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How do Indians from India feel about Indo-Caribbean people, if they feel anything at all?

The best way to gain knowledge on this topic would be to read the works of Professor Kapil Kumar from Indira Gandhi Open University in Delhi and of Dr. S.Maharaj-Ramdial from Trinidad.

Professor Kumar is India’s most senior professor of history, specialising in the colonial period which saw the indentureship of Indians from India to the Caribbean and elsewhere. His own doctoral work as a young man was on the first hand records of an Indentured labourer returning to India to fight the British. He has also lived in, taught, lectured and visited many of those countries, arranged visits on both sides, as well as interviewed Indians in India from the places of origin , and researched archival records in Delhi, Calcutta and the Caribbean countries (and elsewhere such as South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius etc.) So his expertise as an Indian citizen, a historian, also as an Indian in contact with not one or two, but many Indian descendants in the Caribbean, and his work in highlighting the history and needs of Indo-Caribbean people, through conferences, books, radio and television programmes, posts etc., make him the foremost authority on this field.

Dr. Maharaj-Ramdial has written and researched on the linkages between India and PIO’s (or People of Indian Origin), and has used her work as a psychologist to analyse information from a psychological perspective, not just social or economic etc. She also comes from the same country as VS Naipaul and even after decades, you’d find that his writings on how it feels to be an Indian in the West Indies, still remains true to a large extent when compared to Dr. Maharaj-Ramdial’s research today. Because she is not linked to academia, her work is not tainted in following the established colonial era theories taught about India and Indians etc in those countries.

For now though, some points:

  1. Most Indians do not know much about Indo-Caribbean people, if anything at all. They are mostly surprised that Indians live there, other than a few who play for the West Indies Cricket Team, and generally feel that they must be recent migrants or first generation Indians. This is because the history of indentureship is not taught in Indian schools etc.
  2. Being colonial countries, the West Indies faced the same sort of divide and rule that Britain practiced in India.The role of the Church played a strong part in converting and these new converts gained new posts(including in the field of education), in the newly independent countries. This meant that on the West Indies’s side, the history of India was not taught.
  3. Indian descendants in the region do not know that much of what they were told by their leading academics were untrue. Such as : Most of the Indians were ‘low caste’; India was poor and people were happy to flee from her; early Indians did not want to return to India; once an Indian Hindu crossed sea water, his caste was broken and he could not return; only poor people left India; people left because of casteism, fatalism, and Hindu beliefs; it was good they left since only backward people live there; and all pundits who came to the colonies are not really from brahmin families and are therefore fake, so no need to follow Hinduism etc.
  4. If you manage to read the works of those above, you would find that in actuality, many of the Indians who left India for those countries, were not landless vagrants, but were those who fought the British in the great 1857 so called “Sepoy Munity” (sepoy meaning soldier) which shows that Indians even in the British army in India, did not consider British rule as beneficial or benevolent and fought against it at the highest levels long before India finally got her independence in 1947. It also explains why the British became even more aggressive in prosecuting Indians suspected as freedom fighters, and of dividing Indians further by shipping them overseas. West Indian academics teach that Indians willingly came to work on plantations in the Caribbean region, but British administrative records in India herself and in England demonstrate that the primary underlying reason after 1857 was to ship and incarcerate Indians away from India, starting in the islands of the Andamans to the east of India, and to Mauritius and elsewhere etc. This was the exact practice they followed with law breakers in Britain itself, by shipping them, as is well-known, to Australia. In fact, even today, far from the Caribbean region, the strait of water in the Bay of Bengal between India and the Andaman islands is still referred to by Indians as the kala pani, signifying that once one crossed it, there was no return, since it meant life imprisonment. Indian indentureship then, was not solely to transport for cheap labour following the collapse of slavery or a willing decision by Indians as Caribbean academics teach, but a deliberate political decision by Britain to crush any future united Indian popular revolt.
  5. This meant that Indians often had to change caste and name to escape death by the British. Brahmins and kshatriyas were most targeted since as Hindu leaders and as warriors, they formed a natural opposition to British rule, which used missionary work as a tool to destroy the the indigenous culture and religions of India. Consequently all castes suffered under the British, and were united against them. It means too that the theory that all who became labourers in the colonies were ‘’low caste’ or fleeing Hindu persecution, was untrue. The British further CREATED the hundreds of castes that show up in records, (the original is just 4) when many of these were never castes at all, such as someone selling oil or cloth or jewelry or produce etc. All these were just vaisya or merchants. Britain wanted to identify everyone after the series of rebellions for freedom, and placing everyone on a different ‘caste’ was considered a good way of diving them from uniting too. This is also why in the Caribbean all these caste variations never came up: they just didn’t exist long enough in India by the time the British were sending Indians overseas.
  6. Indo-Caribbean people also don’t know that Britain practiced a scourch earth policy in retaliation against those regions in North India which was fighting for freedom, which caused the poverty in India (India was always rich, but looted by the British: hence the reference to India as “The Crown Jewel” or “The Jewel of the British Empire.” etc. Such a term could only be used for a wealthy country whose riches were the pride of the colonial empire.)
  7. Also, Indians in the villages today still sing songs grieving for those who left (which goes against what was told about breaking caste and unwanted and unable to return to India). In addition, those Indians who went to those countries to earn money to remit to India after those British policies, only to find their return contracts revoked time and again by Britain and thus forced to remain under ever changing regulations in the new countries, so Britain would always have a supply of labour. Britain also prevented letters and money from returning so families lost contact. This is why after some time, Indians still loved India, but had formed families in the new countries, and didn’t have contact with their loved ones back home. This led to the feeling that they could no longer return since there was no knowledge of the existence or even whereabouts of their families in India (there was a lot of forced internal migration in India thanks to the British pursuit and punishment of anyone even suspected of acting against them.) On the Indians’ side, in India, some also forgot about who left and where they went. This wasn’t the same as not missing each other. Policies inflicted over time, caused a lot of damage.

