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Religious Identity, Territory, and Partition: India And its Muslim Diaspora in Surinam and the Netherlands

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13537110801984891

1557-2986

Ellen Bal, Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff,

Migration and Labor Dynamics

Abstract This article relates the Indian Muslim diaspora to the events of 1947, when British India was partitioned. It is argued that although the government of India has tried to woo people of Indian origin, it is interested only in Hindus, while reterritorializing Muslims to Pakistan. It is also argued that, as a consequence, Muslims of Indian origin in Surinam and the Netherlands do not identify with present-day India. Nor, however, do they look upon Pakistan as their homeland. Instead, they have chosen "Hindustan"—pre-partitioned British India—as their imaginary homeland. Although it was lost with Partition, they retain a collective memory of Hindustan and try to restore it in Surinam and the Netherlands. Ellen Bal teaches Anthropology at the VU, University of Amsterdam. She received her Ph.D. degree in 2000, on the issue of ethnicity and identity formation in Bangladesh. Since 2001, she has also been involved in research on the Indian diaspora in Surinam and the Netherlands, together with Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff. Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff is Director of Research in the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), Ranchi India. After she received her Ph.D. degree in 1995 she carried out research and published on youth and globalization in India, minorities in Bangladesh and India, and on the Indian diaspora in Surinam, the Netherlands, and Mauritius. Notes 1. Known at the time as The United Provinces. 2. Originally written in Hindi. See for an English translation: Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, Ellen Bal and Alok Deo Singh, Autobiography of an Indian Indentured Labourer. Munshi Rahman Khan (1874–1972). Jeevan Prakash (New Delhi, India: Shipra, 2005). 3. Mohan K. Gautam. "Munshi Rahman Khan (1874–1972), An Institution of the Indian Diaspora in Surinam," unpublished paper presented at the ISER-NCIC Conference on Challenge and Change: The Indian Diaspora in its Historical and Contemporary Contexts (The University of West Indies, St. Augustine, and the National Council of Indian Culture, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, 11–18 Aug. 1995), p. 1. 4. See Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, Tyranny of Partition. Hindus in Bangladesh & Muslims in India (New Delhi, India, India: Gyan Publishing House, 2006). 5. See, e.g., Chandra Jayawardena, "Migration and Social Change: A Survey of Indian Communities Overseas," The American Geographical Society, Vol. LVIII (1968), pp. 426–449 and Ravindra K. Jain, Indian Communities Abroad. Themes and Literature (New Delhi, India: Manohar, 1993) for some useful overviews of this "Indian diaspora." 6. Gyanendra Pandey, "Can a Muslim be Indian?", Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 41, No. 4 (1999), pp. 608–609. 7. See, e.g., Walker Conner (quoted in William Safran, "Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return," Diaspora, Spring (1991), pp. 83–84), who argued that those communities are diasporas if they (e.g.) retain a collective myth or memory of their original homeland, if they believe that they should be "committed to the maintenance or restoration of their original homeland and to its safety and prosperity" and if their ethnocommunal consciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by their relation with that homeland. 8. See Liisa Malkki, "National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity Among Scholars and Refugees," Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1992), pp. 24–44, for a critical discussion on "the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity." 9. Barbara Daly Metcalf, Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996). 10. Steven Vertovec, The Hindu Diaspora. Comparative Patterns (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). 11. Raymond Brady Williams, "South Asian Christians in Britain, Canada, and the United States", in John R. Hinnells, Raymond Brady Williams, and Harold G. Coward (eds.), The South Asian Religious Diaspora in Britain, Canada, and the United States (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 13–35. 