This morning I read this article from the Hindustan Times - Celebrating Indianness.

I read it and I felt a sense of despair, on one hand the Indian Diaspora doing very well for themselves and therefore very welcomed into the British genteel society. However, despair set in when I read this paragraph

One may call it globalisation of the Indian culture or cultural synchronisation or trans-cultural movement or cosmopolitanism or put it lightly the emerging curry and tandoori factor, the reality is that there is now an amazing awareness of all aspects of Indian culture among the English. Be it yoga, ayurveda, or the various forms of Indian spirituality, music, fashion, food or even family values and the tradition of respect for elders, all are widely known and accepted even by the inner city conservatives.

Every where the diaspora went, they took the Indian culture with them and remoulded them to suit their new society.On one hand Indian culture is termed as conservative, very Indian. On the other it is has opened itself to incorporating other foreigh elements, to suit the society the diaspora lives in.

However, my sense of despair arises from the fact this "hybridity" of cultures is merely hogwash and is still not accepted into mainstream. Diasporic culture will always be a minority culture, so using it to gain acceptance into the mainstream society isn't good enough.I think the diaspora likes to think itself as distinctly "Indian" or distinctly 'British/American/African'. Hence the Indian yoga, Indian spiritualism with a foreign passport...

Want to know what I mean - Forget about "Celebrating Indianness" - "Celebrate being British Indianness".

I welcome a discussion on this!

When I tell people that my current interest is Films on the Indian Diaspora, ofcourse not many people understand my fascination for a genre that is so steeped in culture and identity.

By analyzing these films, I try to understand my own suburban Indian identity. When you are in a culture, you hardly pay attention to it, it engulfs you every day but it is no different from the rest of the community.

Now look at the NRI, there is a beauty their struggle to hold onto a "culture", to hold on to "Indianness", to identify themselves as belonging to two worlds and always being the hyphenated Indian.Yes, in the process there is confusion and immense sadness as all diasporic literature and film reveal. But there is an undoubted consciousness of being some where, some part Indian.

Like I said, before my Ph.D is a respect for higher scholarship and a chance to understand "What it means to be Indian in today's world?"

I had asked some of peers for their "Ph.D Proposal". Just to have an idea, how to go about mine. They seemed skeptical. Fair enough! But it peeved me to think that they didn' trust me enough to share their work, when our thesis topics were so different.

At times like this, I think I am happy doing a Ph.D while working, so I don't have to interact with peers who aren't helpful. And since I meet my Guide just once a month, it makes our discussions more fruitful.

I just googled for 'Ph.D Plagiarism'. This is what I found,

Very soon, PhD research scholars in the country would be required to submit their theses online thanks to a radical plan of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to create an electronic Indian Theses Database

For more on UGC plans e-thesis to stop PhD plagiarism and increase access click!

I am glad with the help of the e-database of thesis, we would have access to some good thesis work, imagine a good thesis lying in the back row of a back shelf in the last left hand corner of the library covered with dust and yellowing. What a waste of data, resources and ideas! And at the same time there is a curb on copying of authentic research work.

I am hoping this ensures that the quality of our thesis rises.

"Progressive Indian-American Woman" - Left a comment on the blog. I thought it was a very thought provoking comment, for somebody like me studying the diaspora.

You say - The second generation can now have a connection to what is happening back home.

Three observations about that -

1. the second generation do not consider their parents' home country necessarily as "back home". I think to them it is just the latest fad to which they have a bit more of an "in" than their non-ethnic (or differently ethnic) peers.

2. A level of connection to the parent's home country is possible because the home country too is becoming more like America. Just take Bollywood as an example - before Aishwarya I don't think there were any actresses who were fluent enough in the lingo and the ethos of the global culture. Sure, there were the likes of Shabana who were articulate in English, but they had a certain authentic Indian-ness to them that the likes of Aishwarya lack - Aishwarya is just an Indian-by-costume.

3. As the parent of second-gen teens, I can tell you that the much-vaunted connection to the home country is an illusion. Those of their desi peers who are steeped in desi culture are choosing the Aishwarya brand of it. Nothing wrong with that, except that along the way what is lost is a connection to the concept of India (Bollywood is not India), an understanding of the history and even the geography.

What is worse, I think, is that this so-called connection is a result of self-selected self-exotification. It is at the expense of the ability to fully participate in the here and now - they are unable to hold their own in a mainstream American milieu and over time the self-segregation becomes a permanent part of who they are. One young woman I know comes home each weekend from State U - why, I feel like asking, has she not made friends at University? why is she not finding activities at college that spark her interest and consume her energy?!

Just my 2c.


Thanks a ton Progressive Indian-American Woman!!

There is some good news for all those Desis, wanting to avail dual citizenships for emotional, sentimental, political and economic reasons. You can now be a dual citizen!!!!


BUT

The Minister of State for Overseas Indian Affairs Jagdish Tytler on April 28, told the Rajya Sabha, that the Ministry of Home Affairs had received nearly 2,000 applications from Indian diplomatic offices for overseas Indian citizenship.

