i once read that some guyanese brownz jumped the plantation and started hacking east through the jungle. their goal to was to get to brownland.

p.s. and of course indentured servitude has a long history. it was common in jamestown for example.

p.s. and of course indentured servitude has a long history. it was common in jamestown for example.

That I know -- perhaps I should change the phrasing a bit to indicate that there was also a long history of white indentured labor.

I have always considered south Asians from Fiji, Guyana, or Caribbean islands to be essentially low class.

They must have occupied the lowest societal strata in India, in order to be "sent" abroad. Besides which those I know from said locations, tend to be not Indian at all, but instead have a freaky cultural mix of African slaves, white owned plantations, and generally low class traits. I find their sense of India confused to say the least. The only notion of Diwali, is that one turns on all ones lights.

As an ABCD, I hope this doesn't happen to my offspring.

Trying not to be elitist.

and generally low class traits

Trying not to be elitist.

keep trying....you'll get there eventually...

I have always considered south Asians from Fiji, Guyana, or Caribbean islands to be essentially low class.

perhaps if low class = not in the top 10%. it says something that most well off south asians (my family included) tend to perceive the vast majority of brown people (the rural peasantry) as "low class." if you are an identified brown person it seems a bit much to dismiss the majority of brownitude as trash.

p.s. gujarati trading communities in places like fiji and mauritius try and distinguish themselves from the majority of indentured laborers who came.

p.s. and of course real class implies a level of grace, as opposed to gauche comments about "those low class people." true nobility of spirit manifests itself, no matter origin or wealth.

what is low class behavior? im not even sure what that means. is my love of street food "low class"? Am I "low class" because i dont have che che hobbies? am I "high class" because of education or income? pl define class.

Nice tip. I wonder if this is something they would play on the BBC channel on cable... Im sure the highest concentration of these indentured laborers went to the West Indies. Trini, Guyana, Surinam, Jamaica and other West Indian/Caribbean nations. Being in NYC you come across many West-Indians (Afro-Cariibbean/IndoCaribbean/Creole-Caribbean) who have South Asian ancestry from the Indentured Laborers. But not really do you come across Indo-Fijian or Indo-Australians of such ancestry. This should be a good educational piece on this specific type of "diaspora" (if that is an applicable term).

Elitist, those are snobbish comments. It's certainly true that the people who agreed to leave on this program were mostly poor farmers, but it sounds like your elitism extends to their descendents today. Most of us know very little about our family's circumstances in 1855, and I think most people would happily say they don't particularly care.

BTW Plenty of Indo-Caribbeans read Sepia Mutiny, and your calling them "low class" is not going to be appreciated. Would you say the same of V.S. Naipaul or golfer Vijay Singh?

Fair enough. As South Asians, we do have a need to trample on others to elevate ourselves.

And I agree that that sense in the "top 10%", but these folks I think are a step beyond (help,or saving)

They ended up in places (locales) with little or no indigenous culture and were from an uneducated or uncultured strain to start with. Whereas those rural folks in India have a ladder to upward mobility,culturally speaking if not monetarily.

and btw I have never been dissed or dumped by a Fijian....

and btw I have never been dissed or dumped by a Fijian....

which makes your comments calling an entire population "low class" even more hard to understand...

but these folks I think are a step beyond (help,or saving)

what do these people need help with, or saving from? huh?

Just curious Elitist?,

Do you consider other south asian populations in say Malaysia or in Africa "low class" - I think most of them have been there for generations and brought there as indentured servants as well?

Please let us try and avoid being too PC in this matter, unless you reside in the People's Republic or Berkeley (which btw I adore, please no offense) we know what one means by class. Even in the broadest terms we use phrases like trailer trash (Let him who is without sin cast the first stone) all the time.

Sir Vidia, much respect to. Throwing out one name surely isn't an argument.

Vijay Singh, just an athlete puhleez.

.Im sure the highest concentration of these indentured laborers went to the West Indies. Trini, Guyana, Surinam, Jamaica and other West Indian/Caribbean nations.

no. malaysia. the west indian nations aren't very populous remember. even the number of brownz in south africa is impressive set next to them even though browns are a small proportion in south africa.

They ended up in places (locales) with little or no indigenous culture and were from an uneducated or uncultured strain to start with.

if they had no culture though how could they have preserved their religion? in fact, brown non-christian folk in places where they supplanted blacks as the majority often looked down on blacks for not having their own indigenous culture, while blacks looked down on brownz for being heathens (as opposed to good christians). as a point of fact there were some upper caste people in these communities, brahmins (or people who claimed to be brahmins) organized counter measures against christian missionaries who went through the camps. the truncated nature of hinduism in the west indies is probably due to the fact that you couldn't transplant india's jati structure when these were people whose villages were fragmented.

----what do these people need help with, or saving from? huh?

I suppose help inasmuch as we look upon people in red states that attend the rodeo or beleive Jeryy Springer is not staged. Don't you feel the need to help them? Don't you want them to read the NYT everyday?

Elitist? - WTF?! As a self-proclaimed ABCD I'm sure your sense of India is not all confused.

Angor Wat - You won't find many of us Indo-Fijians in NYC, we're concentrated in the Bay Area =)

-

if they had no culture though how could they have preserved their religion?

This is kind of my point. As mentioned in my first post, the Diwali example.

They understand only the ritual bits of Hinduism (I haven't met any Muslims so I can't speak to that).
There is no understanding of what is behind the curtain.

I suppose help inasmuch as we look upon people in red states that attend the rodeo or beleive Jeryy Springer is not staged. Don't you feel the need to help them?

well, in T&T and guyana brown people dominate the private sector. in mauritius they're political dominant. in fiji they dominate the private sector. the brownz who need help are in malaysia, who are screwed by the pro-malay new economic program but don't have the social capital of the chinese (the singapore brownz have done OK).

They understand only the ritual bits of Hinduism (I haven't met any Muslims so I can't speak to that). There is no understanding of what is behind the curtain.

well, i'd like to see some data on this. most american hindus i meet, including "high caste" individuals, aren't too well versed on the philosophical nuances of hinduism.

also, the analogy with slavery is problematic to me. the indentured servants were treated in some ways like slaves. but the fact that they preserved their culture (e.g., bhojpuri in mauritius, hinduism and islam in all the colonies, etc.) and didn't go through familial fragmentation shows that there was a difference between it and genuine slavery. a contrast is with brown people who were enslaved and were absorbed into the general slave populations of various nations. e.g., the south african cape coloreds have a non-trivial south asian ancestral proportion, but they didn't preserve brown languages or islam (the islam of the cape malays is southeast asian). they went through full-throttle chattel slavery.

Please let us try and avoid being too PC in this matter, unless you reside in the People's Republic or Berkeley (which btw I adore, please no offense) we know what one means by class. Even in the broadest terms we use phrases like trailer trash (Let him who is without sin cast the first stone) all the time.

Uh, no -- it's not about being PC, it's about starting down a conversation track that's likely to take us anywhere interesting. In this case, that's not happening so far.