12. Vijay Mishra, "Diasporas and the Art of Impossible Mourning," in Makarand Paranjape (ed.), Diaspora: Theories, Histories, Texts (New Delhi, India: Indialog Publications 2001), p. 327. 13. Aisha Khan, "Homeland, Motherland: Authenticity, Legitimacy and Ideologies of Place Among Muslims in Trinidad," in Peter van der Veer (ed.), Nation and Migration. The Politics of Space in the South Asian Diaspora (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 1995), p. 112. 14. Thomas Hylland Eriksen, "Tu dimunn pu vini kreol: The Mauritian Creole and the Concept of Creolizationm," http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/eriksen.pdf [accessed 10 April 2008]. 15. See also the very good studies of so-called Indo-Muslim diasporas by Frank Korom, Hosay Trinidad: Muharram Performances in an Indo-Caribbean Diaspora (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) and the one by Aminah Mohammad-Arif, Salaam America: South Asian Muslims in New York (London: Anthem Press, 2002). See also the volumes edited by Crispin Bates, Community, Empire and Migration. South Asians in Diaspora (New Delhi, India: Orient Longman, 2001) and by Carla Petievich, The Expanding Landscape. South Asians and the Diaspora (New Delhi, India: Manohar). 16. Papiya Ghosh, Partition and the South Asian Diaspora. Extending the Subcontinent (London, New York, and New Delhi, India: Routledge, 2007), p. xxvi. This article was completed in 2006 just before the horrific murder of Dr. Papiya Ghosh (Prof. Patna University, Bihar). Her extremely insightful book on Partition and the South Asian diaspora was posthumously published in 2007. However, we were able to use her findings during the revision of our article. Ghosh (p. xxix) wrote that the stories about the relation between Partition and the South Asian diaspora had "still to be pieced together." With respect and fond memories we follow in her footsteps. 17. Recently, some scholars (including ourselves) have started including other groups in their studies on Partition, in particular those who stayed put but who became "official minorities" after 1947 (see, e.g., Gyanendra Pandey, "Partition and Independence in Delhi: 1947–48," Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXII, No. 36, Sept. 6 (1997), pp. 2261–2272. 18. Ghosh, p. xiii. 19. See, e.g., Imtiaz Ahmed, Memories of a Genocidal Partition. The Haunting Tales of Victims, Witnesses and Perpetrators (Colombo, Sri Lanka: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, 2002). 20. Joya Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947–1952," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 33, No.1 (1999), pp. 185–242. 21. Peter Gottschalk, Beyond Hindu & Muslim. Multiple Identity in Narratives From Village India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 27. 22. Victor van Bijlert, "Hindus and Muslims in Bengal: Is Religious Experience a Unifying Factor?", in Jerald D. Gort, Henry Jansen, d Hendrik M. Vroom (eds.), Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation. Multi-faith Ideals and Realities (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi 2002), pp. 38–39. 23. In 1940, M. A. Jinnah (the founder of Pakistan) said in one of his speeches: "The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, literatures. They neither intermarry nor interdine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions." Quoted from: B.N. Pandey (ed.), A Book of India (London and Glasgow: Collins, 1965), p. 86. 24. Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 25. Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition. Violence, Nationalism and History in India (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 21. 26. D. L. Sheth and Gurpreet Mahajan (eds.), Minority Identities and the Nation-State (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 1999). 27. See, e.g., West Bengal Papers, B Proceedings, Public Relations, Vol. 2, first half of Sept. 1951. 28. See, e.g., East Bengal Papers, B Proceedings, Public Relations, Vol. 2, Part I, first half of July, 1951. 29. Suvir Kaul, The Partitions of Memory. The Afterlife of the Division of India (New Delhi, India: Permanent Black, 2001), p. 3. 30. Dipankar Gupta, "Secularization and Minoritization: The Limits of Heroic Thought," in D. L. Sheth and Gurpreet Mahajan (eds.), Minority Identities and the Nation-State (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 38–39. 31. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life. Hindus and Muslims in India (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2002). 32. Rasheeduddin Khan, "Muslim Identity in Contemporary India," Indian Horizons, Vol. 48, No. 2 (2001), p. 58. 