of the worst traditions and practices of the Indian society find a way to emerge even in the ‘developed’ economies and despite the dual identities or a mélange of Indian and western cultures.

Treatment of women, dowry, caste barriers, gender discrimination and other ills that are prevalent in India can also be found in the adopted countries of the diaspora.

Like in any urban-Indian household, these practices may not be visible ordinarily but they are deeply embedded and surface during situations such as weddings. Practices such as caste and dowry come into play on such occasions as.families prefer to find a match within the same

When Indians travel to other parts of the world for work and better opportunities, they carry with them the culture as well. While it helps them to retain their identities, some customs and practices have tainted

the communities overseas.

Shweta Keshri

cultureBaggage of Indian

DIASPORA

54 January-February 2015 INDIA & YOU

caste. “Parents still want their children to marry within the same caste and ethnicity, and some parents are a bit more open-minded to allow an Indian from India. Generally parents want their kids to marry Indians and things turn a little difficult if it’s an outsider. But eventually kids win them over”, says Karuna.

The prevalence of caste or any regional division, however, is not merely limited to the weddings. “I have witnessed situations where the upper-caste Brahmins won’t have meals together with the people of barber communities who form the lower caste in India. While it is okay for them to mingle and talk together in a gathering, they show their distance at lunch or dinner and prefer to share their tables with people of the same caste. This is also seen among the employees of same office who are from different caste”, says Munuswamy reflecting over the caste division that is present in the lives of people of Indian origin in France.

On the other hand, Amrit Dhir, Indian-American lawyer, whose grandparents were born in East Africa while his parents moved to the US, states, “In my experience, I have seen religion and region factor as far more

relevant in the association and marriage decisions or actions of Indians in America than caste. Caste has certainly never come up in my house. To be honest, I don’t think most in my immediate family have any idea what caste we are! That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s not deemed relevant by some Indian-Americans” indicating that such divisions may have lost their existence in the third or fourth generation.

Recounting his experience, a journalist of Indian origin in London says, “My family is from Kutch in Gujarat and yet we were discriminated against by other Gujaratis in the UK.” On the role of caste during marriage, he adds, “Marrying outside of the Indian community has been a taboo but that’s changing and today many second and third generation British Indians go in for interracial marriages.” However, he says that there has been no case of untouchability, an extreme practice followed in the caste system in India that he has heard about in his community.

Another custom that is seen during weddings is dowry. While India is still fighting this age-old tradition in which a bride’s family is obliged to pay large sums in

cash or kind to the groom, the westward brothers are far from rejecting it either. “Generally dowry is practiced, and the justification used is because the groom’s family is doing all this, so the bride’s family has to give that much, too,” says Karuna, relating it to the social pressure that accompanies such conduct. She also adds that the dowry issue is more serious among the new immigrants who settle in the US with skilled jobs.

Marriages on false premises or complete untruths is another curse of the diaspora. Men, who are already married and have children, often visit India to lure unsuspecting parents with the prospect of their daughter getting married overseas and only to abandon their newly-wed wives as soon as they receive the dowry. Such marriages often lead to a complete abandoning of the girl in a distant land.

The old emigrants too are not completely devoid of this practice. Indian origin people in the Gulf countries also often seek virgin girls far younger than themselves. Newspaper reports have cited cases where young brides from India are circulated among entire communities in

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Abandonment of wives and dowry practices are some of the issues among the diaspora

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these countries. Some of the cases have originated in Hyderabad in southern India, a favourite hunting ground for brides for the Middle East countries. Though rare, but cases of honour killings have also scarred the reputation of Indian communities, mainly in the western nations.

While these are some of the most extreme and unfortunate examples, describing the scene in the UK, a journalist says, “It depends. If someone is marrying within the community, then I wouldn’t be surprised if a dowry was given as a way of keeping with tradition. But like I mentioned, inter-racial marriages among Indians are becoming common in the UK. In these marriages, it’s unlikely that a dowry is given.”

Gender based discrimination

While gender discrimination is not unique to the Indian society, this malaise is very widespread and fairly high as compared to some developed countries. The contrast shows up glaringly in the Indian diaspora living in these countries.

As a girl raised in an Indian-American family, Karuna says, “Girls are still discriminated against, and boys have more freedom than them. Women can’t do as much as men can. Like guys can travel alone, and go places alone, and not be questioned, while women don’t have the same freedom.” She further recounts from her experience, “Living together before marriage is a big no, dating is not allowed

and talking to boys is somewhat suspicious, girls going off by themselves and living far away is not ok, college is made an exception because sometimes good education is given greater consideration, but it is a constant negotiation for a girl. Scholarship money may aid this decision, however.”

These biases also give rise to preference of having a boy over girl child and unfortunately cases of female foeticide have also been reported. “Son favouring, I have heard, does happen, again mostly among the recent immigrants. But, I think it comes from in-laws’ pressure”, says Karuna. “There still may be a preference for a boy within the Indian community in the UK, but female foeticide is not practiced. However, that’s not to say isolated cases don’t exist”, says another Indian expat in the UK.

“As such, the British Indian women, who are given the same access to education as men by their families, are much more empowered than their counterparts who have not had the same access. But the world over, male dominated societies prevail and that includes the UK and so hurdles do exist.”

However, in the Indo-French community it comes as a pleasant surprise that such practice of son favouring does not exist. As states Munuswamy, “French government supports every child and law governs France unlike India that mostly survives on individuals.”

He, however, adds that among the recent immigrants, problems such as female

Marriages on false premises or complete untruths is another curse of the diaspora

foeticide and domestic violence could exist. These complications arise typically if the woman is not financially independent.

Discrimination also reinforces stereotypic roles of the men and women. “I think that these are probably more rigidly defined for Indian-Americans than for non-Indian Americans, with men expected to work and women expected to stay home, cook, and take care of the family. But, just as with other Americans, I think, these are being challenged with second generation and later, and there are certainly examples of alternative arrangements.” Nevertheless, as the emigrants move in search of work, it is not as orthodox because both the spouses have to work for a good lifestyle.

“In America, since everyone is starting from a scratch, for the immigrants that came in the 60’ and 70’s both women and men were working because everyone was trying to establish themselves. So if the dad was bringing in the money and could afford for the mom to stay home, then you could see that happening. But among the kids from these parents, women are often working in skilled jobs, so in my generation, both men and women work.”

While the extent and statistics may not be the same as in India, but the evil practices evidently have travelled with the Indians. It is a relief, however, that by the third and fourth generation they start disappearing. However, as fresh emigration continues, mainly lured by jobs in sunrise sectors such as technology and finance and mainly in the US, the ills of Indian society continue to arrive across the oceans. Abandoning of newly-wed wives, with their American dreams, and rising domestic violence among the Indian communities abroad is something to be concerned about. n

Gender discrimination has scarred the Indian communities overseas as well

January-February 2015 INDIA & YOU