Indians (in India) mostly therefore don’t know about these aspects of Indo-Caribbean people and can be somewhat unkind in their reactions as to why Indo-Caribbean people from former British colonies, no longer speak Hindi, Avadhi, Brij Basha, Bhojpuri, Urdu etc. They don’t know that the British and later ‘independent’ Caribbean governments did their best to suppress Indian languages, culture and religion. Regarding this latter point, Indians also find the practice of Hinduism by those in the Caribbean to be very traditional ( since the practices are based on traditions of approximately 170 years ago). Indians also cannot conceive why there is little caste discrimination, and feel this is due to caste homogeny among the Indo-Caribbean population, which is untrue.

Other differences which also affect how Indians perceive Indo-Caribbean people are that there is also no system of dowry at all; arranged marriages do not exist; daughters are equally regarded as are sons; and are even better educated etc etc. Ironically, these are seen by Indians are ‘too western’, although many in India would like the adoption of these more into Indian society. Because there is less emphasis on marrying for wealth, or based on caste and skin colour, Indians also believe Indo-Caribbean people to be poor and unattractive: not understanding that is is usually considered boastful and in bad taste to speak of income and wealth; that variations of skin colours do exist, even in a hot sunny tropical region, and marrying just based on caste is seen as less relevant compared to education, character and personality.

There is a lot about this topic and how both sides feel about the other. So do read the above since the work is based on accounts of many people from both sides plus historical research.

I agree with those below, that Indo-Caribbean people see India as a motherland and wish India had done more or would still do more for the diaspora. It is also worsened by the fact that ‘independent’ West Indian governments whose countries contain even a sizable Indian diaspora like Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and Jamaica, either do not, or very rarely showcase this population and or their culture at a state or international level. It is left to the diaspora itself to project their existence privately, and consequently on a smaller scale, since governments consider this population and their culture as being Indian and not creole or Afro-Caribbean, which is image projected instead.

