Jayawardena - Indian Communities Overseas

American Geographical Society

Migration and Social Change: A Survey of Indian Communities OverseasAuthor(s): Chandra JayawardenaReviewed work(s):Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 426-449Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/212565 .Accessed: 25/05/2012 10:15

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MIGRATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE: A SURVEY OF INDIAN COMMUNITIES OVERSEAS*

CHANDRA JAYAWARDENA

ISCUSSIONS of the nature and prospects of economic development in India have repeatedly drawn attention to cultural impediments to the evolution of a modern economy. Institutions such as

the extended family, caste, and religion have been said to resist change and retard the development of more adaptive and innovative attitudes and values. Although there are good reasons for considering such views to be exaggera- tions, it is interesting in this connection to examine contexts in which such institutions have changed. Society among Indian communities overseas provides a field for studying situations where key institutions of Indian culture were radically adapted or gradually discarded in the face of new political and economic conditions presented by emigration.

The aim of this exploratory essay is to review briefly an extensive and growing literature,' sketching broadly a range of factors associated with the

* I wish to thank Richard Henderson, Sidney W. Mintz, and Raymond T. Smith for their valuable comments and criticisms.

I In order not to burden the text with too many references, which the comparison of many sources must entail, I have cited sources only where necessary. The following list catalogues the works I have consulted in writing this essay.

For Guyana: Chandra Jayawardena: Marital Stability in Two Guianese Sugar Estate Communities, Social and Econ. Studies, Vol. 9, 1960, pp. 76-loo; idem: Family Organization in Plantations in British Guiana, Internatl. Journ. of Comparative Sociology, Vol. 3, 1962, pp. 43-65; idem: Conflict and Solidarity in a Guianese Plantation (London, 1963); idem: Religious Belief and Social Change, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 8, 1966, pp. 211-240; Dwarka Nath: A History of Indians in British Guiana (London, 1950); Philip Singer: Caste and Identity in Guyana, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities (edited by Barton M. Schwartz; San Francisco, 1967), pp. 93-116; Elliott P. Skinner: Group Dynamics and Social Stratification in British Guiana, in Social and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean (edited by Vera Rubin), Annals New York Acad. of Sci., Vol. 83, Art. 5, 1960, pp. 904-912; Raymond T. Smith: Economic Aspects of Rice Production in an East Indian Community in British Guiana, Social and Econ. Studies, Vol. 6, 1957, pp. 502-522; idem: Some Social Characteristics of Indian Immigrants to British Guiana, Population Studies, Vol. 13, 1959-1960, pp. 34-39; idem: British Guiana (London, 1962): idem: Ethnic Difference and Peasant Economy in British Guiana, in Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies (edited by Raymond W. Firth and Basil S. Yamey, Chicago and London, 1964), pp. 305-329; R. T. Smith and C. Jayawardena: Hindu Marriage Customs in British Guiana, Social and Econ. Studies, Vol. 7, 1958, pp. 178-194; idem: Marriage and Family amongst East Indians in British Guiana, ibid., Vol. 8, 1959, pp. 321-376; idem: Caste and Social Status among the Indians of Guyana, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 43-92.

For Trinidad: Colin Clarke: Caste among Hindus in a Town in Trinidad: San Fernando, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 165-199; Daniel J. Crowley: Cultural Assimilation in a Multiracial Society, in Social and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean, op. cit., pp. 850-854; Morton Klass: East Indians in Trinidad: A Study in Cultural Persistence (New York, 1961); Arthur Niehoff:

> DR.JAYAWARDENA is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, Univer- sity of Sydney, Australia.

INDIAN COMMUNITIES OVERSEAS

persistence, adaptation, and dissolution of traditional institutions. Lack of space prevents an exhaustive discussion of the variety of backgrounds from which Indians emigrated and the diverse circumstances they encountered. Thus the discussion of changes induced by emigration is limited in two ways. The first restricts the field to the Caribbean countries, South Africa (Natal), East Africa (mainly Uganda), Mauritius, Ceylon, Malaya, and Fiji. Canada, Britain, Burma, and Indonesia are excluded. The second limits the analysis largely to the process of emigration and the conditions of initial settlement. I attempt to relate variations in factors present in these processes to differences in the extent of sociocultural changes. This decision excludes analysis of the complex political and economic developments each set of emigrants expe- rienced after their permanent settlements.

A comprehensive review of the literature, even in this restricted field, cannot be made within the scope of the present essay. I shall be forgiven, I hope, a degree of oversimplification unavoidable in an attempt to present an integrated analysis. Yet I believe that the degree of distortion is minimal, since the differences between writers in this field are not so much about the facts as about theoretical emphases and interpretations. One last reservation pertinent to attempting this kind of review is that the comparative study of overseas Indian communities has only just begun. The time is not yet ripe for The Function of Caste among the Indians of the Oropuche Lagoon, Trinidad, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 149-163; Arthur and Juanita Niehoff: East Indians in the West Indies, Milwaukee Public Museum Publ. in Anthropology No. 6, 196o; Barton M. Schwartz: Caste and Endogamy in Trinidad, Southwestern Journ. of Anthropology, Vol. 20, 1964, pp. 58-66; idem: Patterns of East Indian Family Organization in Trinidad, Caribbean Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1965, pp. 23-36; idem: The Failure of Caste in Trinidad, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 117-147.

For Surinam: Johan D. Speckmann: The Indian Group in the Segmented Society of Surinam, Caribbean Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1963, pp. 3-17; idem: Marriage and Kinship among the Indians in Surinam (Assen, Netherlands, 1965); idem: The Caste System and the Hindustani Group in Surinam, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 201-212.

For South Africa: Hilda Kuper: An Ethnographic Description of a Tamil-Hindu Marriage in Durban, African Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1956, pp. 1-14; idem: An Ethnographic Description of a Hindustani Marriage in Durban, ibid., No. 4, 1956, pp. 3-12; idem: Indian People in Natal (Durban, 1960); idem: Changes in Caste of the South African Indian, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 237-265; B. Rambiritch and Pierre L. van den Berghe: Caste in a Natal Hindu Community, African Studies, Vol. 20, 1961, pp. 217-225; Pierre L. van den Berghe: Caneville: The Social Structure of a South African Town (Middletown, Conn., 1964); Clement A. Woods: The Indian Community of Natal (Capetown, 1954).

For East Africa: Agehananda Bharati: A Social Survey, in Portrait of a Minority: Asians in East Africa (edited by Dharam P. Ghai, London and Nairobi, 1966), pp. 13-64; H. S. Morris: Indians in East Africa: A Study in a Plural Society, Brit.Journ. of Sociology, Vol. 7, 1956, pp. 194-211; idem: Communal Rivalry among Indians in Uganda, ibid., Vol. 8, 1957, pp. 306-317; idem: The Divine Kingship of the Aga Khan: A Study of Theocracy in East Africa, Southwestern Journ. of Anthropology, Vol. 14, 1958, pp. 454-472; idem: The Indian Family in Uganda, Amer. Anthropologist, Vol. 61, 1959, pp. 779-789; idem: Caste among the Indians of Uganda, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 267-282; David F. Pocock:

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firm and clear-cut conclusions. What appear to be similarities may turn out to be the opposite after further research and discussion.