33. Ibid., p. 60. 34. Gottschalk, pp. 168–169. 35. This research was carried out during a period of severe communal tension, during which the BJP (a conservative Hindu party) was the ruling party in India. 36. Bhikhu Parekh, Some Reflections on the Indian Diaspora, paper presented at the Second Global Convention of People of Indian Origin, 27–31 Dec. in New Delhi, India (London: The British Organisation of People of Indian Origin [BOPIO], 1993), p. 38. 37. Helweg quoted in William Safran "Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return," Diaspora, Spring (1991), p. 88. 38. Cf. Hindustan Times (8 Dec. 2002). 39. Sajal Nag, "Nationhood and Displacement in Indian Subcontinent," Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXVI, No. 51, Dec. (2001), p. 4754. 40. See also: Ellen Bal and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, "Hindostaanse Surinamers en India: gedeeld verleden, gedeelde identiteit?", OSO. Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse taalkunde, letterkunde, cultuur en Geschiedenis, Nov. (2003), pp. 214–234. 41. Vertovec, p.145. 42. Cf. Salim Lakha, "The Bharatiya Janata Party and Globalisation of the Indian Economy," in John McGuire (ed.), Politics of Violence From Ayodhya to Behrampada (New Delhi, India: Sage, 1996), pp. 273–288. 43. The term "non-residential Indian" (NRI) gradually replaced the term "overseas Indian" during the mid/late-1980s, when India decided to open its doors to those emigrants who still were Indian passport holders. In the 1990s the term "Person of Indian Origin" (PIO) was coined, when the Indian government sought to attract expatriate Indians who were foreign passport holders. 44. Marie C. Lall, India's Missed Opportunity. India's relationship with the Non-Resident Indians (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001), p. 169. 45. Arjun Appadurai, "Patriotism and its Futures," Public Culture, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1993), pp. 411–429 and Benedict Anderson, "The New World Disorder," New Left Review, Vol. 193, May/June (1992), pp. 2–30. 46. Nina Glick Schiller, "The Situation of Transnational Studies," Identities, Vol. 4, No. 2, (1997), p. 159. 47. Ludger Pries, "New Migration in Transnational Spaces," in Ludger Pries (ed.), Migration and Transnational Social Spaces (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999), p. 77. 48. Ibid., p. 78. 49. Cf. Akhil Gupta "The Song of the Non-aligned World: Transnational Identities and the Reinscription of Space in Late Capitalism," Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1992), pp. 63–77. 50. This refers to a well-known patriotic poem (titled "India") written by Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), which begins: "On the shores of Bharat/ Where men of all races have come together/ Awake, O my Mind!" Quoted in: B. N. Pandey (ed.), A Book of India (London and Glasgow: Collins, 1965), p. 20. 51. Cf. Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Christina Blanc-Szanton, "From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration," in Pries (ed.), pp. 78–79. 52. One India. One People, Vol. 5, No. 12, July (2002). 53. Cf. Mahin Gosine, "The Forgotten Children of India: A Global Perspective," in Jagat K. Motwani, Jyoti Barot-Motwani, and Mahin Gosine (eds), The Global Indian Diaspora. Yesterday and Tomorrow (New York: GOPIO, 1993), p. 27. 54. Quoted in Marie C. Lall, India's Missed Opportunity. India's Relationship with the Non-Resident Indians (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), p. 198. 55. Dutt, "India and the Overseas Indians," India Quarterly, Vol. 36 (1980), p. 314. 56. "Transmigrants are immigrants whose daily lives depend on multiple and constant interconnections across international borders and whose public identities are configured in relationship to more than one nation-state." In Pries (ed.), p. 73. 57. Ibid., pp. 1–35. 58. Ibid., pp. 1–35. 59. Cf. John Dayal, "Hindutva Abroad," Communalism Combat, Sept., Year 9, No.71 (2001), pp. 50–52. 60. Cf. Hindustan Times, 5 Feb. 2003, and Indian Express, 12 Jan. 2003. One of us was personally present during this meeting. 61. Note also for example the article "Outspoken Lady Naipaul," in which M. L. Batura from Karnal writes that "It is a pity that Lady Nadira Naipaul dared to raise a controversial issue (relating to Lord Rama and Sita). It is only in India that she enjoyed full freedom of criticism (with impunity). Had she criticized any prophet in her own country (Pakistan) or in any other Islamic country, she would have been stoned to death." (The Tribune, 4 Feb. 2003, Chandigarh, India). 