As a result, if younger generations feel more distant from India, is has a lot to do with the fact that many of them are forced to migrate from these Caribbean countries particularly to North America or Europe, in order to escape the racism Indian descendants experience. This also explains why some have converted or distanced themselves from India, just to adapt either in the Caribbean countries or abroad, without prejudicial treatment.

Indians really need to learn more about this diaspora, who despite everything, has still tried to maintain their Indian culture as much as possible.

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Guyanese East Indians are their own race. If you check our DNA you will find some West African DNA in there. That is from our distant African grandmothers who took our distant Indian grandfathers just off the boat.

Prashad

The Base is 100% Indian!  But true, many indo-Guyanese have African blood but pass a pure Indian!  I linked up with many on 23 & Me, and most are 100% South/South East Asian!

When I lived in India, many were interested in Indian culture of the Caribbean!  They see temples, Buddha statues, etc and were interested!

Baseman
Dave posted:

I struggle more of the fact why females wear scarf in that part of the world ( South America) and why we don’t speak Spanish. 

Bai, leff the girls and admire them!  You struggling with stupidness!

Baseman
Dave posted:

Very informative and logical. This needs to be vastly shared amongst Indians all over the world but especially with those whose identity and culture were fiddled with.

Dave , every week i have to disclose my ethnic identify , having casual conversations with my customers, they think i am from India , will proudly state born in Guyana S.A  and will give an explanation how  our ethnicity, started in the country and the Caribbean.

Django
Last edited by Django
Django posted:
Dave posted:

Very informative and logical. This needs to be vastly shared amongst Indians all over the world but especially with those whose identity and culture were fiddled with.

Dave , every week i have to disclose my ethnic identify , having casual conversations with my customers, they think i am from India , will proudly state from Guyana S.A. and how our ethnicity, started in the country and the Caribbean.

I experience the same thing bhai, I am quick to say I am from the Caribbean, if I say Guyana only, they think it’s Ghana.  

 

FM
Dave posted:
Django posted:
Dave posted:

Very informative and logical. This needs to be vastly shared amongst Indians all over the world but especially with those whose identity and culture were fiddled with.

Dave , every week i have to disclose my ethnic identify , having casual conversations with my customers, they think i am from India , will proudly state from Guyana S.A. and how our ethnicity, started in the country and the Caribbean.

I experience the same thing bhai, I am quick to say I am from the Caribbean, if I say Guyana only, they think it’s Ghana.  

You need to know, Indians of India are more aware of Indians in Africa so they could think Ghana!  There is still strong connections with Indians in Africa and those in India.

Baseman
Dave posted:
Django posted:
Dave posted:

Very informative and logical. This needs to be vastly shared amongst Indians all over the world but especially with those whose identity and culture were fiddled with.

Dave , every week i have to disclose my ethnic identify , having casual conversations with my customers, they think i am from India , will proudly state from Guyana S.A. and how our ethnicity, started in the country and the Caribbean.

I experience the same thing bhai, I am quick to say I am from the Caribbean, if I say Guyana only, they think it’s Ghana. 

Tell them two different countries , Guyana is in S.A.

Django

was speaking to a beautiful, highly educated Ghanaian/American colleague last week about Ghana/Guyana and oil

she was very knowledgeable about diaspora Indians in Africa/Ghana and Indian Cinema

but knew very little about East Indians in Guyana/Caribbean

and not much about Afro-Guyanese also, to be fair

Guyana is a blip on the cultural map of the world . . . should come as a surprise to no one

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Django posted:
Dave posted:
Django posted:
Dave posted:

Very informative and logical. This needs to be vastly shared amongst Indians all over the world but especially with those whose identity and culture were fiddled with.

Dave , every week i have to disclose my ethnic identify , having casual conversations with my customers, they think i am from India , will proudly state from Guyana S.A. and how our ethnicity, started in the country and the Caribbean.