ORIGINS OF EMIGRATION

The large-scale emigration of Indians in modem times and their permanent settlement in other parts of the world are, in a sense, a surprising phenomenon. In the past Indians showed no marked tendency to expansion and colonization overseas. Crossing the "black waters" (kala pani) was traditionally regarded as full of peril to the Hindu's soul. Apart from small coastal trading communities, there was no large-scale settlement in new lands until the nineteenth century.

The main areas of distribution of Indian emigrants suggest the force that drew the tide of emigration-European imperialist expansion. New industrial and commercial ventures, especially plantations, created the need for large supplies of labor. In several areas the colonial governments or the planters considered it uneconomic or impolitic to draw on native populations. With the progressive prohibition of African slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century, India and China became the obvious alternative reservoirs of labor. Furthermore, European influence and domination had created severe economic and social disturbances among the peasantries of these two countries. For many potential emigrants the offers of the labor recruiters

"Difference" in East Africa: A Study of Caste and Religion in Modern Indian Society, Southwestern Tourn. ofAnthropology, Vol. 13, 1957, pp. 289-300.

For Matritius: B. Benedict: Factionalism in Mauritian Villages, Brit. Journi. of Sociology, Vol. 8, 1957, pp. 328-342; idenm: Education without Opportunity, Humlan Relations, Vol. 11, 1958, pp. 315-329; idenm: Indians in a Plural Society, Colonial Research Studies No. 34, Colonial Office, London, 1961; idem: Strati- fication in Plural Societies, Amer. Anthropologist, Vol. 64, 1962, pp. 1235-1246; idem: Capital, Saving and Credit among Mauritian Indians, in Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies, op. cit., pp. 330-346; idem: Caste in Mauritius, in Caste in Overseas Indian Communities, op. cit., pp. 21-42.

For Fiji: K. L. Gillion: Fiji's Indian Migrants (Melbourne, London, and elsewhere, 1962); Adrian C. Mayer: The Organisation of Indian Settlement in Fiji, Man, Vol. 53, 1953, pp. 182-185; idem: Aspects of Credit and Debt among Fiji Indian Farmers, Journ. Polynesian Soc., Vol. 64, 1955, pp. 442-449; idem: Associations in Fiji Indian Rural Society, Amer. Anthropologist, Vol. 58, 1956, pp. 97-108; idem: Factions among Indians in Fiji, Brit. Journ. of Sociology, Vol. 8, 1957, pp. 317-328; idem: Peasants in the Pacific: A Study of Fiji Indian Rural Society (London, 1961); idem: Indians in Fiji (London, 1963). I have also relied on my own research in Fiji.

Most of the published materials on Indians in Ceylon and Malaya that I have seen are not particularly helpful in discussing the topic of this essay. The work of Karl J. Pelzer (Die Arbeiterwanderungen in Siidostasien [Hamburg, 1935]) came to my attention too late to be used here. There are also two unpub- lished Ph.D. dissertations, one by R. K. Jain on Indian plantation laborers in Malaya (The Australian National University, Canberra, 1965) and one by R. Jayaraman on "Caste, Kinship and Religion among lndian Tea Estate Labourers in Ceylon" (University of Delhi, Delhi, 1966). Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to read Dr. Jain's study. I have used Dr. Jayaraman's work, and believe that the situation in Malaya is essentially similar to that in Ceylon.

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were the sole, if not a tempting, way out of difficult circumstances they could not control.

The development of colonial economies also created several commercial and petty industrial opportunities at those points where the Western capitalist

TABLE I-INDIAN POPULATIONS OF SELECTED COUNTRIES

INDIAN % OF TOTAL COUNTRY YEAR POPULATION POPULATION SOURCE

Guyana 1960 267,840 48.2 Smith andJayawardena (1967) Trinidad 1960 301,947 36.5 Clarke (1967) Surinam 1959 93,537 35.4 Speckmann (1965) East Africaa 1963 352,300 1.3 Ghai (1965) South Africa 1961 403,868 2.5 Census (1961) Mauritius 1957 399,722 67.o Benedict (1961) Ceylon 1963 1,132,000 io.6 Census est. Fiji 1960 197,952 49-3 Mayer (1963) a Kenya, 180,000; Uganda, 82,100; Tanganyika, 90,200.

economy articulated with the indigenous rural economy. These lay chiefly in retail trade and in the manufacture of the goods needed by an increasingly cash-conscious peasantry but not produced by foreign business concerns. The native populations did not provide the entrepreneurs to tap these limited but lucrative opportunities. Again, it was India and China that provided the entrepreneurs who settled in the nooks and crannies of the colonial economies. Thus, by and large, there were two streams of Indian and Chinese emigrants to the colonies: unskilled laborers and small-scale entrepreneurs. Among the Indians this distinction is underlined by different regions of origin; the unskilled laborers came mainly from eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, and the province of Madras; the entrepreneurs were largely from the northern districts of Bombay province, Gujarat, and Sind. In countries where the two types of emigrants or their descendants coexist, the distinction between them is a marked feature of intragroup relations in the Indian community.

Little is known about the causes of emigration from Gujarat, but the evidence is strong that the main incentive, so far as the peasants of northeastern and southern India are concerned, was the dislocation of the rural "little republics" caused by the wars that fragmented the Mughal (Mogul) empire, and by the administrative reorganizations after British conquest. Changes in the patterns of ownership and associated power undermined the village community based on resident village-owners and their hereditary tenants. Many owners became tenants on short and insecure leases, and some even tenants-at-will. They were no longer able to exercise their hereditary

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rights or fulfill their customary duties, either among themselves or in relation to their dependents. Thus the factors disposing many to leave, despite traditional aversion to doing so, were not just poverty but the disintegration of the village communities, whereby many lost their customary status. Emigration was preceded by a loosening of village community bonds.