62. Cf. Malkki, p. 70. 63. Jayawardena, pp. 428–429. 64. In 1927 an immigration law was passed mandating that "East Indians" born in Surinam were no longer "aliens" but would be considered Dutch subjects. From then onwards, "East Indians" in Surinam have identified themselves as "Hindustanis" (those who came from Hindustan). In Dutch, they resort to the spelling "Hindostanis" or "Hindoestanis." Although both labels refer to their "homeland" (Hindostan/Hindoestan), the name Hindoestan is often understood as a religious designation (including Hindus only) and a number of Hindustanis therefore prefer the label "Hindostanis." The English transcription "Hindustanis" allows us to bypass the complex discussion about the naming issue. See, e.g., Hanan Orna, "A Brief History of East Indians in Surinam," in Mahin Gosine, Sojourners to Settlers. Indian Migrants in the Caribbean and the Americas (USA: Windsor Press, 1999), p. 123. 65. E.g., George Abraham Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration from the Bengal Presidency, Appendix to File 15–20/21 (Calcutta, India: Calcutta State Archives, 1883.) 66. Ron Ramdin, Arising from Bondage. A History of the Indo-Caribbean People (London: I. B. Tauris & Co, 2000), p. 152. 67. Known as "depot brotherhood" (dipua bhai). 68. Known as "ship brotherhood" (jahazia bhai). 69. Hans Ramsoedh and Lucie Bloemberg, "The Institutionalization of Hinduism in Surinam and Guyana," in T. S. Rukmani (ed.), Hindu Diaspora. Global Perspectives (New Delhi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2001), p. 139. 70. Martin Baumann, "The Hindu Diasporas in Europe and an Analysis of Key Diasporic Patterns," in T. S. Rukmani, Hindu Diaspora. Global Perspectives (New Delhi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2001), p. 62. 71. Mass emigration started in 1973; in 1974 and 1975, more than 36,000 Hindustanis migrated to the Netherlands. Emigration continued due to the coup in 1980 and the murder of a number of civilians, known as the "December murders," in 1982 (Chan E. S. Choenni, "Migratie naar en vestiging in Nederland," in Chan E. S. Choenni (ed.), Hindostanen. Van Brits-Indische emigranten via Surinam tot burgers van Nederland (Den Haag, The Netherlands: Sampreshan, 2003), pp. 54–55. 72. Ibid., p. 8. 73. Cornelis Johannes Maria de Klerk, De Immigratie der Hindostanen in Surinam (Den Haag, The Netherlands: Amrit, 1998/1951), pp. 48–49. 74. Around 80% of these British Indian emigrants who came to Surinam during the 1870s testified that they were "Hindoe" and 20% indicated that they were "Moslim." In Cornelis Johannes Maria de Klerk, "Over de Religie der Surinaamse Hindostanen," in Surinaamse Jongeren Vereniging "Manan" (ed.), Van Brits-Indisch Emigrant tot Burger van Surinam ('s-Gravenhage: Sticusa, 1963), p. 61. More recent estimates also conclude that "East Indian Muslims" constitute "nearly twenty per cent of the East Indian population" (Ramsoedh and Bloemberg, p. 123 and p. 125). 75. Raymond Chikrie, Muslims in Guyana (Dec. 1999), www.irfi.org/articles/articles_351_400/muslims_in_guyana.htm [accessed 14 Aug. 2006]. 76. Sajal Nag, "Nationhood and Displacement in Indian Subcontinent," Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXVI, No. 51, 22–28 Dec. (2001), p. 4754. 77. Ibid., p. 4755. 78. Ibid., p. 4755. 79. Albert Helman, "De Islam," in Albert Helman (ed.), Cultureel Mozaïek van Surinam (Zutphen, The Netherlands: De Walburg Pers, Zutphen, 1978), pp. 223–224. 80. Sinha-Kerkhoff, Bal, and Deo Singh, p. 236. 81. The Ahmadiyya movement was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889 as a reaction to the influence of Christian missionaries and the Hindu Arya Samaj reform movement in northern British India. After the death of Ghulam Ahmad, the movement split into two groups, the Quadianis and the Lahoris. See: Nico Landman, Van mat tot minaret. De institutionalisering van de islam in Nederland (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 2002), p. 24. 82. Halima S. Kassim,"Schisms in Caribbean Islam: Ideological Conflict in the Trinidadian Muslim Community, 1920–1950," Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. VI, No. 1 & 2 (1999), pp. 176–177. 83. Landman, pp. 195–230. 84. The Ahmadis are divided into the orthodox Quadianis and the more liberal Lahoris. Almost all Hindustanis belong to the latter. 85. Term used by Muslims meaning "learned man" or "theologian." 