I experience the same thing bhai, I am quick to say I am from the Caribbean, if I say Guyana only, they think it’s Ghana. 

Tell them two different countries , Guyana is in S.A.

You don’t need to insult people because they may not be aware of your existing!  Besides cricket is making Indians more and more aware of Indians in the Caribbean!

Some TV stations in India would broadcast (for example) Diwali around the world, and the see Guyana, TT and other places!

When I lived there the World Cup was on and there were lots of awareness of Indo-Caribbean culture being raised.  Some young Engineers were asking me about the prospects of moving to Guyana!

Baseman
ronan posted:

was speaking to a beautiful, highly educated Ghanaian/American colleague last week about Ghana/Guyana and oil

she was very knowledgeable about diaspora Indians in Africa/Ghana and Indian Cinema

but knew very little about East Indians in Guyana/Caribbean

and not much about Afro-Guyanese also, to be fair

Guyana is a blip on the cultural map of the world . . . should come as a surprise to no one

I trust u had a good chat with the sister and enlightened her on matters she didn't know of.

 

Sheik101
ronan posted:

was speaking to a beautiful, highly educated Ghanaian/American colleague last week about Ghana/Guyana and oil

she was very knowledgeable about diaspora Indians in Africa/Ghana and Indian Cinema

but knew very little about East Indians in Guyana/Caribbean

and not much about Afro-Guyanese also, to be fair

Guyana is a blip on the cultural map of the world . . . should come as a surprise to no one

Would you be so kind if she wasn’t beautiful?

Baseman
Sheik101 posted:
ronan posted:

was speaking to a beautiful, highly educated Ghanaian/American colleague last week about Ghana/Guyana and oil

she was very knowledgeable about diaspora Indians in Africa/Ghana and Indian Cinema

but knew very little about East Indians in Guyana/Caribbean

and not much about Afro-Guyanese also, to be fair

Guyana is a blip on the cultural map of the world . . . should come as a surprise to no one

I trust u had a good chat with the sister and enlightened her on matters she didn't know of.

yesss . . . i did, i did

FM
Baseman posted:
ronan posted:

was speaking to a beautiful, highly educated Ghanaian/American colleague last week about Ghana/Guyana and oil

she was very knowledgeable about diaspora Indians in Africa/Ghana and Indian Cinema

but knew very little about East Indians in Guyana/Caribbean

and not much about Afro-Guyanese also, to be fair

Guyana is a blip on the cultural map of the world . . . should come as a surprise to no one

Would you be so kind if she wasn’t beautiful?

i seee what you trying to do here

uh huh

FM
Baseman posted:

The Base is 100% Indian!  But true, many indo-Guyanese have African blood but pass a pure Indian!  I linked up with many on 23 & Me, and most are 100% South/South East Asian!

When I lived in India, many were interested in Indian culture of the Caribbean!  They see temples, Buddha statues, etc and were interested!

Base, Prashad still waiting for you to post your DNA results on GNI.

Prashad

A fair number of ex-sepoys were assigned to sugar plantations on the Essequibo Coast and islands. My understanding before reading the article above was that they ran away from penalties for rebelling against their superiors in the British Indian Army in 1857. Now I know that some of the Sepoy mutineers were actually deported from India.

FM
ronan posted:

was speaking to a beautiful, highly educated Ghanaian/American colleague last week about Ghana/Guyana and oil

she was very knowledgeable about diaspora Indians in Africa/Ghana and Indian Cinema

but knew very little about East Indians in Guyana/Caribbean

and not much about Afro-Guyanese also, to be fair

Guyana is a blip on the cultural map of the world . . . should come as a surprise to no one

Prashad once heard an Ethiopian sing kabi kabi.

Prashad
Gilbakka posted:

A fair number of ex-sepoys were assigned to sugar plantations on the Essequibo Coast and islands. My understanding before reading the article above was that they ran away from penalties for rebelling against their superiors in the British Indian Army in 1857. Now I know that some of the Sepoy mutineers were actually deported from India.