Emigration to the various countries was organized in different ways, but two main types of emigration and settlement may be distinguished. These two types are represented in their extreme forms by emigration to the Caribbean (that is, to the British, Dutch, and French West Indies and the Guianas) on the one hand and to Ceylon and Malaya on the other.2

INDENTURED LABOR IN THE CARIBBEAN

Migration to the West Indies was organized by the indenture system that was introduced into different countries at various dates in the nineteenth century,3 but was discontinued in 1917 when the Government of India placed an embargo on indentured emigration. The indenture was a contract by which the emigrant agreed to work for a given employer for five years, performing the tasks assigned to him for a specified wage. At the end of the five years the immigrant was free to reindenture or to work elsewhere in the

colony; at the end of ten years he was entitled to a subsidized return passage. The fulfillment of the contract was governed by an Immigration Ordinance enacted in the country of destination. Prospective emigrants testified before a magistrate in India that they understood the terms of the contract. On

making such a deposition they were housed in a depot in Calcutta until a ship was ready to take them away. To avoid competition, the governments of

Jamaica, Trinidad, Mauritius, and Fiji maintained an emigration agency in Calcutta jointly; Guyana and Natal shared another, and Surinam had its own. Groups of several hundred emigrants were dispatched to Fiji and Natal in the first half of the year and to the West Indies and Mauritius in the second. Several of these countries maintained offices in Madras as well.

The Emigration Agent issued licenses to subagents who maintained depots in the rural districts and were paid a commission on each satisfactory recruit.

2 In discussing the Indians of Ceylon I refer only to the plantation laborers who constitute about 80 percent of the Indian population of Ceylon. The rest are mainly merchants in the cities who come either from southern India or from Bombay and Gujarat.

3 Indentured migration to Mauritius started in 1834 (a total of 451,796 up to 1910), to Guyana in 1838 (238,960), to Trinidad in 1845 (143,900), to Natal in 1860, to Surinam in 1873 (34,000), and to Fiji in 1878 (60,965). The great majority of these emigrants did not return home. In almost all these countries, immigration of "free passengers" was concurrent, but took place to any considerable extent only after 1917. For estimates of the present population see Table I.

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The subagents hired recruiters who prospected in market towns and pilgrim- age centers, where they advertised high wages and easy work to visiting villagers. The main official qualifications were physical fitness and agricultural experience. The vast majority of recruits were young males; females were few, and in later decades a quota of 40 percent females for every shipload was imposed by the colonial governments. As a rule the migrants volunteered as individuals; emigration by family units or caste groups or village communities was rare. The responsibilities of the subagents ceased once the recruits were delivered at the emigration depot in Calcutta. Thereafter the recruits were under the care of the Protector of Emigrants and the master of the ship conveying them to a destination most barely comprehended.

On arrival in the colony the immigrants were assigned to the plantations to which they were "bound" for five years. Here they led a quarantined life cut off from the rest of the society. Contacts with the outside world were mediated by the plantation manager, the magistrate, the police, and the Immigration Department. The Immigration Ordinance that regulated many aspects of their lives, from family rights to political rights, stamped the immigrants as a category distinct from other residents of the country. Desertion laws limited their freedom of movement, and the plantation met most of their needs.

The isolation of the laborers was buttressed by the tremendous power of the manager. The indenture contract and the manner of its implementation placed the immigrants completely under the control of their employers. Critics of the indenture system likened it to short-term slavery. The power of the managers, sometimes exercised in contravention of the Immigration Ordinance, was reinforced by the dominance of the planters as a class in the colonial society. The manager or his deputy mustered the laborers on parade each morning, chastised absentees, gave some permission to report sick, assigned tasks, and judged performance. Recalcitrants were sent to the magistrate's courts to be punished for breach of the ordinance.

The managerial regime was not always oppressive; indeed, it was usually paternalistic, sometimes benevolent and sometimes harsh. Its aim was the development of a hardworking, docile, and, hopefully, contented labor force efficient enough to meet production targets. To achieve this end, managers supervised all aspects of the laborers' lives, curbing anything that threatened order and efficiency. In those matters pertaining to the economic aims or organization of the plantation, decisions were made without regard to the traditions and customs of the laborers.

When their indentures were completed, some immigrants remained on

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the plantations, while others moved into rural communities outside. In the West Indian colonies the bulk of the local population was also of immigrant origin, persons who had themselves been brought by the exigencies of a plantation economy. Although this colonial society was by no means a "reflection" or a "product" of the plantation, both its values and its structures were deeply influenced by the institution in which almost everyone and his recent forebears had participated directly or indirectly. The movement of thousands of Indians into the villages and towns was virtually unregulated by the government. Individuals, families, or small groups of friends were left to find their own way. In such circumstances it is remarkable that so little disturbance was caused by the intake of large numbers of people with an alien culture. Between 1838 and 1917, for example, more than 150,000 immigrants and their children settled in (mainly) rural Guyana. But the first serious disturbances between Negroes and Indians occurred only some fifty years after immigration had ceased, and involved creolized second- and third- generation Indians.4

One explanation for such a peaceful absorption was that although the Indians moving out of the plantations soon became aware of their cultural distinctiveness, they also had a shared experience with those they met outside, that of plantation life. They had little difficulty in recognizing the main topographical features of the novel social terrain into which they had ventured, and understood, even if they did not initially adopt, the guiding principles of living there.

Those who left the plantations tended to settle down on the periphery of the Negro villages, combining, like the Negroes, subsistence farming with wage labor. In Guyana-and this is largely true also of Trinidad and Jamaica -the Indians seldom combined to form villages on their own initiative; exclusively or predominantly Indian villages were formed under government sponsorship. However, in Guyana the policy of separate Indian settlements under their own system of administration was discontinued after a short experimental period and both Indian villages and Negro villages (most of which were by now ethnically mixed) were brought under the same system of local government. New settlement schemes were no longer reserved for a particular ethnic group. Again, developments in Trinidad and Jamaica were essentially similar.

4 The evidence indicates that even this was due not to cultural incompatibility but to cold-war politics. See CheddiJagan: The West on Trial (London, 1966).

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THE KANGANI SYSTEM IN CEYLON AND MALAYA

In many ways the organization of emigration to Ceylon (1839-c. 1950) presents a marked contrast to migration to the West Indies. Whereas the great majority of emigrants to the West Indies were from northeastern India, all the emigrants to Ceylon were from the south. The passage to the West Indies took on an average ninety days, to Ceylon only two or three, and proximity meant that many migrants returned home every few years. The migrants were recruited by headmen known as kangani. Each kangani recruited a score or more of men belonging mainly to his own caste and kin group, and from about the turn of the century migration by families was the predominant form. Sometimes several emigrant bands, each under its own leader, combined under the overall direction of a high-caste head kangani. Often the kangani was a man with some capital who lent his followers the expense of traveling to, and settling down on, a plantation. He negotiated with the manager about wages and work conditions on behalf of his group and could remove his followers to another plantation if the terms were not satisfactory. On the plantation the immigrant band was regarded as a work unit under the kangani's supervision and he mediated between it and management in all industrial matters. Each band occupied contiguous dwellings in the barracks or "lines." It regulated its customary relations under the kangani's leadership and pooled resources to meet common expenses. On most plantations the kangani were allowed great latitude in regulating the social lives of the laborers outside the work situation. Jayaraman likens the relation between a kangani and a laborer to that of a patron and his client.5

In Ceylon the Indian laborers were not brought in to supplement the working population in general but only as laborers for the tea and rubber plantations, on which the Sinhalese peasantry was reluctant to work. The immigrants were not encouraged to settle in villages outside the plantations and several legal restrictions prevented them from moving into other avenues of employment. Not only was the laboring community on the Cey- lonese plantation as isolated as the indentured laborers of the Guyanese plantation, but most channels of absorption into the wider society were blocked. Here the Indian laborers had the limited choice either of living on, and working for, the plantation or of returning to India.