In this case, I'm more interested in history than in responding to your gross generalizations about people. I would prefer a discussion with people who've seen some or all of the documentary, or with people who have some actual knowledge or experience to share on this issue.

I don't mean to attack anyone personally, many apologies if that happened.
Just looking at the diaspora and doing a bit of mental ranking and rating.

Just looking at the diaspora and doing a bit of mental ranking and rating.

well, most people would agree that american brownz are an elite immigration stream. as opposed to west indian ones. but ranking and rating presupposes particular norms on what is and isn't preferable. after all, many west indian brownz are arya samaj or christian. they don't see any need to mimic in detail the character of south asian religious expression. and remember: the american brown experience is max 40 years old. perhaps you're looking at us into the future? though the fact that we're such a small proportion of the population means that there are going to be differences.

and btw I have never been dissed or dumped by a Fijian....

Elitist, I believe that the time honored convention to lend credibility to such bigotry is the statement "some of my best friends are fijian".

For the record, I disagree with your statements that Fijians are low class. If you are talking about those dregs from the Solomon Islands on the other hand... Oops, I meant low-lying.

Seriously, when did understanding the deep philosophical discourse of Hinduism or the nuances of India become the marker of class? Personally, I like Deepavali for the sweets (so maybe I'm low class too).

Even in the broadest terms we use phrases like trailer trash (Let him who is without sin cast the first stone) all the time.

really? who is this "we"? I certainly don't use the term lightly as I grew up in a trailer and don't consider myself to be trash. Yes, there are brown people among the rural poor of america (though, razib, I don't have the numbers on this demographic.)

Just looking at the diaspora and doing a bit of mental ranking and rating.

The stupidity of that exercise speaks for itself.

Please, people, do not further respond to "Elitist" unless and until he or she starts saying something useful.

Seriously, when did understanding the deep philosophical discourse of Hinduism or the nuances of India become the marker of class? Personally, I like Deepavali for the sweets (so maybe I'm low class too).

no worries Rahul, not plumbing the depths of the Advaita approach is certainly no bar to accessing the rarified atmosphere of the brown cultural elite of Elitist's imaginary world.

my only exposure to uncertainty about cultural heritage came from reading Naipaul (every freaking book--i'm a mascochist) and he's neither the most accurate nor impartial of observers. He would natter on and on in a nonspecific way about Pandits and religious knowledge that didn't seem to be relevant to his own existence in the least.

Thanks, Amardeep, for the tip on this BBC documentary. I can't wait to download it and watch it with my Trinidadian wife of 35 years. In fact, I'll do better than that. I might burn a DVD and give it to her as an anniversary present on July 30th, our big day, which we are celebrating at our second home in Gurgaon with friends and relatives who are coming for the occasion from as far away as Mumbai and Patna. I am even thinking of hiring one of those "shaadi wallah bands" to make some serious racket, but the neighborhood might be a little too snobbish for my NRI boorishness. Oh well, a DJ then.

After I have seen the documentary, I might come back with a detailed comment on the topic of indentured Indian labor, which I have studied very closely. However, at this juncture, all I want to say is that the Immigration Ordinance that was drafted in the British Parliament to regulate indentured labor was extremely fair and human. The ground realities were obviously not. There were middlemen, not unlike some of the unscrupulous "body-shop owners" in today's H-1B program, who misled and exploited these poor, rural folks. Then the plantation owners themselves, though routinely inspected by their own kind, the whites, to ensure compliance of the Ordinance, frequently crossed the boundaries of humane treatment of their laborers. The movie, "Guiana 1838," shows the gut wrenching scenes of rape and beating of Indians by plantation owners who were still confused between indentured labor and slavery in the first few years of the program. But all in all, the system worked fairly well for Indians after the first ten or twenty years of growing pains. I will explain in greater detail if I come back after watching the video.

#16 Razib: "the truncated nature of hinduism in the west indies"

Contradicting Razib is a huge undertaking (how have you been, my li'l genius), but West Indian Hinduism is not in the least truncated. In fact, IBD's find it too traditional, perhaps because of the time-warp factor which freezes highly archaic religious practices in the diaspora whereas the source culture has evolved to another plane.

The reason why SOME West Indians or Fijians or Mauritians may come across as truncated Hindus, or truncated Muslims, is a socioeconomic distortion. Unlike Indians, even the less educated and poor among them are able to emigrate to countries such as the US, Canada and UK. Comparing them to the typical IBD immigrants is, therefore, unfair. Why not compare the poor and uneducated West Indians to the poor and uneducated Indians? They won't be very far apart. However, when you compare the demographic equals of the West Indies and India, I can tell you from personal experience that the West Indies Indians would be found to be far more immersed in Hinduism than the urban Indian.

I can't believe I wrote so much. When a comment is longer than the post... well, give me a pass just this once.

is my love of street food "low class"?

if you voluntarily grace Bhai's finger-licking, lip-smacking street food over fine Mughlai at the Taj then you are actually ultra high class, ultra cool.
but if you eat at Bhai's only because you cannot afford anything else (or won't blend in with the crowd at Taj) then you are low class

oh, the layers of snobbery...

Contradicting Razib is a huge undertaking (how have you been, my li'l genius), but West Indian Hinduism is not in the least truncated. In fact, IBD's find it too traditional, perhaps because of the time-warp factor which freezes highly archaic religious practices in the diaspora whereas the source culture has evolved to another plane.

point taken. let me reformulate what i am trying to get at: the baroque accretions which characterize south asian culture had to be paired down in a social context where indentured servants from various social and cultural backgrounds had to find common ground. to be specific, my understanding is that though a generalized sense of caste exists jati does not in the west indies. that to me is the sort of "truncation" which i mean. ideas (e.g., theologies and philosophies) travel well and easily in books, but whole cultural toolkits are more difficult to transplant. does that sound plausible? (my reading in this area is surely a drop compared to your sea ;-)

They ended up in places (locales) with little or no indigenous culture and were from an uneducated or uncultured strain to start with.

How can any living, breathing human being be devoid of culture? How can there be no indigenous culture?

Did they eat, cook, hunt, gather firewood, collect pebbles, catch rainwater, fish, tickle their babies to laugh, teach their dog to hunt, raise chickens, collect wild duck eggs, plait their hair, make vessels out of gourd skins, build huts, make clothes, grow cotton, speak, grunt, beat their drums, hunted for medicianl herbs, herded goats? Then they were living their culture. Did the new arrivals talk, reminisce, sing songs, long for their home country, make love, inter-marry, adapt to eating the local foods, then they exhibited culture.

Whether you predefine it to be something you like/recognize/approve is irrelevant to people living their everyday lives so full and rich with living, cultural experiences. Such a prism of snobbery denies whole groups of people their rich, human experiences, their heritage because you decide that they don't know bharat natyam or Mozart or Russian grammar or Diwali or Brhama or origami.

To Elitist:
Who are you to judge and make such statements?
I am an ABGuyanese and I know about the history of my people, why don't you go learn about your own before you start making generalizations about others?
You think that because my ancestors left india for a better life that they are somehow beneath you and your ancestors? See that kind of classist ignorant bullshit is probably why they left in the first place.