I have a suspicion that Sir Gilly checked his DNA and found some West African black inside just like Prashad.

Prashad
Prashad posted:
Gilbakka posted:

A fair number of ex-sepoys were assigned to sugar plantations on the Essequibo Coast and islands. My understanding before reading the article above was that they ran away from penalties for rebelling against their superiors in the British Indian Army in 1857. Now I know that some of the Sepoy mutineers were actually deported from India.

I have a suspicion that Sir Gilly checked his DNA and found some West African black inside just like Prashad.

Your suspicious notion is way off the mark. I am from Kshatriya/Chatree stock. I have my great grandfather L. Singh's Certificate of Immigration to prove it. Dem chatrees were defenders of Hindu Dharma.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Django posted:
Dave posted:

Very informative and logical. This needs to be vastly shared amongst Indians all over the world but especially with those whose identity and culture were fiddled with.

Dave , every week i have to disclose my ethnic identify , having casual conversations with my customers, they think i am from India , will proudly state born in Guyana S.A  and will give an explanation how  our ethnicity, started in the country and the Caribbean.

Tell dem tuh mine dem own bizness. 

FM
Dave posted:
Django posted:
Dave posted:

Very informative and logical. This needs to be vastly shared amongst Indians all over the world but especially with those whose identity and culture were fiddled with.

Dave , every week i have to disclose my ethnic identify , having casual conversations with my customers, they think i am from India , will proudly state from Guyana S.A. and how our ethnicity, started in the country and the Caribbean.

I experience the same thing bhai, I am quick to say I am from the Caribbean, if I say Guyana only, they think it’s Ghana. 

For ages there has always been misunderstandings between Guyana, Ghana, Guinea, Papua New Guinea.

FM
Prashad posted:
Baseman posted:

The Base is 100% Indian!  But true, many indo-Guyanese have African blood but pass a pure Indian!  I linked up with many on 23 & Me, and most are 100% South/South East Asian!

When I lived in India, many were interested in Indian culture of the Caribbean!  They see temples, Buddha statues, etc and were interested!

Base, Prashad still waiting for you to post your DNA results on GNI.

Base is 100% Indian. 
57.6% - Central Asia, North Indian & Pakistani

34% South southern Asian/Indian

8.4% Southern Indian Sub-Group

Baseman

This is a thesis on which all you yammer mouths on post colonial writings need to sink your teeth in. I do not agree with much of what she said. She seemed to relish in the idea she is not constrained by theoretical foundations of academia but one knows one cannot function without gathering ones ideas as a coherent thematic whole and the act of doing often  seeks the shade of some theoretical umbrella.

The minute a post colonial writer puts pen to paper they deploy ideas inherent in their intellectual beginnings and that is in the social ethos of the colonized. Just as Edward Said in his Orientalism struggled to formally organize a new direction for post colonial thought and end up relying on its institutional foundations for delivery of his ideas, so too we see seepage to it in her work. We see the same thing for example the Negritude movement in France where the most fervent attempts to distance themselves from the western tradition was part of their academic project and where we got some of the most prodigious post colonial works.

She sought to identify with Naipaul and Naipaul is foremost a white man in Indian clothing. He tried to distance himself from his colonial tribes as much as he can all his life. In that he became a contradiction and often delivered a confusing view about his origins.

To the specifics, Indian has four caste but there were thousands of sub castes arranged by work specialization  or Jats  all securely entrenched in their particular niches., The brits did not invent that. That is endemically Indian. She said that Sepoys were deported and this is not so by any of the accounts. If caught they were jailed. Most who came did not declare themselves to be rebels but as refugee hiding from the Brits. Further, indenturship in Mauritius and Fiji started a long time before the Sepoy Mutiny and these communities were firmly established. Guyana also had a few thousand indentured by that time and why they were brought was declared explicitly by Gladstone...for work and mitigate african flight from the plantations at the end of apprenticeship.

