Kala Pani Crossings

Kala Pani Crossings
Author: Ashutosh Bhardwaj
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-12-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 100051319X

When used in India, the term Kala pani refers to the cellular jail in Port Blair, where the British colonisers sent a select category of freedom fighters. In the diaspora it refers to the transoceanic migration of indentured labour from India to plantation colonies across the globe from the mid-19th century onwards. This volume discusses the legacies of indenture in the Caribbean, Reunion, Mauritius, and Fiji, and how they still imbue our present. More importantly, it draws attention to India and raises new questions: doesn’t one need, at some stage, to wonder why this forgotten chapter of Indian history needs to be retrieved? How is it that this history is better known outside India than in India itself? What are the advantages of shining a torch onto a history that was made invisible? Why have the tribulations of the old diaspora been swept under the carpet at a time when the successes of the new diaspora have been foregrounded? What do we stand to gain from resurrecting these histories in the early 21st century and from shifting our perspectives? A key volume on Indian diaspora, modern history, indentured labour, and the legacy of indentureship, this co-edited collection of essays examines these questions largely through the frame of important works of literature and cinema, folk songs, and oral tales, making it an artistic enquiry of the past and of the present. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of world history, especially labour history, literature, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, diaspora studies, sociology and social anthropology, Indian Ocean studies, and South Asian studies.

Kala Pani Crossings, Gender and Diaspora

Kala Pani Crossings, Gender and Diaspora
Author: Judith Misrahi-Barak
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2023-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 100381610X

This volume explores the intersections of diaspora and gender within the diasporic and Indian imagination. It investigates the ways in which race, class, caste, gender, and sexuality intersect with concepts of home, belonging, displacement and the reinvention of the nation and of self. Positioning itself as a companion to Kala Pani Crossings: Revisiting 19th century Migrations from India’s Perspective (Routledge, 2021), the present book examines whether indentureship and diasporic locations marginalised women and men or empowered them; how negotiations or resistances have been determined by race, class, caste, or ethnicity; how traditional standards of Indianness and gender relations have been reshaped; how ideas of home, self and the nation have been impacted in the diaspora and in India after the 19th and early 20th century indentureship migration; and what 21st century Indians stand to gain by theorizing the legacy of 19th century indenture through a gender framework. To understand how fiction and non-fiction writers have negotiated the legacy of indentureship to create spaces where normative practices can be interrogated and challenged, the book gives pride of place to interviews with writers such as Cyril Dabydeen, Ananda Devi, Ramabai Espinet, Davina Ittoo, Brij Lal, Peggy Mohan, Shani Mootoo, and Khal Torabully. Thus rooted in critical analyses but also in subjective and creative perspectives, this volume is a major intervention in understanding Indian indenture and its legacy in the diaspora and in India. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literature, history, Indian Ocean studies, migration and South Asian studies.

Gender Negotiations among Indians in Trinidad 1917–1947

Gender Negotiations among Indians in Trinidad 1917–1947
Author: P. Mohammed
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2002-01-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1403914168

This book is about the struggles of female and male descendants of Indian indentured migrants in Trinidad in the first half of the twentieth century, each desiring to preserve some aspects of the gender system brought from India between 1845 and 1917, which were important to their continued definition of ethnic identity and community in Trinidad. At the same time the situation of migration allows for challenges to the caste system of Hinduism and, for women and some men, new opportunities to confront the more restricting aspect of Indian patriarchy which followed them across the seas from India.

Coolitude

Coolitude
Author: Marina Carter
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843310031

A deconstruction of the stereotypical depictions of the coolie in the British Empire.