The kangani system, as described for Ceylon, prevailed also in Malaya. Jayaraman, op. cit. [see footnote 1 above].

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FREE EMIGRATION TO EAST AFRICA

Emigration to East Africa presents a third pattern: the free emigration of traders and skilled artisans who did not settle on the land as farmers or laborers. Indentured laborers were brought to East Africa to build the Mom- basa railroad but few of them remained. Most of the present Indian population of Kenya and Uganda arrived after the railroad had stimulated opportunities for trade. This emigration was not entirely unorganized. Those who established themselves brought down their fellow villagers, kinsmen, and castemen. The new arrivals worked initially for their sponsors, but in time branched out on their own, often financed by members of the local caste community. There is a basic similarity between free emigration and the kangani system in that the emigrants were not unrelated individuals, as in the indenture system, but constituted self-regulating groups recruited on the basis of kinship, caste, and village of origin.

VARIABLES ASSOCIATED WITH CHANGE

None of the different types of emigration consisted of visionaries setting out to build a new society and a new culture, like the Utopian communities that set out for the New World. Indian emigration was more or less directly caused by disintegration of the economic basis of the village communities and consequent social displacement. One may assume, whether the question crossed their minds or not, that the emigrants had no intention of changing their ways of life, that they expected to continue to live in the new land in accordance with the institutions to which they were accustomed. It is therefore likely that they consciously or unconsciously attempted to maintain in the new setting the cultural patterns they had learned at home and presumably valued. On the other hand, a complete and comprehensive re-creation of the culture of the homeland was clearly impossible unless whole villages were transported-and in all likelihood not even then. The problem that needs examination, then, is the extent to which the emigrants succeeded in approx- imating to the norms and institutions of their home villages. The following discussion refers mainly to the experiences of the first generation, whose achievements in this respect set a standard or ceiling to the aspirations of their descendants.

INDIVIDUALS VERSUS GROUPS

The three types of emigration and settlement provide a set of variables useful for examining this problem. One variable is whether the emigrants

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left the country as individuals or as groups. In this respect the countries that organized immigration through indenture (Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Surinam, Martinique, Mauritius, Natal, and Fiji) may be differentiated from Uganda, Kenya, Ceylon, and Malaya. The indentured emigrants volunteered as individuals and they were treated as such in the supervision of their duties. Most were unrelated to one another and found themselves among strangers during the voyage and on the plantations to which they were assigned.6

Since the immigrant laborers came largely from one cultural region, it is likely that they drew on common experiences, values, and training in order to develop norms in terms of which they could relate to each other. But the actual constraints of the institutions they attempted to re-create, the sanctions individuals had at their disposal to ensure conformity, did not exist in the social system of the plantation. Thus it is likely that a more pragmatic attitude to the maintenance of traditional norms and the adoption of new ones was given a free rein among the Indians of the indenture countries. By contrast, under the kangani system traditional ties of caste, kinship, and village community governed the recruitment, the migratory process, and the initial settlement of the migrants. The norms of these institutions continued to regulate the relations between immigrants in the new setting, a situation made possible by the autonomy granted to the kangani in Ceylon and Malaya. Consequently, the persistence of the institutions that expressed and governed such relations was almost a necessary feature of life in the new environment.

Why the indenture system developed in some countries that sought immigrant labor from India but not in others is a complicated question that cannot be answered satisfactorily here. One factor, distance, is clearly important. Great distances required a large capital outlay in the administration of the recruitment and transport of the emigrants. Since individuals with ade- quate resources were few in India, the colonial governments and the planters financed immigration schemes. They could not leave such heavy investments entirely in the hands of entrepreneurs like the kangani, relying on their ability to guarantee satisfying returns in labor. Once the laborers were brought to the distant plantations, the owners of their services were reluctant to exercise their control indirectly through a free market or through negotiation with

6 It is interesting to note that, much like the Negro slaves of an earlier century, passengers on the same ship met the need for norms of cooperation with the institution ofjaha/i, whereby a bond of fictive brotherhood was recognized between individuals who befriended each other during the long voyage. Jahaji often got themselves assigned to the same plantation and the same barracks, regarded each other as brothers, and in time treated each other's children as close kin-for example, marriage between the children ofjahaji was likened to incest.

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customary leaders. The immigrant laborers were therefore closely regi- mented. They did not have the latitude to achieve a mutual adaptation between the organization of the plantation labor force and traditional institutions, as was possible in the Ceylonese and Malayan plantations under the kangani system. It is also noteworthy that the countries into which indentured immigration was first introduced-Mauritius, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad-were those in which the economy had been based on slavery.

The proximity of India and the relative cheapness of importing South Indian labor encouraged the development of a kangani, as opposed to an indenture, system in Ceylon and Malaya. Recruitment could be left in the hands of Indian entrepreneurs who looked for volunteers within their villages and caste communities and who undertook responsibility for the emigrants from their departure until their return. Unlike the recruiters of the indenture system, the kanganis' reward was not a commission for each pair of calloused hands they produced. They picked recruits over whom they were to exercise authority during the sojourn overseas. Customary relations between members of the same caste, kinship group, or village community were preserved when they settled in the new environment.

TIES WITH THE HOMELAND

Consideration of distance leads to the next variable, the extent to which ties with the homeland were maintained. Such ties usually took the form of periodic visits home. Distance is relative to the economic circumstances of the emigrant, the villages of South India being as far away for a laborer from a Ceylonese plantation, traveling by boat and train, as the villages of Gujarat are for a Kampala businessman flying home. The Indians of East Africa and Ceylon have maintained closer ties with their home villages than have those of the West Indies and Fiji, who have lost almost all contact. Maintenance of such ties, and the hope of eventual return, engendered a reluctance to deviate into practices disapproved at home. Thus in East Africa, for example, although the caste system exists only in truncated form, correct endogamous marriages are still made in order to facilitate return.

LABORERS VERSUS TRADERS

Because of its economic dimension, distance is closely related also to the third variable, whether the immigrants entered the host society as traders (or on a comparable level in the occupational hierarchy) or as unskilled laborers. In this respect one can distinguish East Africa from the other countries, bear- ing in mind that although the Indians of Natal, Mauritius, and Fiji are mainly

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of indentured origin, significant numbers of them were free traders. The economic circumstances of the immigrants were important for the persistence of traditional institutions because of the power derived from wealth. Merchants had the resources and social contacts to develop the preconditions for pre- serving traditional patterns and for cushioning themselves against pressures to change.