This is the impression conveyed by contemporary Guyanese historians like Mangru et al. Also, names has significance and the Brits document these and even the mistakes can be back tracked. The indentured stated their caste designation and the accounting was that few were Brahmins. Obviously, the prevailing belief that the pursuit of a better life was a substantial lure. This does not discount some were duped but my point was that the secure and well placed in the society do not uproot themselves and take across the oceans for adventure. 

Also, Guyanese brand of Hinduism is a resistance brand of Hinduism. It was a deliberate tact taken beginning with the formation of the BEGIA.  It was not easy for Brahamins to impress castisem as easily as they have in indian because all indentured faced the same form of aggressive christianization effort by the brits and they were very distinct people from various distinct traditions in India. 

 I have more complaints ie on how Indians self identify and their thinking about india but that is for later when I read the rest of the thread.I agree with her on many of here conclusions but those are for another time. 

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Gilbakka posted:

A fair number of ex-sepoys were assigned to sugar plantations on the Essequibo Coast and islands. My understanding before reading the article above was that they ran away from penalties for rebelling against their superiors in the British Indian Army in 1857. Now I know that some of the Sepoy mutineers were actually deported from India.

I think they took flight per Mangru. I do not know the brits thought they would be rid of these rebels by exiling them. I may be wrong.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Gilbakka posted:

A fair number of ex-sepoys were assigned to sugar plantations on the Essequibo Coast and islands. My understanding before reading the article above was that they ran away from penalties for rebelling against their superiors in the British Indian Army in 1857. Now I know that some of the Sepoy mutineers were actually deported from India.

The British hanged them all just as an example to any further insurrections. Saw a documentary on that where an Englishman interviewed some Indian historians and families of some who were hanged. That Sepoy insurrection has significance to the Indian quest for independence along with Bengal/Calcutta movement. Indians, claim its independence came 100 years after Mangal's efforts in the mutiny.  

S

I see a certain banna here..not calling name, he rass does talk bout having his own Indi country bla bla bla and he come in here and ask sheer stupidness instead of adding something of substance. Is like he doan know much about what he does talk bout.

cain

Indians from India think Guyanese are very clean and hard working people but we think short-term.   they think we only focus on buying homes in Queens instead of looking to buy in neighborhoods with great schools. 

Billy Ram Balgobin
Billy Ram Balgobin posted:

Indians from India think Guyanese are very clean and hard working people but we think short-term.   they think we only focus on buying homes in Queens instead of looking to buy in neighborhoods with great schools. 

Not per one fellow who was the president of GOPIO. He said Guyanese are bastardized Indians; culturally stunted and driven by baser instincts to for go education and more concerned with drinking and carousing and fornicating like Nehru. He further said we are slovenly and lacking in ambition. 

FM
Last edited by Former Member
seignet posted:
Gilbakka posted:

A fair number of ex-sepoys were assigned to sugar plantations on the Essequibo Coast and islands. My understanding before reading the article above was that they ran away from penalties for rebelling against their superiors in the British Indian Army in 1857. Now I know that some of the Sepoy mutineers were actually deported from India.

The British hanged them all just as an example to any further insurrections. Saw a documentary on that where an Englishman interviewed some Indian historians and families of some who were hanged. That Sepoy insurrection has significance to the Indian quest for independence along with Bengal/Calcutta movement. Indians, claim its independence came 100 years after Mangal's efforts in the mutiny.  

Karl Marx called the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion the "first Indian war for independence." Michael Forde Bookshop used to sell a book of the same name containing a slew of articles that Marx had written while the rebellion was going on. They were originally published in a New York newspaper that had retained Marx as a foreign correspondent. 

FM
Stormborn posted:
Billy Ram Balgobin posted:

Indians from India think Guyanese are very clean and hard working people but we think short-term.   they think we only focus on buying homes in Queens instead of looking to buy in neighborhoods with great schools. 