Diasporic (dis)locations

Diasporic (dis)locations
Author: Brinda J. Mehta
Publisher:
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2004
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9789766401573

Indo-Caribbean women writers are virtually invisible in the literary landscape because of cultural and social inhibitions and literary chauvinism. Until recently, the richness and particularities of the experiences of these writers in the field of literature and literary studies were compromised by stereotypical representations of the Indo-Caribbean women that were narrated from a purely masculine or an Afrocentric point of view. This book fills an important gap in an important but underestimated emergent field. The book explores how cultural traditions and female modes of opposition to patriarchal control were transplanted from India and rearticulated in the Indo-Caribbean diaspora to determine whether the idea of cultural continuity is, in fact, a postcolonial reality or a fictionalized myth. kala pani, to Trinidad and Guyana provided courage, determination, self-reliance and sexual independence to their literary granddaughters who in turn used the kala pani as the necessary language and frame of reference to position Indo-Caribbean female subjectivity with equating writing as a pubic declaration of one's identity and right to claim creative agency. The book is of critical interest to those interested in twentieth-century literary studies, Caribbean studies, gender studies, ethnic studies and cultural studies.

Diaspora Christianities

Diaspora Christianities
Author: Sam George
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506447066

South Asians make up one of the largest diasporas in the world and Christians form a relatively large share of it. Christians from the Indian subcontinent have successfully transplanted themselves all over the globe, and many from different faith backgrounds have embraced Christianity at overseas locations. This volume includes biblical reflections on diasporic life, charts the historical and geographical spread of South Asian Christianity, and closes with a call to missional living in diaspora. It analyzes how migrants revive Christianity in adopted host nations and ancestral homelands. This book portrays the fascinating saga of Christians of South Asian origin who have pitched their tents in the furthest corners of the globe and showcases triumphs and challenges of scattered communities. It presents the contemporary religious experiences from a plethora of discrete perspectives. It deals with issues such as community history, struggles of identity and belonging, linkage of religious and cultural traditions, preservation and adaptation of faith practices, ties between ancestral homeland and host nation, and diasporic moral dilemmas in diaspora. This book argues that human scattering amplifies diversity within Christianity and for the need for hetrogeneous unity amidst great diversities.

Jahajin

Jahajin
Author: Peggy Mohan
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2008-01-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9351360504

From Calcutta to Trinidad they went, the girmitiyas, crossing two oceans to reach their new homes on the other side of the world. jahajin illuminates for us the extraordinary experience of that jouney, the train ride from faizabad to calcutta, the passage down the hooghly. the three-month voyage around the stormy cape and up the Atlantic to Trinnidad, where the weary migrants settled into life as indentured labourers on the sugar estates. The novel opens with the narrator, a young linguist, talking to 110-year-old Deeda, who came to the caribbean on the same ship as her great great grandmother. Deeda speaks of leaving her village in basti with her son and sailing across the seas to "Chini-dad", the land of sugar, and about the life and friendships she built on her estate.Nested within this larger story is the dreamlike myth of Saranga, torn between her monkey-lover and her prince. Deeda's stories of a lost world captivate the younger woman, encouraging her to make the journey back across the kala pani. Alive with compelling characters and the lilt of Trinidad Bhojpuri, Jahajin gathers up the various narratives of relocation and transformation across a century in a tale that is part history and part fairy tale.

Sharing Jesus with Hindus

Sharing Jesus with Hindus
Author: Sam George
Publisher: William Carey Publishing
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2024-07-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1645085902

Building Authentic Relationships with Hindus Indians make up the world’s largest diaspora community, and most of them are Hindus of diverse backgrounds, languages, and cultures. Millions of Hindus have migrated abroad in recent decades and are well-settled in different countries while many more are expected to be dispersed far and wide in the coming years. Many of them are highly educated and skilled, professionally successful, culturally adaptive, and very religious in their outlook. Sharing Jesus with Hindus is the collective wisdom of many seasoned ministry leaders and practitioners about how to minister effectively to contemporary global Hindus. The contributors are situated in different parts of the world, and some come from Hindu backgrounds themselves. Emerging from an international conference on mission to and among Hindus worldwide, this book provides practical ministry strategies and scholarly reflections drawn from decades of insight. The authors have experience in diasporic living and ministering to Hindus in diverse contexts. Learn how to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with your new neighbors from the Indian subcontinent. Avoid common mistakes and be an effective Christian witness to Hindus globally. Here is an essential resource in the toolkit of every church and Christian ministry worldwide.