It's hard enough trying to be brown and and american but people like you who look down on others because they are not exactly from your circumstances, are a disease on the the world. Go read up on your own people before you diss mine.

Razib #32: "my understanding is that though a generalized sense of caste exists jati does not in the west indies."

Actually the caste system is the only significant dimension of Hinduism that was truncated, perhaps because everybody started out from the same economic level in the new land. I suppose it is hard to maintain a caste hierarchy if everybody is tilling the same land for the same masters. There was one hard core element that remained intact, though, and that was the brahmin pundit, who obviously had an economic interest in maintaining his caste. (I love the for-hire utilitarianism of the pundit in Hindu religion.)

With the exception of the caste system, all other religious rituals, and the vast body of unwritten and presumably untransportable elements of the Hindu culture, were indeed transplanted with great success in the new world. As I said before, some of these practices have been long since truncated even in small-town India but persist in the West Indies.

A couple of observations on West Indian Hinduism. The Ramayan enjoys a far greater popularity among them than in India. In fact, most West Indian Hindus treat it like THE Holy Book, which, of course, Hindu religion does not really have in the same sense as the Koran or Bible. Secondly, the West Indian Hinduism has, in the last twenty years, been influenced by the Hindutva and all its various avatars. Since these right wing Hindus come to the west unencumbered by the political stigma that dogs them back home, they are able to find acceptance specially among the less educated Hindus hungry for some religious edification. Here I will state this categorically - the right winger's work in these places is sufficiently modified and mainstreamed. They are only preaching pride in one's religion, not hatred of other people's religions. I know many of them personally. My brother-in-law in Trinidad, who is probably one of the most influential Hindu leaders in Trinidad, absolutely disdains any criticism of other religions and races in this multi-racial society.

Sorry, no more thread hogging from me. I'm done. Have fun, y'all!

Sorry, no more thread hogging from me. I'm done. Have fun, y'all!

for shame! the hog brings good bacon sometimes.

Man, the narrator sounds like the Goodness Gracious Me guy. Excellent link. Thanks BNB !

Amardeep, nice post, thought-provoking. Thanks. Will also be watching the video soon.

Floridian, enjoyed both your contributions to this thread. I hope you won't feel inhibited in contributing more wisdom. My question - I would have also thought it hard to maintain caste hierarchies in indentured servitude - but how does Naipaul so confidently claim Brahmin-ness for himself?

Malathi - it occurs to me that your nice comment @31 would not be out of place, also, in the Maximum City thread - when it gets started up. The Taj Hotel in Bombay comes up on p.70, where I've just got to!

or beleive Jeryy Springer is not staged

What ? Jerry Springer is staged ???

How can I feel superior to the folks on that show now?
( and now everyone knows I watch Jerry !!)

As Chachaji said on another thread, this is the Mutiny on vacation?

I'm going to watch the documentary this weekend when I have more time, but this whole topic has always fascinated me. It's too bad Elitist? already ruined this discussion. Later on I'll try to give my thoughts on this whole phenomenon (Indian indentured servitude of the 19th/early 20th centuries), but for now just the following, that people may or may not realise:

1)The majority of the Indians sent out by the British were from eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar, which can really be thought of as one region. Of these, the majority spoke Bhojpuri. In modern parlance we would call these people (informally) 'bhaiyas'. So there was an intra-group cultural and ethnic homogenicity to these migrants comparable to that within groups such as 'Punjabis' or 'Gujaratis' or 'Tamils'.

2)Although there was a tilt towards the lower end of the caste spectrum, a fair proportion of brahmins and rajputs made the migration as well. Muslims were also represented in numbers comparable to their share of the local population. Christians were largely absent (since that region of India had very few Christians), but today a large percent (up to 25 or 30%) of the descendants of these people are Christian.

3)Contrary to Elitist?'s stance, in my view these people did a remarkable job of holding on their culture and sense of identity...we're talking 5th to 7th generation now in some of these places, yet that sense of being of Indian heritage remains. When you consider that most of these people were young, poor, uneducated rural folks only in their 20s, it's all the more remarkable.

4)I don't want to downplay the fact that although the majority were from U.P./Bihar, a significant minority were from southern India. And as Razib pointed out, in places like Malaysia and Singapore, the vast majority were in fact Tamil (and they've done an excellent job of holding on to Tamil language, culture, and identity).

Don't be bothered by Elitist's comments, "it" seems to be upset that it is just another Bay Area Ivy League desi.

There is an economic class divide between Indo-Fijians in the Bay area and the rest of the Indian community. I think it would look less pronounced to Brit-Indians who started off 80% working class but whose kids went to university and into the professions. I see their kids working hard at low paying jobs and putting themselves through school. There is nothing common or low about that. I do see some layabouts who I am told start fights at parties, but you will see the same kind of behavior amongst a certain segment of the "mainstream" ABCD youth

Christians were largely absent (since that region of India had very few Christians), but today a large percent (up to 25 or 30%) of the descendants of these people are Christian.

there is variation by region. e.g., trinidad & tobago has the highest christian population followed by guyana then suriname. also, when i had full access to the world christian database i noted that tamils converted at far higher rates than north indian groups in south africa and mauritius.

The Ramayan enjoys a far greater popularity among them than in India. In fact, most West Indian Hindus treat it like THE Holy Book, which, of course, Hindu religion does not really have in the same sense as the Koran or Bible.

Well, the Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas has always had huge religious and cultural influence and been a very strong force in eastern UP and western Bihar. So I think the roots of the Ramayan's popularity stem from that.

My question - I would have also thought it hard to maintain caste hierarchies in indentured servitude - but how does Naipaul so confidently claim Brahmin-ness for himself?

Naipaul is only three generations away from India...his parents were 2nd gen. The Indo-Caribbean community was much closer to its roots at that time, and many people could still speak Bhojpuri for that matter. The caste system was breaking down by his childhood, but brahmins were the last to lose that consciousness (they haven't lost it completely even today). Because they filled a particular, perceived to be vital role. Most of these Indians lived on plantations that were Indian-majority...so it was like a self-contained Indian universe, in which Indian traditions took a long time to fade...now today, if you go to Trinidad for example, and look at young Indian kids, you'll find that the 'creolisation' process is largely complete...but that was definitely not true when Naipaul was young.

I watched it and I liked it. Nice to see footage of things I'd previously only heard about. Who knew that there were people alive today who were born into the indentured servitude system. It was also fascinating to hear the old lady interviewed by Dabydeen speak in her Caribbean (pidgin?) english. And the narrator was in fact Sanjeev Bhaskar of GGM.

Thanks for the link Amardeep, is the narrator the guy from Goodness Gracious Me?

Thanks for this, Amardeep. I am super excited about this topic, and I can't wait to watch the doc this weekend. I have a question for those who are more familiar with the Indo-Caribbean story, were there good articles/resources/movies/books you enjoyed that traced these histories and the contemporary state, aside from those already mentioned? It seems that there's a relatively robust body of lit coming out of the UK, and a growing amount of lit coming out of the US re: music (esp. chutney), but I'm interested to know if there's more comparative work being done.