Not per one fellow who was the president of GOPIO. He said Guyanese are bastardized Indians; culturally stunted and driven by baser instincts to for go education and more concerned with drinking and carousing and fornicating like Nehru. He further said we are slovenly and lacking in ambition. 

Could be the Caribbean culture's impact on us. I do find Guyanese Indians more aware of their personal and surrounding cleanliness than Indians from India and Pakistan. I mentioned some time back that I went to a mandir and found it much cleaner than masjid although Muslims say that they take much pride in cleanliness. In fact, the prophet is reported to have said that cleanliness if half of faith. Regarding ambition, Guyanese have been bogged down for decades by an environment that does not encourage ambition. It was more about survival and a scramble to move anywhere other than the 10 regions of Guyana. While some are driven, it does not seem as concentrated as the Indian and Pakistani communities in America.

FM

Much of what is posted in the original piece is debabatable and debated. 

This is a particular narrative. Much if not all of what we read as history is part of a particular narrative and viewpoint of history, a particular philosophical approach.

Additionally, quite a bit of the “facts” used to make the arguments is questionable,  unidimensional and deterministic.  there seems to be a lack of recognition of the dynamism that existed in colonial India and British colonialism, the  dynamics in the colonies, that there was the global labour development and migration  that existed under British colonialism, the many impacts of British capitalism on the Indian economy., that immigration stared early in the 19 th century, the many returnees to India from the West aindies, the diversity of religions and backgrounds of the immigrants. etc.

Also, one needs to look also at tthe recent scholarship on East Indian Indentured Immigration.

Z
Stormborn posted:
Billy Ram Balgobin posted:

Indians from India think Guyanese are very clean and hard working people but we think short-term.   they think we only focus on buying homes in Queens instead of looking to buy in neighborhoods with great schools. 

Not per one fellow who was the president of GOPIO. He said Guyanese are bastardized Indians; culturally stunted and driven by baser instincts to for go education and more concerned with drinking and carousing and fornicating like Nehru. He further said we are slovenly and lacking in ambition. 

He is a skont!   When I lived there I shared some Indian cultural practices of Guyana with Indians!  They were surprised because many said those practices have died off in India over the past 100 years!

if I meet him, I’ll remind him of a thing or two, like we don’t shit on the roadside, or haul we five fingers as cutlery in fancy restaurants!

i always find it amazing these Indian from India who come here are put down Guyanese Indians!  

I also shared with the Indians some of the attitudes of the Indians abroad towards Guyanese!  Many are surprised because India has multifold similar issues!

You cannot take everything these people say as reflecting the larger India!  

In Zurich the Indian Representative of GOPIO refused to sit at the same table with Muslims!   He said they are the enemy of India yet India has 120 mil Muslims!  

I had experiences with some of these Indians from India in Switzerland.  Some were real *******s.  I take them as they come. If they are nice, I treat them well, if they are *******s, I treat them that way!

The Base bows to no one!!

Baseman
Zed posted:

Much of what is posted in the original piece is debabatable and debated. 

This is a particular narrative. Much if not all of what we read as history is part of a particular narrative and viewpoint of history, a particular philosophical approach.

Additionally, quite a bit of the “facts” used to make the arguments is questionable,  unidimensional and deterministic.  there seems to be a lack of recognition of the dynamism that existed in colonial India and British colonialism, the  dynamics in the colonies, that there was the global labour development and migration  that existed under British colonialism, the many impacts of British capitalism on the Indian economy., that immigration stared early in the 19 th century, the many returnees to India from the West aindies, the diversity of religions and backgrounds of the immigrants. etc.

Also, one needs to look also at tthe recent scholarship on East Indian Indentured Immigration.

You cannot take everything written as fact.  There are nuances to everything!

Baseman
ksazma posted:
Stormborn posted:
Billy Ram Balgobin posted:

Indians from India think Guyanese are very clean and hard working people but we think short-term.   they think we only focus on buying homes in Queens instead of looking to buy in neighborhoods with great schools. 