Laborers were not so favorably placed. Since they were at the bottom of the social hierarchy, their bargaining power was less, and they were con- strained to accommodate themselves to whatever demands were made by those who controlled their means of livelihood. This entailed close association with other ethnic groups, cultural borrowing, and adaptation. The purely economic nexus between sharply distinguished ethnic groups-Furnivall's classic "plural society"7-was approximated in the multiethnic society of the portsultanates of Southeast Asia before European domination. In modern times, overseas Indian merchant communities have had the power and influence to develop some features of the "pure" marketplace relationship that is insulated against external cultural influence. But laborers have not been able to achieve this (assuming that they wished to). Both in Guyana and in Fiji they were proletarianized by the plantation system. In neither country did Indians leaving the plantation attempt to reconstitute an "Indian village," though in Fiji the development of a prosperous peasantry helped to save some institutions from complete erosion.

STRUCTURE AND POLICY OF HOST SOCIETY

A fourth variable is the structure of the host society and its policy toward the immigrants. The main point here is whether the immigrants were de- fined as a social group in such a way as to impede or prevent absorption into the wider society. Such a policy slows down the process of integration and isolates the immigrants as a distinct sociocultural unit in many fields of activi- ty. The widespread adoption by immigrants in intragroup relations of categories of distinction prevalent in the broader society signifies complete integration, while the degree to which they are isolated is reflected by the extent to which social life is regulated by distinctions derived from the ancestral culture. In this respect Mauritius and the Caribbean colonies (with the partial exception of Surinam) may be contrasted with the other countries. In the former, initial seclusion in the plantations was followed by a relatively unrestricted freedom to enter all strata of the wider society. There were

7J. S. Furnivall: Colonial Policy and Practice (Cambridge, 1948; New York, 1956).

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impediments, but these were largely economic and social disadvantages the Indians shared with other lower-class strata of rural society. In general, the obstacles to absorption did not arise out of any politico-legal definitions of the immigrants' status.

By contrast, in Fiji, for example, the Indians were marked out as a special category. The first governors of Fiji were dedicated to the end of halting the high death rate among native Fijians by protecting their village communities from the disintegrating influences of modern commerce and industry. They forbade the recruitment of Fijian labor for plantations, prohibited the aliena- tion of tribal lands, and placed the administration of local affairs in the hands of Fijian chiefs. The Indians were brought in to compensate the planters for the loss of their labor supply. When they left the plantations they could not reside in Fijian villages but had to settle wherever they could find land to lease. From about 1925 on the company that had come to own all the cane

plantations of Fiji divided its land into ten-acre holdings and leased these to the laborers, creating settlements of tenant farmers that were physically, politically, and socially outside the Fijian rural sector. Restrictions on immigrants, with comparable consequences, also developed in East Africa, Natal, and Ceylon. The separation of Indians as a social group fostered reten- tion of traditional institutions and impeded adoption of the institutions of the wider society, or the development of new ones, as media for close and regular exchange with other ethnic groups.

A fifth set of variables, the various cultures of the emigrants from different regions, may be mentioned here, though its importance cannot be as- sessed without further research into conditions in nineteenth-century India. It is likely that regional variants of Indian institutions responded in different

ways in the new settings and that, juxtaposed for the first time, they produced syncretic forms unknown in the homeland. It is difficult to estimate the extent to which the present situation is attributable to variations in ancestral culture. So far as the descendants of indentured laborers are concerned, it is my im-

pression that the region of origin has had a less lasting influence than the mode of emigration or the status of the migrant. A comparison of South Indians in the West Indies and Fiji with those of Ceylon and Malaya seems to support this view.

CHANGES IN TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS

It is appropriate to raise at this point the problem of what is meant by "persistence" of Indian culture. Since the period of emigration to various countries ranges from three or four decades to more than a century, and since,

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presumably, society and culture in India were also changing during that time, a question arises as to which point in this flux should be used as the base line to measure change. Is "persistence" to mean that the customs and organizational principles of peasant communities of Oudh before the Mutiny persist in, say, Trinidad, whereas in all likelihood they have changed in India? If the Kenyan grandsons of a Patidar farmer from Gujarat lead the life of the Bombay urban upper class, learned from the Indian Illustrated Weekly, does this represent persistence or change? Such matters require further discussion. Here I interpret "persistence" to include changes that can be regarded as developments under the impetus of stimuli inherent in the ancestral tradition or of influences emanating from the homeland, as opposed to changes induced by the pressures of the host society and culture.

THE FAMILY

The patrilineal extended family is an ideal norm in almost all overseas Indian communities. Whether it represents a stage passed through by all families in the home communities is uncertain, though the available evidence suggests that it does not. Yet it is clear that the ideal was one the emigrants took with them but achieved with different degrees of success in the new environments. In Guyana the nuclear family is statistically the most frequent residential unit, even though the household head is of an age when he can form an extended unit. Most households pass through a brief extended phase when the son brings his spouse home. After a few years, with the birth of the first or second child, the couple establish their own residence. Close cooperation within the family may persist despite separate residence, especially if the son continues to depend wholly or partly on property controlled by the father. Individuals use customary norms to establish a unit of production or consumption satisfactory to all the working partners. In general, then, extended family groupings are more stable and last longer not in the plantations but in the rice-growing villages, where the father's possession of land and the son's inability to find a satisfactory alternative source of income result in paternal dominance over an extended family unit. But even this arrangement does not last long, for the son gradually acquires his own property through partition of the patrimony or through wage labor. A distinction should be made here between ideal norms and a level of satisfactory achievement. The nuclear family among Indians is of the latter kind; the extended family is held to be desirable but not often practicable. The fact that the nuclear family is the norm accepted by other ethnic groups in the society reinforces its significance as an alternative value for the Indians. The situation is basically

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the same in Trinidad and Surinam. In Mauritius, too, the ideal of the patrilineal extended family is attained most often by prosperous landowners and least often by laborers.

In rural Fiji extended families last much longer, adding second and third married sons. Infrequently the unit may continue after the death of the founder and, rarely, into the fourth generation. A similar development occurs among urban Gujarati merchants, among whom a second married son, usually better educated than the eldest, may continue to live in the paternal household; he finds himself a specialized line of work, such as traveling to solicit customers, delivering goods, or dealing with importers, while his brother minds the shop.