Also, one of my really good friends is ABGuyanese, and the beginning of our friendship started with lots of discussions about our different perceptions of "Indian"-ness, especially in the context of religion and pop culture. I really enjoy it, and I find she blows my mind every time just because her diasporic experience is so profoundly different than mine. I think this is part of the beauty of learning more about the diaspora beyond our own (regional) understandings. I also think the mixing (culturally and ethnically) in the W. Indies is fascinating and has created so many different (and beautiful) variations of cultural expression. Maybe I'm exoticizing, but, speaking anecdotally, I love that folks who are mixed or Indo-Caribbean or Afro-Caribbean are comfortable claiming the many different cultural elements brought to the table, especially via festivals, music, and dance. That kind of freedom of cultural exchange and ownership is really refreshing, for me at least.

No more sugar for me. I am hurt once more.

Lisa Ling should see this. Did the Brit practice of removing people from their homelands with promises of a better life, but actually to provide years of free labor, set the stage for luring children from their villages to become indentured sex workers today?

It is a not an infrequent perception amongst west indians that desis often look down upon them. But don't believe me do your own poll. How many of you dare agree?

it's because of their color, accent, educational status, and caribbean influence( yea you know what i am insinuating). i wonder in what proportions do the above factor into the desi mindsets. please view this as a rhetorical question if you are feeling uncomfortable.

Amitabh - enjoyed your contributions, and thanks for answering the Naipaul question.

I saw the video last night. Quite powerful and eye-opening. I think I can honestly say that I now think of the Indian diasporic experience in a new light. The claim is made in the documentary - that Indians are the most dispersed people in the world - and I now find that quite believable. Transported solely for the purpose of extracting their labor - treated horribly, before, during and after - and then left to fend for themselves. The sheer tenacity and will-to-survive of these folks - in Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa or West Indies - has to be saluted. I don't think I can easily forget the centenarian and the grandmother in the video and their personal testimony of being treated as slaves.

It also forces a closer examination of our own time - with 'outsourcing companies' and 'H-1Bs' and 'L-1s' - are the 'outsourcing companies' who send people to the US 'on bond' with H-1B visas - really that different from the 'labor contractors' who went into the villages to recruit the 'indentured' servants? I think there are some essential similarities, which are worth pondering, and many 1st-gen people may then realize that their situation is not that different from that of the Indo-Caribbeans in the 19th century.

I think Elitist? and proactiv are articulating widely-held views among 1st (and 2nd)-gen folks from India about the Indo-Caribbeans. The views are distasteful, but there is no need to be in denial about how prevalent they are. Apart from the obvious snobbery, classism (and Elitism?) - there is also insecurity - about both the socio-economic present, and the religio-cultural future of the Indian diaspora in these views. The Indo-Caribbean experience has many encouraging and uplifting aspects - as well as many cautionary lessons in this context. I hope more people with direct knowledge of that will contribute their views and experiences on this thread.

#50 proactiv "it's because of their color, accent, educational status, and caribbean influence( yea you know what i am insinuating). i wonder in what proportions do the above factor into the desi mindsets. please view this as a rhetorical question if you are feeling uncomfortable."

I am not uncomfortable answering your questions, which I presume are sincere and not trollery. At the same time, if I am able to correct at least some desi prejudices against a group of people that is so much a part of my life, I think I should take the trouble.

The desi culture, as you know, is extremely hierarchial, with color, accent, education, wealth and everything else used as pefectly legitimate metrics for judging people - PC be damned. Given our mindset, we are just as prone to berate fellow desis with less education, money and "culture" as Indo-Caribbean people with similar demographic traits. Our British commenters, for example, will attest to the fact that in the UK, where Indians of all socioeconomic strata exist in great numbers, the upper crust desis do look down upon the "innit" desis. Ain't that true, Brits?

It just so happens that due to the geographical proximity of the Caribbean to the western world, the population's facility with English, the lower pressure on their immigration quotas, and their generally higher income level (Trinidad's per capita is $10,400 vs. India's $720, after accounting for PPP), even the less educated Indo-Caribbean people are able to emigrate to the US, Canada and Europe. In fact, the better educated have less incentive to leave because of the economic opportunities and near-western lifestyle available to them back home. Unfortunately, the socioeconomic level of the Indo-Caribbean people living in New York, Toronto or South Florida make them easy targets for the desis. However, if you were entrenched in the Indo-Caribbean community as we are, you would have friends from all walks of life. There are Trinidadian and Guyanese doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, as well as truck drivers, handymen and electricians. I have Trinidadian/Guyanese friends and relatives in all those categories.

#43 Amitabh: "if you go to Trinidad for example, and look at young Indian kids, you'll find that the 'creolisation' process is largely complete"

I don't know how much time, if any, you have spent in Trinidad, but there is absolutely no creolization of Indians. Just stand near a school in St. Augustine, which is not even a conservative Indian stronghold like Chaguanas, and you will get an instant demographic research on the Indian children. Among girls, "choatis" (pigtails) rule. The dirty little secret of the Indo-Caribbean people is that they hate blacks and merely tolerate the other races. Go to Movietown in Port-of-Spain on a Saturday night and out of the thousands of couples on dates, you will be lucky to find ten interracial couple where the mate is of Indian descent. The Indian opposition to creolization in Trinidad and Guyana, which account for nearly 80% of the Indo-Caribbean population anyway, still continues after 150 years of co-existence with other races. This is not to say that there has not been interracial marriages in the history of Indo-Caribbean people, but the few racially mixed Indians are just as susceptible to exclusionary treatment there as anywhere else. When my wife's younger sister married a white guy, there were seismic aftershocks throughout the extended family that lasted a good few years.

A few casual observations on various aspects of the Desi-Indo-Caribbean divide:
1. ACCENT: The Indo-Caribbean people can adopt North American or British accent far more easily than South Asians. And even when they are speaking in their native singsong accent, their English is mostly correct, whereas the English of some of the first generation Indians can border on the ridiculous. Ain't that true, desis?
2. Their generally darker skin color has nothing to do with interracial marriages. They came from a part of India (East UP/west Bihar and the South) where the color spectrum skews towards darkness.
3. Having commented on the educational level of Indo-Caribbean immigrants, I must say this. Their high school education, which is mandatory, turns out a far more literate and aware individual than the high schools of small towns in India.

Does all this mean that desis will stop looking down at Indo-Caribbeans? Heck, no. Don't forget, at the bottom of our superiority complex (if there is such a thing) is the undeniable fact that we know something first-hand that "they" only know second-hand. ALL YOU ABD's TAKE NOTE BECAUSE YOU ARE VIEWED THE SAME WAY BY SOME, SOME, SOME (I qualified it 3 times) OF THE INDIANS.

Paging Dr. Amardeep!

I am so tempted to talk about Naipaul, but I will leave it alone. Amardeep, aren't you a Professor of Literature? Do a Naipaul post, will you, so some of us who have had this love-hate thing going can jump in?