86. Term used by Muslims meaning "leader," especially prayer leader in the mosques. 87. J. Prins, "De Islam in Surinam: Een Orientatie," Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, Vol. 41 (1961–1962), pp. 16–17. 88. Vertovec, p. 4. 89. Ibid., p. 3. 90. Barbara D. Metcalf (ed.), Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), p. 2. 91. Michel Bruneau, "Espaces et territoires de diasporas," L'Espace geographique, No.1 (1994), p. 7. 92. E.g., Cors J. G. van der Burg, and Peter T. van der Veer, "Ver van India, ver van Surinam: Hindoestaanse Surinamers in Nederland," in Cors J. G. van der Burg (ed.), Surinaamse religies in Nederland: Hindoeïsme, Winti, Hindoestaanse Islam (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 1986), pp. 23–36. 93. Ibid., pp. 27–28. 94. Joop Vernooy and Cors. J. G. van der Burg, "Hindostaanse Islam in Surinam en Nederland," in Van der Burg (ed.), p. 47. 95. Landman, p. 199. 96. In Surinam, the Sanathan Dharm is known as orthodox Hinduism and the Arya Samaj is considered to be the reformist stream in Hinduism. 97. As elsewhere, in the South Asian context, Islam in what now comprises India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh took on different forms as attempts were made to adapt it to different local cultural contexts and environments. South Asia, with its large, and (for the want of a more appropriate term) "Hindu" majority, posed particular challenges to the early jurists, for neither the Koran nor the Hadith provide clear guidance for deciding the precise legal status of "Hinduism" (Richard M. Eaton [ed.], India's Islamic Traditions [1711–1750] (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2002). Besides various responses to religious pluralism in India such as the Sufi and Bhakti movements, the Ismali tradition, and the Ahmadiyya movements, British rule also provided new avenues for articulating of intra-Muslim differences such as between new groups such as the Ahl-I Hadith, Deobandis, and Brêlwi tradition, all of whom emerged in the period of British rule (Mushirul Hasan, Islam in the Subcontinent. Muslims in a Plural Society [New Delhi, India: Manohar, 2002]). Muslim Hindustanis in Surinam and the Netherlands represent most of these various groups and traditions. 98. Landman, pp. 218–219. 99. In 1972 the World Islamic Mission (WIM) was formed, as a collaboration between a number of leading ulama from the Brêlwi tradition, who live in India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, to give international support to the school and to counterbalance the Wahabis, who had built strong organizations amongst the Indian and Pakistani migrants in the diaspora (particularly in England). The headquarters of the World Islamic Mission are in Bradford, England. The president and chief patron is (the Pakistani) Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani Siddiqui Al Qadiri. Rev. Rudolf Karsten, De Britisch-Indiers in Surinam. Een Korte Schets Benevens een Handeling voor de Beginselen van het Hindi ('s-Gravenhage, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhof, 1930), pp. 13–14. Chikrie, 1999. Karsten, p. 20. Ibid., p. 25. The Ahmadiyya link between British Guyana, Surinam, and Trinidad was already established in July–Aug. 1934, by Moulvi Ameer Ali. Furthermore, the Ahmaddiya movement tended to maintain strong links with its center, Lahore (India, now Pakistan). This led some Muslims, not only in Surinam but also in Trinidad, to also identify with Pakistan (Halima S. Kassim, "Schisms in Caribbean Islam: Ideological Conflict in the Trinidadian Muslim Community, 1920–1950", Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. VI, No. 1 & 2 [1999], p. 175). Halima S. Kassim also refers to an "Inter-Colonial Muslim Conference in August 1950. Delegates from Barbados, British Guyana, Dutch Guyana (Surinam), and the host territory, Trinidad, met to consider the educational, social, economic, moral, and religious problems of the Muslims in the Caribbean, with the aim of establishing a closer relationship and forging cooperation among the Muslim community of those territories through a regional Muslim organization" (Ibid., p. 177). An area in outer London with a large Indian population, also known as little India. In Surinam, we found no Pakistani migrants, and contacts with Pakistanis are much less frequent than in the Netherlands. Usha Sanyal, "The (Re-) Construction of South Asian Muslim Identity in Queens, New York," in Carla Petievich (ed.), The Expanding Landscape. South Asians and the Diaspora (New Delhi, India: Manohar, 1999), p. 141.