Not per one fellow who was the president of GOPIO. He said Guyanese are bastardized Indians; culturally stunted and driven by baser instincts to for go education and more concerned with drinking and carousing and fornicating like Nehru. He further said we are slovenly and lacking in ambition. 

Could be the Caribbean culture's impact on us. I do find Guyanese Indians more aware of their personal and surrounding cleanliness than Indians from India and Pakistan. I mentioned some time back that I went to a mandir and found it much cleaner than masjid although Muslims say that they take much pride in cleanliness. In fact, the prophet is reported to have said that cleanliness if half of faith. Regarding ambition, Guyanese have been bogged down for decades by an environment that does not encourage ambition. It was more about survival and a scramble to move anywhere other than the 10 regions of Guyana. While some are driven, it does not seem as concentrated as the Indian and Pakistani communities in America.

Caribbean Indians have a few things going.  We are much more broad/open minded than many Indians!

Baseman
Stormborn posted:

This is a thesis on which all you yammer mouths on post colonial writings need to sink your teeth in. I do not agree with much of what she said. She seemed to relish in the idea she is not constrained by theoretical foundations of academia but one knows one cannot function without gathering ones ideas as a coherent thematic whole and the act of doing often  seeks the shade of some theoretical umbrella.

The minute a post colonial writer puts pen to paper they deploy ideas inherent in their intellectual beginnings and that is in the social ethos of the colonized. Just as Edward Said in his Orientalism struggled to formally organize a new direction for post colonial thought and end up relying on its institutional foundations for delivery of his ideas, so too we see seepage to it in her work. We see the same thing for example the Negritude movement in France where the most fervent attempts to distance themselves from the western tradition was part of their academic project and where we got some of the most prodigious post colonial works.

She sought to identify with Naipaul and Naipaul is foremost a white man in Indian clothing. He tried to distance himself from his colonial tribes as much as he can all his life. In that he became a contradiction and often delivered a confusing view about his origins.

To the specifics, Indian has four caste but there were thousands of sub castes arranged by work specialization  or Jats  all securely entrenched in their particular niches., The brits did not invent that. That is endemically Indian. She said that Sepoys were deported and this is not so by any of the accounts. If caught they were jailed. Most who came did not declare themselves to be rebels but as refugee hiding from the Brits. Further, indenturship in Mauritius and Fiji started a long time before the Sepoy Mutiny and these communities were firmly established. Guyana also had a few thousand indentured by that time and why they were brought was declared explicitly by Gladstone...for work and mitigate african flight from the plantations at the end of apprenticeship.

This is the impression conveyed by contemporary Guyanese historians like Mangru et al. Also, names has significance and the Brits document these and even the mistakes can be back tracked. The indentured stated their caste designation and the accounting was that few were Brahmins. Obviously, the prevailing belief that the pursuit of a better life was a substantial lure. This does not discount some were duped but my point was that the secure and well placed in the society do not uproot themselves and take across the oceans for adventure. 

Also, Guyanese brand of Hinduism is a resistance brand of Hinduism. It was a deliberate tact taken beginning with the formation of the BEGIA.  It was not easy for Brahamins to impress castisem as easily as they have in indian because all indentured faced the same form of aggressive christianization effort by the brits and they were very distinct people from various distinct traditions in India. 

 I have more complaints ie on how Indians self identify and their thinking about india but that is for later when I read the rest of the thread.I agree with her on many of here conclusions but those are for another time. 

Faminie made men looked like Christ hung on the Cross. One Indian writer wrote of the times, "skeletal frames moved from place to place to survive, clad in loin cloth, exposed hipbones as Christ hung on the Cross."  

S

I personally don’t care about what Indians from India think about me or people from the Caribbean. I am confident of who I am and my Caribbean background. 

In fact I don’t really care about what Anyone thinks or says about me. The can go suck salt ! 
People with self confidence seek no reassurance whatsoever. I do however see myself in a much higher status than Indians !

FM
Last edited by Former Member

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