I don't know how much time, if any, you have spent in Trinidad, but there is absolutely no creolization of Indians.

Hi Floridian, thanks for your comments. I had a good friend in college who was Indo-Trinidadian, and I spent one weekend in Trinidad over ten years ago, so I'm not an expert by any means. The weekend that I happened to be there, the Indian political party (UNC?) had just won elections, and Indians were all over the streets celebrating. As Camille alluded to, there was an amazing cultural mix going on...flatbed trucks with 20-30 people, playing Indian drums (somewhat similar to dhols), blaring Bollywood and Chutney, but also local Caribbean music too. They had headbands with UNC written in a font that was made to resemble Hindi lettering. But at the same time, when this one desi politician's car came to a stop and was mobbed (in a friendly way) by throngs of desis, this young Indian woman got in front of his car and did a very lewd dance for him, Caribbean style, that you would never see in India. So sexually they are far less conservative than folks in India. Other aspects of creolisation that I noticed were the hybrid food (although I had excellent 'chicken curry' and roti too while I was there), the hybrid music, and the hybrid behavior. You know, this is only natural after more than 150 years living in a land where you are not the dominant group, and where the dominant group exerts huge pressure on you to assimilate...which in fact the Indians have resisted to a remarkable extent.

If you look at if from the other side, in terms of how much desi stuff has survived, you'll find countless examples. I agree with you that the predominantly Indian areas like County Caroni, with very few blacks, do give you the impression of being in India to an extent...temples and mosques everywhere, Indian music and food everywhere, and so forth.

Family ties are another important way in which Indian Trinidadians differ from African ones. I stayed at the home of my buddy's desi family in Caroni...it was almost like a joint family system (not quite), because all the brothers had homes next to each other, with their families...and their paternal first cousins all had homes on neighboring streets...so in that way it was similar to what you find in India, patrilocality I guess it's called. People there have very strong ties with their paternal (and maternal) extended families, which is a trait largely absent in other groups on the island (who mostly maintain ties with maternal relatives). Of course these are just generalities, exceptions abound.

Anyway, this is getting too long.

"this young Indian woman got in front of his car and did a very lewd dance for him, Caribbean style, that you would never see in India."

This is not to contradict you but to expand everybody's knowledge base. Correlating Trinidadian women's lewd dancing with sexual, ahem, liberation, is about as incorrect as mistaking Latin women's bare cleavage with an invitation. (This is something you learn in South Florida. Latin mamas with bare cleavage and the crucifix necklace). It is just their way, with no sexual connotation. Trinidadians of all ages love to dance, and yes, alcohol to them is not a forbidden fruit as it is in our first generation desi culture. My wife, who loves her scotch at parties, is usually the only Indian woman sipping hard liquor. Other women are either drinking coke or wine. I tell her to stop, but do you think she listens!

Hey, I am glad you got to see Caroni, the heart and soul of Indians in Trinidad, with Chaguanas as its unofficial capital. My in-laws live in Chaguanas, only a few blocks from Naipaul's ancestral home near the market. Unfortunately, the sugar mills of Caroni are now shut down. Sugar and coco, the two commodities that built Trinidad, are relics of the past.

Keep up the good comments. I do read you whenever I get a chance.

This is really well made, and creates a real sense of kinship, but why is the Beeb also showing something called 'Lost World of the RAJ' and The Legacy Of The British Empire -- or Channel Four is -- all at the same time? It's not on BBC America though.

I didn't even know about the Indian diaspora beyond Uganda-Kenya-South Africa until I came here to go to college.

Paging Dr. Amardeep!

I am so tempted to talk about Naipaul, but I will leave it alone. Amardeep, aren't you a Professor of Literature? Do a Naipaul post, will you, so some of us who have had this love-hate thing going can jump in?

Floridian, I'm actually a bit surprised that I've never actually written on Naipaul here -- I do have lots of thoughts about him, so a post may be forthcoming. (He's discussed many of the issues introduced on this thread in his non-fiction books, as you may be aware.) I have written about Naipaul a fair amount on my personal blog.

Meanwhile, feel free to jump in -- especially on the question of "coolies" and the unusual cultural formation of the Indo-Caribbean.

TO Floridian:
I appreciate the fact that yes you do know the truth about Trini/Guyanese indians. Everybody else just assumes and dismisses us but, you know the facts. I am an ABG and guess what,1. There is NOT a mixing of races down there, due to history, Indo and Afro Guyanese/Trinis have deep divides, with the blacks thing that they are far superior to everyone. So no we are not mixed race mutts.2.It's not that easy for us caribbean folks to get into the us, as you think. There are lenghtyexpensive wait times, and green card lottos. Must people use the bacjk-track system to get into the US and Canada. 3. And yes some Guyanese/Trinis are rich doctors and lawyers and some of us came form low to middle class families (convenience stores, motels) AND THAT DOESN'T GIVE ANYBODY THE RIGHT TO LOOK DOWN ON US!4. We in Guyana are what you call stuck in a time warp when you consider the religious aspects and the old hindi music that is available to us, so what? So we do listen to music that was out in 1970's India, and still have pretty set religious beliefs even if they are out-dated in India. 5. We know that we are looked down upon by "Indians" from India, because they think that we are lower than them for what we are. Truth is, we don't fit into their bullshit class/caste system, we have our own culture that grew out of a new continent, and interacting with new people. We are not desis and will never be. I am proud of who I am and I would never diss another desi because they're circumstances are different than mine.
I want to just ask all these "real" indians, why they have to judge so harshly other people: by skin color, by socio-economic class (ex. the motel clerks are less than the doctors), by location? DOes it make you feel better to put people in little categories and assume that you're better than them because even though they're brown, they are not just like you and they are not good enough? If that is the current desi mentality,then I'M SO GLAD I'M NOT A DESI.I DON'T WANT TO BE THAT IGNORANT AND INTOLERANT.

nice comments jenn. it is time someone said those things.

but dont expect alot of feedback/support here since the diaspora in that area has often been ignored and not for the reasons they might tell you.

Has anyone seen the movie Guyana:1838? I had wanted to see it, never got a chance. Any comments on that?

We know that we are looked down upon by "Indians" from India, because they think that we are lower than them for what we are.

We are again going to get into a long discussion about how desis from the des are racist/casteist/religious/ linguistic fanactics etc. Some desis are but NOT ALL !!!

Very moving documentary. Wow. I never realised the extent to which the indentured servant system was really just a continuation of slavery. I'm kind of stunned.

I think that the current descendants of those 19th century migrants have every reason to be proud of their ancestors...not only their more remote ancestors, who left India and braved the long voyage and endured unimaginable conditions, but also their more recent ancestors, born and raised in farflung lands like Trinidad and Fiji, who through sheer hard work and perseverance, managed to raise their and their descendants' overall standing and lifestyle, and achieve in many cases very impressive success. For whatever it's worth, I salute these unspoken, unsung, utterly nameless and totally obscure heroes, whose suffering ensured a better life for their coming generations.

