African Settlements in India
1992; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1459-9465
Autores Tópico(s)Global Maritime and Colonial Histories
ResumoAsian/Indian settlements in East, Central and Southern Africa are a well-known fact. Many studies have been made to describe and analyse their presence and problems, their contribution to the social and economic development of their new homelands, and also their participation in the political life there. Similarly, there are several African settlements in India, the presence of which was reported long time ago but only as a novelty or in Census Reports. However, recently some serious studies about their social organisation, economic activity and political participation have been published in India and the United States. There are about 250 000 Afro-Indians, i.e. Indians of African origin, in India, settled in the state of Gujarat bordering Pakistan and, in the states of Andhra Pradesh in south-central India (former Kingdom of Hyderabad), Maharashtra (formerly Bombay State), Kerala and Karnataka in the south, and the former Portuguese territories of Daman, Diu and Goa. In Gujarat they are found in the districts of Ahmedabad, Amerili, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Broach/Bharuch near Ratanpur, and the former Kingdom of Cutch/Katchch. They are normally settled in areas of their own, but in Ahmedabad, Broach and Cutch they live in mixed areas as they do in parts of Andhra Pradesh. The Afro-Indians are generally known as Sidi/Siddi/Sidhi or Habshi/Habsi. These ethnonyms partly tell us that they were in the employ of Sayyads, the Muslim rulers of India, and partly that they came from Ethiopia. Almost all of them are Sunni Muslims, and the few Hindus and Christians are found in Karnataka and Goa respectively. They speak Gujarati in Gujarat, Hindi/Urdu in Andhra Pradesh, an admixture of Gujarati and Hindi in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. In Cutch they speak Cutchi (a dialect of Sindhi); in Sindh (south-eastern Pakistan) they speak Sindhi proper; and in Daman and Diu they speak Gujarati with many Swahili/Bantu words and phrases. Other groups of Sidis speak Marathi, Malayalam, Konkani etc. according to their region of settlement. In some cases they have special tribal names, e.g. the Tai of Saurashtra, the Shemali of Jambur Village near Madhapur (probably of Somali origin), the Kafara of Diu (probably from southern Mozambique and/or South Africa) and the Saheli of Daman (probably from the Kenya-Tanzania coast). These tribes do not intermarry with one another. Similarly, there are the Royal Sidis, survivors of the former Sidi State of Jafarabad established by the Sidi Naval Chief of Janjira during the time of the warrior King Shivaji of the Maratha in the mid-1800s. These Jafarabad Sidis together with those Royal Sidis in Hyderabad, Aurangabad and the former Sidi principalities in the native State of
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