25 million Indians in the diaspora and only 2000 applications!!!!I don't blame the diaspora for this. Who would want to be Indian, when the only meaning of offering dual citizenshsip by the Government of India is for investment reasons.

Foreign Investment is not a reason enough to hold a "Blue Indian passport". What about the history, the culture that binds us.We need the NRI expertise, the skill, a reversal of the brain-drain so that India develops. In this context being "Indian" matters the most.

Now there is going to be a MTV - Desi aimed at the second generation Indian Americans.

It's a mass culture tap into the notion of transnational identity -- the idea that despite a degree of assimilation, immigrant communities now retain close ties to their native cultures, thanks to easy air travel, transglobal business and trade, and you-are-there communications technologies. Unlike previous generations (say, that of my grandparents and parents, early 20th century immigrants and first-gen Americans, respectively), the "old country" isn't being left behind forever. This hybrid identity leaves a lot of young Asian-Americans hungry for pop culture that reflects their ties to both West and East

So my question is is there only going to be a hybrid culture. Is there no pure form of culture? For eg: Bhangra is pure, Bhangra with hip-hop beats is hybrid. Will hybridity, make us lose out on the essence of tradition. Is tradition getting lost?

I really don't think so, lets go back to Darwin, for a culture to survive beyond its confines of country, it should integrate and appeal with the current popular culture.

Funny, second generation Indians will have a connection to what is happening back home, but the older genration who left India couldn't make the connection. I think the 'Confused Desi' tag is over in these globalized times.

The world is changing, older things don't change they merely evolve. A large reason is the latest communication technologies.

Identity is not undergoing a crisis, just getting redefined.

Kochi may host ‘Pravasi Bharatiya Divas-2006’ . I beleive my hometown of Hyderabad, also offered to host the event.

I will be participating in some form or the other at this event. Let me make plans to get there.

There is an internship program on the India Day website- Diaspora Youth Internship Program, for those interested.

Sometimes a PH.D takes control over your life, it fixes time lines, disrupts a normal family life, takes over your thinking, frustrates you and in extreme cases tests your confidence and self-esteem.Working part-time without peer or grant support is discouraging. And you want to give up.

I am at that point when my Ph.D topic seems rather limited in its scope, actually I think it is my mind which is limiting. I have to meet my guide tomorrow, he wants to know the larger questions my Ph.D will address. I have written that down several times. I'll just try again.

I know there is a scope to study Diasporic Film...the appeal intellectually, academically and signify how very hyphenated the Indian is becoming.


Back to work!

I would love to attend this conference in Bangkok, I am currently a Ph.D scholar from the University of Hyderbad, India working on "Capturing immigrant experience on Diasporic Film". The conference deal only with Southeast Asian cinema alone.It would be good to see how South Asian diasporic cinema is different from Southeast Asian transnational/diasporic cinema.


Southeast Asian Cinemas at the Borders
August 15-16, 2005, Thammasat University, Bangkok Thailand
Conference Co-hosts: Thai Film Foundation and The Southeast Asian Studies Program (Liberal Arts, Thammasat University)

Southeast Asian film continues to be an important site in which the struggle over the imagination about selfhood, communities, and nation takes place. Not only is film about the imagination, but film is also a powerful culture industry working within the market and various national regulations and policies. The second conference takes up these interwoven themes through its twin goals of enhancing teaching and research in Southeast Asian films.

The last week I was away in Sri Lanka, for a workshop on Knowledge Sharing.

Ofcourse I was also scouting around for diaspora stories, and I found so many interesting stories.

We have a large Indian (Tamil) diaspora in Sri Lanka. The Indian Tamils were brought to Sri Lanka from southern India in the 19th and early 20th centuries by the British who needed a cheap supply of labor for the plantations.

Greater political representation and equal civil rights for the stateless Tamils are among the key concerns of the Indian Tamils. In the economic arena, improved working conditions, especially better wages, and greater educational and occupational opportunities are viewed as vital to the group's future. As most Indian Tamils are estate laborers, the privatization of the country's tea plantations in the mid-1990s has resulted in some short-term costs. Social and cultural concerns include the ability to use Tamil in dealings with the government, freedom of religious belief, and protection against attacks by the dominant community.

Apparently this group is called a MINORITY AT RISK

Walking down the streets of Colombo, I looked for the Indian Tamil, i saw a lot of them. I also happened to meet a Gujarati girl called Tasneem, who is Sri Lankan but speaks Gujarati at home and is a Borra. She is to be married to an English man. Her grandparents came to settle in Sri Lanka from Gujarat and never returned to India.

Never realized we have a part of the great Indian diaspora this close to home.

When I was there Sri Lanka director Vimukthi Jayasundara's "The Forsaken Land" won the prestigious Camera d’Or award for Best First Film at Cannes.Jaysundara, was trained at the Institute of the Cinema and Television of Pune, in India. For more......