I never realised the extent to which the indentured servant system was really just a continuation of slavery. I'm kind of stunned.

Actually indentured servants existed before the African slave trade began.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-2179287111477800737&q=slavery&total=3093&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Database of those who came as slaves before Afrcians and Indians

http://www.immigrantservants.com/

A bit of an omnibus comment...

Wow! WOW! That was one power-packed documentary. Indeed, the BBC serves up a healthy dose of British funded post-colonial guilt yet again! I had never cohered my scattered knowledge about Indian workers in Fiji, the Caribbean, Malaysia, South Africa etc. as part of one unified, diabolical plan for slave labor by the British. It was also nice how the article tied the indenture servitude problem in South Africa to the rise of Gandhi as a political force. One question I'd have liked to seen explored is the past and ongoing relationship between the Indians and "natives" in these countries. The program does mention the animosity towards ethnic Indians in Fiji towards the end, and has a scathing indictment of the effects of British imperialism at the end (as well as selective memory), but that topic in and of itself could probably merit a full hour, if not more. Most amusing quote: As a Hindu, I'd definitely want to come back as a 19th century plantation owner.

One interesting tidbit: It seems like the Hindi spoken in Fiji is very close to that spoken in India, whereas the woman in Guyana spoke pidgin English (don't mean to use that term in a derogatory fashion). Is it because she had spent her entire life there, and not in India? Of course, that doesn't explain Brij Lal's speaking Hindi with his family.

muralimannered, I love Naipaul. He is, as I'm sure he'd self importantly describe himself, "awesome". Yes, he is increasingly becoming almost a caricature of his own curmudgeonly self (hates novel length fiction AND muslims, two for the price of just one mean old man!), and is prone to long rants, but I can't help but smile when I remember how he lashes out at poor silent, tongue-tied Vinoba Bhave towards the end of India: A Wounded Civilization. That, and the criticisms of R. K. Narayan resonate very strongly with me, as I'd never understood India's fascination with his writing.

Slightly off-topic, I was impressed at how much impact Gandhi's South African program of civil disobedience and passive resistance had in Britain, even in an era before widespread dissemination of news, and trial in the court of public opinion. One question I've always had is how effective Gandhi's freedom struggle in India would have been in the absence of the Second World War. To my completely uneducated and untrained self, it seems that Indian Independence was much more a fact of Britain's weakening than moral or political domination by Indian non-cooperation (and it seems to have been backed up somewhat by the flood of other colonial independence that followed in the next 10 years). I would love to hear people's opinions on this (Amardeep, maybe a post on this too? :-), and will now hide under my desk to brace for the saturation bombing of contempt that I'm sure to receive for asking.

And finally, Amardeep, between this and the affirmative action post, you've touched on two relatively opposite ends of the Indian diasporic experience. Keep the deep posts coming! I'm loving the mutiny's vacation. I learn a lot from posts like this, and associated comments, and that's what keeps me coming!

whereas the English of some of the first generation Indians can border on the ridiculous. Ain't that true, desis?

Do me one thing, mr. floridian. Please to explain vaat you are saying.

#66 Rahul: "Do me one thing, mr. floridian. Please to explain vaat you are saying."

Do I dare disturb the Universe?

I saw the documentary. It was interesting, however what is puzzling is that, if the indentured labor was as unjust and harrowing to the victims as slavery, why was it allowed to continue well into 20th century, while slavery was banned in the early 19th century

I saw the documentary. It was interesting, however what is puzzling is that, if the indentured labor was as unjust and harrowing to the victims as slavery, why was it allowed to continue well into 20th century, while slavery was banned in the early 19th century

I think the answer is something like this. The ending of slavery in the British Empire was due to several reasons including the moral/theological arguments made by people like William Wilberforce (inspired by his christian beliefs). But when slavery ended there was still a huge demand for cheap labor for the sugar plantations and so some enterprising Brits (one of whom is named in the doc... i forget) organized the system of shipping people from India to these sugar plantations in the Caribbean. But it went under the radar (of the anti-slavery movement in britain) because it was not technically slavery and was seen just as capitalism functioning as it should. It's kind of like asking, "if slavery ended in the 19th century why were western consumers happily buying products made in sweat-shops into the 21st century".

I think the answer is something like this. The ending of slavery in the British Empire was due to several reasons including the moral/theological arguments made by people like William Wilberforce (inspired by his christian beliefs). But when slavery ended there was still a huge demand for cheap labor for the sugar plantations and so some enterprising Brits (one of whom is named in the doc... i forget) organized the system of shipping people from India to these sugar plantations in the Caribbean.

I appreciate your insight. I think if these anti-slavery movements ignored the new practice, their opposition to slavery should be based on theological beliefs about "Free Will". Humanitarian concerns, if any, would have played very negligent role as there seem to be little difference in the way slaves and these laborers were treated.

One question I've always had is how effective Gandhi's freedom struggle in India would have been in the absence of the Second World War. To my completely uneducated and untrained self, it seems that Indian Independence was much more a fact of Britain's weakening than moral or political domination by Indian non-cooperation (and it seems to have been backed up somewhat by the flood of other colonial independence that followed in the next 10 years). I would love to hear people's opinions on this (Amardeep, maybe a post on this too? :-), and will now hide under my desk to brace for the saturation bombing of contempt that I'm sure to receive for asking.

It was interesting, however what is puzzling is that, if the indentured labor was as unjust and harrowing to the victims as slavery, why was it allowed to continue well into 20th century, while slavery was banned in the early 19th century

However, in the Caribbean we have a plantation economy which demands lots of human labor, and it is expensive to ship equipment out there for mechanization. From what I remember of the Atlantic slave trade (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), slaves in the Caribbean were treated the most brutally and had the shortest life spans post-arrival (I think it was something like 10 years compared to 20 years on the North American continent). I'm sure part of this was the industry in both regions, part was because slaves were cheaper (I think) in the Caribbean because of the U.S. ban on new imported slaves. I reach back into history just to illustrate that the Caribbean plantation economy had been run as a vampiric beast for a while, creating world-wide demand where there had been none and reinforcing a demand (and disregard for the health of) for slave-like labor, i.e. indentured servitude. At this point we see Britain trying to dominate the world in trade, and we also see the demand for coffee, sugar, tea, and tobacco continue to climb (in part because these are all stimulants and help keep domestic workers awake). I think it's really similar to the rise in demand for opium as well. All these things come together under the political philosophy of colonial thought, and voila -- modern day slavery. Is it so different from many of the diffuse systems of labor we see today?

One interesting tidbit: It seems like the Hindi spoken in Fiji is very close to that spoken in India, whereas the woman in Guyana spoke pidgin English (don't mean to use that term in a derogatory fashion). Is it because she had spent her entire life there, and not in India? Of course, that doesn't explain Brij Lal's speaking Hindi with his family.