Although the Caribbean Indians and the Fiji Indians present a contrast, the development of a patrilineal extended family is only partly explained by the father's control of productive property. The extended-family phase is shorter among Guyanese laborers than among the rice farmers, who resemble the Fijian cane farmers in this respect, but there is also a difference between the Guyanese Indian rice farmers and the Fiji Indian cane farmers. Most Fiji Indian villagers live in extended families; the Guyanese villagers do not. Con- trol over productive property is not, therefore, the sole relevant factor. The fact that the rural Fiji Indians are relatively more isolated from other ethnic groups with different family and kinship norms, such as the Fijians themselves, may be relevant here. Whatever pressures militate against extended family units, the establishment of a separate nuclear family is not often a solution that recommends itself by its acceptance by another ethnic group with whom the Indians are in close contact. Moreover, even if the Fiji Indians lived in daily association with Fijians, as the Guyanese Indians do with the Guyanese Negroes, they would have found Fijian kinship norms too complex and alien to be adopted.

Predictably, extended-family households seem to be prevalent among East African Indians. And in Natal family structure resembles that among the Fiji Indians. Statistics suggest that of the indentured-immigration countries the proportion of extended families is greatest in Natal. The similarity with Fiji is partly accounted for by the nature of the society the Indians entered after completing their indentures-a wholly or partly segregated society. But what is striking about Kuper's data8 is that the high proportion of extended families is found not among rural but among urban Indians, of whom only a minority own productive property; in Fiji the nuclear family is predominant

8 Kuper, Indian People in Natal [see footnote 1 above], Chapter 6.

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among urban wage earners. The greater cohesiveness of the extended family in Natal could perhaps be related to severe segregation or to acute housing shortages in restricted "locations."

The absence of productive property appears in association with a pre- dominance of the nuclear family in the Ceylonese plantation. A high value is placed on the ability to maintain a patrilineal extended family, but the normal pattern is for sons to form independent households after a few years of marriage. Pressures to separate take the form either of a reluctance to pool earn- ings or of a lack of sufficient living space. But the question may be raised whether the pattern of family life is not rather the persistence of a prevalent norm in South India. For the family was often the unit of emigration and on the plantation several related families worked in the same gang under the supervision of the senior male of the group; conditions thus favored the persistence of the traditional family. In this connection it is interesting to note Benedict's comment9 (which is in accordance with Mayer's data and my own from Fijii?) that the tendency to develop extended families is weaker among South Indians than among North Indians.

CASTE

One of the striking paradoxes in the study of overseas Indians is the fact that the set of institutions regarded as the most deeply rooted and the most distinctive in Indian culture has undergone the most radical change. In none of the countries except Ceylon, and perhaps Malaya, is there a caste system within the Indian sector-that is, a set of interrelated groups "which are at once specialised, hierarchised and separated (in matters of marriage, food, physical contact) in relation to each other."" Virtually all the writers in "Caste in Overseas Indian Communities,"12 reporting on conditions in Guyana, Mauritius, Trinidad, Surinam, Fiji, and South Africa, state that social relations among Indians, and even among Hindus, are not structured along caste lines.

Lack of data on the social history of Indians in these countries limits analysis of this interesting development. But it is probably not far wrong to say that the primary determinant of change was the incorporation of the indentured laborers into the occupational system of the plantation. The assign-

9 Benedict, Indians in a Plural Society [see footnote 1 above], pp. 62-65. 'O Mayer, Peasants in the Pacific [see footnote 1 above], pp. 34-37. " L. Dumont: Caste, Racism and "Stratification": Reflections of a Social Anthropologist, Contribu-

tions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 5, 1961. 12 Op. cit. [see footnote 1 above].

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ment of work and of rewards bore no relation to the values and norms of caste. Managers regarded the laborers as equal units in the organization of production. They were indifferent to traditional privileges and taboos and clamped down on any institutions that interfered with their freedom to de- ploy the labor force as they saw fit. The laborers were housed in barracks and used the same facilities regardless of caste. Even if caste panchayats had been formed to maintain separation, they could expect not the support, but more likely the opposition, of management. Individuals were placed in positions of authority, such as foremen, irrespective of caste. Managers made conces- sions to Brahmans, but only in relation to their priestly duties. Hereditary occupations and the caste hierarchy were thus completely undermined by the experience of plantation life.

This process was reinforced by the fact that a severe shortage of women among indentured immigrants destroyed the demographic basis of the caste system. Temporary liaisons contracted between persons of different castes became normal marriages when the immigrants postponed, and eventually abandoned, plans to return. The result was the assignment of the offspring of intercaste unions to the caste of the father, though the occasional choice of the mother's caste, if it was higher, has been reported for Trinidad.13 This assignment to the father's caste may be regarded as an adaptation of caste to the new setting, but it is clear that it cut away at the roots of the caste system as it is known in India."4

What did persist was a set of evaluations for the prestige ranking of individuals. This hierarchy is linked historically to ritual status but derives its present significance from the ritual purity of occupations and customs of ancestral castes and not with the actual occupations of descendants. Caste survives as a bonus of esteem added to prestige achieved on other grounds such as wealth, education, and white-collar and professional occupations. High caste status provides individuals competing for influence within the Indian community an edge over less favored competitors. Aspersions of low caste remain as terms of abuse, regardless of their truth. Most overseas Indian communities are embedded in wider systems in which caste distinctions are both incomprehensible and irrelevant.

13 Arthur and Juanita Neihoff, op. cit., [see footnote 1 above], p. 98. I4 In this connection see Yalman (N. Yalman: On the Purity of Women in the Castes of Ceylon

and Malabar,Jotrn. Royal Anthropological Inst., Vol. 93, 1963, pp. 25-28): "Caste is always bilateral.... A single parent can never 'place' (or 'fix') the position of a child in the caste hierarchy independently: the child's position is always critically dependent upon the status of the other parent." Yalman argues that the crucial difference between a caste system and a lineage system is the importance of the status of the other parent in the social placement of the child.

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The main influence of caste has been in the field of marriage. Although paternal caste status does not determine the choice of a spouse, a classification of castes in categories of relative equality reveals a tendency toward marriage between proximate castes. The factors underlying this phenomenon are not entirely clear, but one tentative suggestion is that the traditional Hindu wedding has become an important public symbol of Indian identity in the multiethnic society; when such a wedding is arranged an attempt will be made to avoid wide disparities between castes, for traditional avoidances are linked to correct marriage rites.

If the changes in caste noted in the West Indies can be associated with indentured emigration and associated factors, the maintenance of caste among Indian merchant groups in East Africa may be readily interpreted as arising from their ability to maintain a degree of social isolation from the rest of the society, to supplement local shortages of correct spouses by importing them from India, and to preserve the purity of pedigrees by a close control over children. It may be pointed out, too, that a similar situation is found among comparable merchant groups in other countries, such as the Gujaratis of Fiji and Natal.

However, the persistence of caste in its traditional form among Indian laborers on Ceylonese plantations indicates that socioeconomic status is not the only key factor in the dissolution of caste relations and practices. Here the important factor appears to be the organization of emigration and the social organization of the plantation, which partly accommodated caste ties. Although castes of unequal rank performed the same kinds of labor, they worked under their own supervisors, and lived in separate barracks. The ability of the kangani and other elders to maintain caste practices was reinforced by their influence in the organization of the plantation.