In all likelihood, that old man they interviewed in Fiji was born and raised in Fiji. But Fiji Hindi is a living language to this day. Hindi/Bhojpuri suffered different fates in different places. It died out very quickly in Guyana (barely making it past the 2nd gen), remained a bit longer in Trinidad (survived into the 3rd gen), and remains spoken to this day in Fiji and Suriname, although it is not exactly the same as spoken anywhere in India (being a mixture and simplification of different dialects like Bhojpuri and Awadhi, and also lots of influence from Dutch (in Suriname) and Fijian and English (in Fiji). Apparently now even in Suriname and Fiji it's dying out, but it survived an impressively long time in those two countries. Ironically, importation of Bollywood movies, and attempts to teach standard Hindi in schools, all contributed to the decline of local versions of Hindi in these lands, as people there started seeing their own versions of Hindi as inferior and substandard to that spoken in India.

If you notice, Brij Lal at the end recited a Hindi poem to some schoolkids. That's because Hindi is taught in Fiji as part of the curriculum, and most Indians there know it pretty well. In fact the poem was about a ship carrying laborers that sank on its way to Fiji, so it was probably a Fiji Indian who wrote it in the first place.

My bad, the old gentleman was born in India. But probably came to Fiji when he was very young.

Rahul, I think you're right with respect to WWII being the breaking point for the Empire. After 2 world wars, massive depression, and growing unrest in the periphery I think it became impossible for Britain to keep it together.

Camille, I was especially interested in this question after the documentary because it describes how much responsibility Gandhi's non violent protest in South Africa had in ending indentured servitude throughout the empire. Again, maybe WWI was a precipitating factor, and his actions created the perfect storm. But, the political outrage and the press in Britain about oppression of some dark-skinned folks in far flung South Africa was quite impressive, certainly not something I'd have expected in the early 1900s. The story of the high taxes in South Africa gives me this idea for a movie: Charlize Theron cracking her whip on the local Indians saying "ab tum dugna lagaan dega, saala", and Akshay Kumar challenging her to an all-or-nothing game of rugby. Get on it, Johannesburg-y-wood!

Another off-topic question I have is how well non-violence would work in today's world. Apart from my personal inclination towards peaceful means (yes, I'm woolly-headed), it also seems like it would be the most effective strategic mechanism to "win" against a disproportionate power, because international opinion would force a change. I am thinking of South Africa specifically as a successful model in this regard. Sure, the ANC had violent factions (were they important in showing the powers-that-be that they would make good on their threats?), but it seems like their dominant face to the world was the Gandhian resistance and that made international condemnation of apartheid a reality, and forced even a developed nuclear power to change its ways. I don't know much about the IRA's struggle in England, but it seems like they had to forswear violence before progress was made. Again, I'd love to hear from people who, unlike me, actually know something about this topic.

Amitabh, thanks for the information. I was surprised that I could understand all the Hindi spoken (including the poem!) without the help of subtitles, and was curious if there were specific reasons for this.

Rahul:

Yes, he is increasingly becoming almost a caricature of his own curmudgeonly self (hates novel length fiction AND muslims, two for the price of just one mean old man!),

he isn't a fan of religion in general. He was married to a Pakistani-Muslim last time I checked. His writing indicates that he does't care for mainstream Hinduism ,outside of Vedanta or philosophical strains, as it has some tendencies that he believes lead to barbarous ritual. I think where he differs from the rest of the intelligentsia is that he reads Islamic conquest as another form of colonialism/imperialism. I think he misread the BJP early on, a I did, in a way that someone who was primarily raised in the West might when reading their platform (which was quite different than the ground reality created by the VHP types it also attracted)

His writing indicates that he does't care for mainstream Hinduism ,outside of Vedanta or philosophical strains, as it has some tendencies that he believes lead to barbarous ritual.

Not just ritual, he clearly condemns the fatalism that he believes it inspires among the Indian populace.

I think he misread the BJP early on

Has he changed his tune on that? I was honestly shocked to hear his comments on the BJP before the election (which they thankfully lost), and haven't heard more about that (but also haven't specifically been looking). I know he's married to a Muslim (I have no idea if she is practicing in any way), but I don't know what opinion I should derive from that about his well-documented opinions about the religion at large.

As an aside, I was in India around the time of the previous elections, and went to a book reading of his in Bangalore, where he and his wife showed up (about an hour late, as is to be expected, I guess). Boy, were they pompous and full of themselves!

#66 Rahul: "Do me one thing, mr. floridian. Please to explain vaat you are saying."

Do I dare disturb the Universe?

I believe you already have by even responding to my comments which are but yellow smoke rubbing its muzzle on the window-panes of SM. Maybe, sometimes it is better not to eat a peach, after all.

Just a small correction to the original post: I believe most people from Guyana refer to themselves as Guyanese rather than Guyanan.

Rahul: Good points, I am not sure what his most recent views are on the BJP.

Getting back to the core thread, I wonder if there are any art forms/stories/songs that exist in the Caribbean community that have been lost in their places of origin in Bihar/Bengal. I recall that someone surveyed/recorded the music of the Appalachian region about 50 years ago and found songs that had been lost in the British Isles

#66 Rahul: "Do me one thing, mr. floridian. Please to explain vaat you are saying."

#67 Floridian Do I dare disturb the Universe?

#78 Rahul: I believe you already have by even responding to my comments which are but yellow smoke rubbing its muzzle on the window-panes of SM. Maybe, sometimes it is better not to eat a peach, after all.

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker many times before this, but in short, I have never been so afraid. Besides, Rahul, my comments on first-generation's English is not what I meant, at all.

(Should we really be passing notes to each other like this while there is a world history class in progress here. Wouldn't the professor be PO'd?)

Floridian, I LOVE IT! I've dragged you down with me, and soon you will be but a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

(Should we really be passing notes to each other like this while there is a world history class in progress here. Wouldn't the professor be PO'd?)

Well, I've always been the troublemaking backbencher. But, would you rather I leave soulful quotes from Keats, Wordsworth or Celine Dion ("Far across the distance, And spaces between us, You have come to show you go on") in your locker for you to discover at lunch-time? Alright, I'm done now :)

Besides, Rahul, my comments on first-generation's English is not what I meant, at all.

Sorry, I missed the tone, then. What did you mean by them?

I wonder if there are any art forms/stories/songs that exist in the Caribbean community that have been lost in their places of origin in Bihar/Bengal.

I don't know about art forms continuing that have been LOST in India, but there are still quite a few folk songs (in Trinidad at least) which have a lot of Bhojpuri influence. I suppose it's possible that some of those songs are not to be found in India anymore. Even the language used in 'chutney' music is Hindi with a lot of Bhojpuri touches (and a lot of English of course). A custom which may not exist in India anymore is putting up prayer flags in the yard after doing a puja...Floridian maybe you can tell us, does that custom still exist in Bihar? In Trinidad, most of the homes had prayer flags flying in their yards.

Besides, Rahul, my comments on first-generation's English is not what I meant, at all.

#82 Rahul: "Sorry, I missed the tone, then. What did you mean by them?"

Rahul, you take me back 30 years to a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, to halcyon days when my Harris tweed had leather elbow patches, my pipe smoke licked its tongues into the corners of the evening, my existentialist angst was expressed through verse libre, and then one fateful soft October night, I made the tragic decision to cease upon the midnight with no pain by chucking all this for the daily toils of chasing filthy lucre.

#83 Amitabh: "A custom which may not exist in India anymore is putting up prayer flags in the yard after doing a puja...Floridian maybe you can tell us, does that custom still exist in Bihar? In Trinidad, most of the homes had prayer flags flying in their yards."

In Bihar, the "jhandis" are found around temples, not homes. In Trinidad, jhandis are displayed prominently in front of the house to tell the public that this is a Hindu home.

A comment about chutney music. Most educated and "cultured" Trinidadians despise the lewd dancing and double entendre that are intrinsic to this art form, not realizing that even in its original Indian version, this folk genre is supposed to be lewd. I was at the Republic Day celebrations in Delhi two years ago, and there were performances every night by each state. We went to the Bihar one, and guess what the show was? Chutney! Duly sponsored by the ultra conservative Government of India. (Of course, it is not called chutney in India.)

Chutney's growth in the last ten years echoes Bhangra's - both folk genres, with dance beats, and both "fusioned" in the past decade for a faster, louder, more vibrant effect. For chutney, check out Ricky Jai, Kanchan and Babla and of course, the master, Sunder Popo.

In Bihar, the "jhandis" are found around temples, not homes.

Flags are found in temples all over North India, Nepal, and even in Buddhist temples and shrines in Tibet.

In Nepal, they are found even outside homes.

A am a little fuzzy on this one but I believe that the red, triangular flags Amitabh was thinking of are specific to Hanuman temples in East India. My mother said they were foumd in Mahabir mandirs. Isn't Mahabir another name for Hanuman? (I am not confusing him with Mahavir, the Jain saint.)

Isn't Mahabir another name for Hanuman?

Would it be ok for me to market an alcohol named Mahabeer? I mean, dude's a bachelor, what's he going to do on a Friday night?

Some excerpts from V.S. Naipaul's Nobel Lecture speech relevant to this discussion:

It's been like this because of my background. My background is at once exceedingly simple and exceedingly confused. I was born in Trinidad. It is a small island in the mouth of the great Orinoco river of Venezuela. So Trinidad is not strictly of South America, and not strictly of the Caribbean. It was developed as a New World plantation colony, and when I was born in 1932 it had a population of about 400,000. Of this, about 150,000 were Indians, Hindus and Muslims, nearly all of peasant origin, and nearly all from the Gangetic plain.

This was my very small community. The bulk of this migration from India occurred after 1880. The deal was like this. People indentured themselves for five years to serve on the estates. At the end of this time they were given a small piece of land, perhaps five acres, or a passage back to India. In 1917, because of agitation by Gandhi and others, the indenture system was abolished. And perhaps because of this, or for some other reason, the pledge of land or repatriation was dishonoured for many of the later arrivals. These people were absolutely destitute. They slept in the streets of Port of Spain, the capital. When I was a child I saw them. I suppose I didn't know they were destitute – I suppose that idea came much later – and they made no impression on me. This was part of the cruelty of the plantation colony.

I was born in a small country town called Chaguanas, two or three miles inland from the Gulf of Paria. Chaguanas was a strange name, in spelling and pronunciation, and many of the Indian people – they were in the majority in the area – preferred to call it by the Indian caste name of Chauhan.

What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude. And we Indians, immigrants from India, had that attitude to the island. We lived for the most part ritualised lives, and were not yet capable of self-assessment, which is where learning begins. Half of us on this land of the Chaguanes were pretending - perhaps not pretending, perhaps only feeling, never formulating it as an idea - that we had brought a kind of India with us, which we could, as it were, unroll like a carpet on the flat land.

My grandmother's house in Chaguanas was in two parts. The front part, of bricks and plaster, was painted white. It was like a kind of Indian house, with a grand balustraded terrace on the upper floor, and a prayer-room on the floor above that. It was ambitious in its decorative detail, with lotus capitals on pillars, and sculptures of Hindu deities, all done by people working only from a memory of things in India. In Trinidad it was an architectural oddity. At the back of this house, and joined to it by an upper bridge room, was a timber building in the French Caribbean style. The entrance gate was at the side, between the two houses. It was a tall gate of corrugated iron on a wooden frame. It made for a fierce kind of privacy.

So as a child I had this sense of two worlds, the world outside that tall corrugated-iron gate, and the world at home - or, at any rate, the world of my grandmother's house. It was a remnant of our caste sense, the thing that excluded and shut out. In Trinidad, where as new arrivals we were a disadvantaged community, that excluding idea was a kind of protection; it enabled us – for the time being, and only for the time being – to live in our own way and according to our own rules, to live in our own fading India. It made for an extraordinary self-centredness. We looked inwards; we lived out our days; the world outside existed in a kind of darkness; we inquired about nothing.

The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing. I was just old enough to have some idea of the Indian epics, the Ramayana in particular. The children who came five years or so after me in our extended family didn't have this luck. No one taught us Hindi. Sometimes someone wrote out the alphabet for us to learn, and that was that; we were expected to do the rest ourselves. So, as English penetrated, we began to lose our language. My grandmother's house was full of religion; there were many ceremonies and readings, some of which went on for days. But no one explained or translated for us who could no longer follow the language. So our ancestral faith receded, became mysterious, not pertinent to our day-to-day life.

We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal. Two years ago a kind Nepalese who liked my name sent me a copy of some pages from an 1872 gazetteer-like British work about India, Hindu Castes and Tribes as Represented in Benares; the pages listed - among a multitude of names -those groups of Nepalese in the holy city of Banaras who carried the name Naipal. That is all that I have.

Elitist, you should take a trip to Guyana someday...I'll make sure to let em know you're coming, you'll have alotta fun down there! In fact, you should just make it over here to DC sometime where I and some of my Guyanese friends live...I'd love to meet you someday and show you and any other @$$hole on this site how low-class us Guyanese folk can be...

Thanks for this great post, Amardeep. Regarding the descendants of indentured labourers in Malaysia (where I grew up): yes, the pro-Malay economic policy leaves Indians screwed over *as a community,* but I want to point out that there is also a significant Indian upper/upper-middle class in Malaysia, and there is a lot, really a LOT of Indian money. The difference between the Indian community and the Chinese is, alas, that the Indian money rarely goes back into helping those perceived as, well, "low-class" (see above for full exposure to this pernicious way of thinking). I'm not sure exactly what you meant by "social capital," Razib, but it sounds like you might have been hinting at what I'm talking about. The Malays get all the government handouts, yes. The Chinese dominate the private sector and they tend to help their own. But the rich Indians fatten their bank balances and do everything to distance themselves from the "rubber-estate" types, even though both classes are principally Tamil. There is no snobbery like the snobbery I witnessed growing up (and I'm not speaking out of resentment of the effects of said snobbery on my own life, which were and are close to nil because I, like almost any other Malaysian Indian you will run into abroad, come from a background of relative privilege). For a concrete example: look at each community's vernacular schools. Private Chinese-medium schools are flourishing, e