The survival of caste as a subsidiary source of prestige influencing the choice of spouses is probably associated with the continued significance of pollution concepts. It is not that persons of any particular caste engage in activities that others consider polluting. Polluting activities are not those that only certain castes will undertake but those that only people who have abandoned Hinduism will perform. All Hindus accept and abide by the same set of prohibitions, tending to avoid such occupations as butchering, launder- ing, and shoemaking. Individuals of all "castes" who regard themselves as good Hindus observe the ceremonies of ritual cleansing at life crises and canons of purity at times of prayer. The inferiority of lower castes derives partly from a recognition that they are "recent" recruits-parvenus-in the ranks of "good Hindus." In short, notions of pollution persist because they

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are embedded in Hinduism, thereby lending some significance to ancestral caste rank; and Hinduism has retained a continued validity in the new environment.

RELIGION 5

Developments in Hinduism have been similar in all overseas Indian communities. In general, trends have led from village and caste beliefs and practices to wider, more universalistic, definitions of Hinduism that cut across local and caste differences. Known in most countries as the Sanatan Dharm, this form is similar in many respects to Srinivas' "All-India Hinduism." It focuses attention on the major Hindu gods, particularly Vishnu in his avatars as Krishna and Ram. It draws its theology and ethical prescriptions from the Ramayan, the Puranas, and the Bhagvad Gita. The religion is administered by Brahman priests (pandits) who constitute the only group distinguished by caste rank and ritual cleanliness. Development of the Sanatan Dharm and the decline of all smaller sects may be associated with the growth among the immigrants of a consciousness of being all Indians in a multiethnic society, where only this dimension of their social personality was significant and all finer distinctions of caste, ritual, and belief were unappreciated and ignored. The rise of such a religion may also be attributed to the concern to develop a form of Hinduism comparable to Christianity both in the scope of its concepts and in the universality of its organizational principles.Whatever the reason, Christian proselytization has been conspicuously unsuccessful among Indian immigrants and their descendants.

Some support for the proposition that a modernized Sanatan Dharm developed partly in opposition to, and in competition with, the cultural pressures of the host society in general and of Christianity in particular may be derived from a contrast between the situation in Guyana and in Fiji. In both countries by the time the Indians had settled as permanent residents the main outlines of the Sanatan Dharm were already established. But in present-day Guyana local Hindu communities are organized around a temple (known as a "church") that is not associated with a local or sectarian god but dispenses the same rituals and doctrines found in other local temples in the country. The temple is run by a Brahman priest responsible to a local association. He holds services at weekends, responds to private calls for domestic ceremonies, visits hospitals, and advises his parishioners in much the same manner as his Chris- tian colleagues. The situation in Fiji is somewhat similar but there are im-

J5 For lack of space the discussion is confined to Hindus, omitting reference to Muslims, who con-

stitute between a sixth and a tenth of the Indian populations of the various countries.

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portant differences. Temples are frequently managed by a pujari who is often not a Brahmin. Brahmin priests confine themselves to conducting specific rites in private homes, and these ceremonies are not as often the occasion for inviting friends and kin as they are in Guyana. Members of a community may have no special attachment to the local temple and may regard themselves as clients of a temple in another district. In Fiii all temples do not dispense the same kind of blessings; several are specialized centers that confer unique benefits and conduct annual cycles of ceremonies attended by devotees from all parts of Fiji. In these ceremonies magical healing and spirit possession occur to a much greater extent than in Guyana, where such activities are apt to be disapproved as "obeah" and "playing jumbie."

Thus Guyanese Hinduism has taken over the outward organizational forms of Christianity to a greater extent than Fijian Hinduism, which reflects to a higher degree the religious situation in the homeland. Although in both countries village, caste, and sect distinctions have almost disappeared, and all orthodox Hindus regard themselves as believers in the Sanatan Dharm, the philosophically derived tenets of this faith are much more alive in the consciousness of the Guyanese Hindu. I suggest that the difference is due to the fact that the Hindu in Guyana, bound by close interaction with Indian and Negro Christians, feels a greater need to proclaim his separate identity as a Hindu than does the Fiji Indian, whose life is largely confined to the Hindu community anyway.

The contrast between the two countries is also reflected in the positions occupied by reformist movements, particularly the Arya Samaj. In both countries, the doctrines of Arya Samaj initially gave rise to bitter controversy, but the new doctrines and rituals were soon absorbed in Fiji, while in Guyana they led to a split within the Hindu community. In Fiji Brahman priests conduct either Sanatani or Samaji marriage rites, or any combination of the two, in accordance with the wishes of their clients. In Guyana there are special Arya Samaj priests who carry out their own rituals, in contradistinction to Sanatani priests who will not carry out any but their own rites. In Fiji the main difference between the two kinds of wedding is that the Samaji rites are regarded as a cheaper and less elaborate way of getting married; in Guyana it is a completely different kind of wedding that orthodox believers may doubt is a legitimate ceremony at all. In Guyana the division between the Samaj and the Sanatan has persisted, reflecting in its extreme forms differences between the more and less creolized middle and lower strata of Guyanese society. In Fiji doctrinal distinctions have fused, are ignored, or are forgotten. The greater importance of the Arya Samaj movement in Guyana may be related

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to the fact that it makes available a set of ideas and practices that enable Guyanese Hindus to participate more fully in the wider creole society. The limited opportunities of doing so in Fiji explain why Arya Samaj doctrines have failed to have a continuing significance there.

The proposition that the nature and functions of Hinduism are closely related to the situation and perspectives of the Indians in the wider society can, therefore, be justified by the available data. But it should be noted that other factors, such as region of origin, have an as yet unassessable influence. I have indicated a marked difference between the organization of religious activities in Guyana and in Fiji: of "parish" organization in Guyana and of shrine centers in Fiji. The evidence is conclusive that the ceremonies in the shrine centers, such as those described by Mayer,'6 are of South Indian origin; the same seems to be true of the ceremonies in Natal described by Kuper.'7 The only approximation to shrine centers in Guyana are the temples in the Whim- Albion-Port Mourant area on the Courantyne coast (and a few elsewhere) that conduct an annual Kali Mai Puja which draws devotees from all parts of Guyana. Yet even here it is interesting to note that the ceremony is regarded as "Madras." It is in fact conducted by "priests" of South Indian descent who are pujari rather than Brahman priests; and though the name of Kali is used, the ceremony centers around South Indian deities. North Indian Brahman priests steer clear of such ceremonies. The only North Indian ceremony that commands comparable attention is Ramlila, which is essentially a secular celebration and, in the West Indies, is sometimes referred to as "coolie carnival."

The reason that South Indian ceremonies rather than those of North Indian origin have provided the foci for the development of cult centers is complicated, and requires further comparative and historical examination. It may be related to the position of a distinctive "South Indian culture" in a wider Indian community that is predominantly North Indian. However, the entirely South Indian population of Ceylonese plantations, among whom traditional caste and sect practices persist, have both local community temples on each plantation and shrine centers that conduct their own annual ceremonies in neighboring towns. The occurrence of such ceremonies must be regarded as a continuation of tradition, apart from the possibility of relating the situation to a South Indian minority. The persistence of the ceremonial complex in the West Indies, developed under the aegis of Southerners, is therefore an intriguing phenomenon, especially when one considers the fact

i6 Peasants in the Pacific [see footnote 1 above], pp. 89-94. 17 Indian People in Natal [see footnote 1 above], pp. 217-235.

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that "Madras" people, unlike the Northerners, have almost entirely forgotten their caste affiliations and in ceremonies such as weddings and funerals have all but given up distinctive traditional rites.

INTERCONNECTION OF THE VARIABLES

In explaining differential degrees of cultural change in terms of the variables set forth above, it may be objected that I have relied on these variables

TABLE II-INTERACTION OF VARIABLES AS THEY FAVOR OR RETARD CHANGE

GUYANA/ FIJI/ EAST TRINIDAD NATALa CEYLONb AFRICA

A. Immigration as individuals (+) or as groups (-) + - - B. Cut loose from homeland (+) or maintained ties (-) + - - C. Immigration as laborers (+) or as traders (-) + + + - D. Absorption into host society (+) or separation (-) + - - -

a Excluding nonindentured Indian immigrants, who are mainly from Gujarat and Punjab. b Excluding Indians outside plantations, who are mainly merchants from Bombay, Gujarat, and Sind.

in a somewhat cavalier manner, resorting now to one set and now to another. There is some justice in this criticism unless it can be shown that, although the four sets are independent in that the data divide in different ways in terms of each variable, they are nevertheless interconnected in such a manner that each constitutes a set of facilitating conditions for the full operation of the next. At the present stage of my research I have neither the knowledge nor the confidence to rise adequately to this challenge, and can only present a tentative framework within which the various factors isolated in the discussion can be drawn into relation with each other.

I have presented the four sets of factors as pairs of opposites, one tending to favor change, the other to retard it. If those factors of each pair that favor change are marked by a positive sign, and those that retard change are marked by a negative sign, then a table can be constructed to illustrate the situation of various immigrant communities (Table II).

Clearly, the Indian communities in Guyana and Trinidad constitute a radical contrast to those of East Africa, and those of Fiji, Natal, and Ceylon occupy positions between these extremes. However, such a conclusion is an oversimplification, for all the variables are not of equal weight. If each set of variables, considered in descending order, is regarded as facilitating conditions of the next, then each is also progressively more conducive in promoting or restraining cultural change. The order represents in part a temporal sequence of overlapping events. Not only does each set facilitate the succeeding,

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it may coexist and reinforce the other's effect. Thus, if the emigrants migrated in groups rather than as individuals they are more likely to maintain their home culture. If they preserve their home culture, then it is easier to maintain significant ties with home communities. Many indentured emigrants stated that they settled down in their new countries because they dared not go back after having broken several important customary rules. Again, as the discussion of emigration to East Africa shows, group emigration by the recruitment of fellow caste and village men made the maintenance of ties with the homeland necessary.

Although the preservation of ties with the homeland did not of itself result in the immigrants taking to trade, it enabled them to gain and develop a foothold in the colonial economy, competing against merchants of the colo- nizing power by reducing labor and overhead costs, and by building up sources of credit on scanty security. Maintenance of ties with home enabled the plantation laborers of Ceylon to preserve a greater degree of autonomy relative to management than the Indian laborers in the West Indies were able to achieve. Since the kangani traveled frequently between India and Ceylon, managers were sensitive to their ability to give a particular plantation a bad name.

Consolidation of a favorable position, particularly as a merchant class, enabled the immigrants to achieve the isolation necessary to preserve their distinctive institutions. It should be noted, however, that the isolation is of two kinds: that which the immigrants may desire; and that which is imposed on them. The first tends to be cultural (that is, lack of free participation and intermingling in a way of life shared with the native inhabitants); the second tends to be structural (that is, in terms of a separate politico-legal status, usually discriminatory). It is unlikely that voluntary isolation will break down without the disappearance of the imposed isolation, the persistence of which reinforces cultural barriers.

The four sets of variables regarded as forming two seriesI8 have a cumula- tive effect, each being more effective than the one before in the persistence of traditional institutions and in the determination of the directions of change. But there is no inevitability in the sequence because the order in which the determinants follow can be changed by forces outside the framework presented here. Thus Fiji and Guyana follow a similar course through the first three variables but not in the fourth; in Fiji the government policy of protecting the native Fijians changed the course in the direction of separation.

I8 A+B+C+D+and A-B-C-D-.

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Again, the entry of South Indians into Ceylon as laborers rather than as merchants introduced the possibility that they may merge with the Ceylonese working class, thus changing the trend of cultural isolation toward the possible transformation of South Indians into Ceylon Tamils. Although measures were introduced from the beginning to keep the immigrants isolated on the plantations, ties with the Ceylonese working class began to develop through mutual support of trade unions and socialist parties. At this point the Ceylon government intervened to enforce strict measures of separation, disenfran- chising many and repatriating some. An incipient development that could have led to a gradual erosion of their cultural distinctiveness was thus checked by a reinforced policy of separation.

In this sense it is the fourth variable-absorption versus separation-that is crucial, for it not only inherits and perpetuates the legacies of the others, but also, unlike the others, has a continuous influence on the contemporary scene. Emigration as individuals or as groups is a historical event the effects of which can be reversed by subsequent developments. Ties with home communities may be maintained, but with diminishing frequency (as among the Gujaratis in East Africa, Natal, and Fiji). Some descendants of immigrants may move out of the laborer stratum to become peasant farmers and professional people. But it is the structure, values, interethnic group relations, and policies of the host society, though changing in themselves, that have the most constant and pervasive consequences for the social organization of overseas Indian communities and for the persistence and change of Indian institutions in the new environments. An examination of this key variable, itself consisting of several distinct factors that I have lumped together for simplicity of exposition, cannot be adequately made in this brief and tentative intro- duction. It is the subject of a separate study.

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Article Contentsp.[426]p.427p.428p.429p.430p.431p.432p.433p.434p.435p.436p.437p.438p.439p.440p.441p.442p.443p.444p.445p.446p.447p.448p.449

Issue Table of ContentsGeographical Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 333-514Front MatterThe Agricultural Potential of the Humid Tropics [pp.333-361]Spatial Patterns of Population in Indian Cities [pp.362-391]Pilgrim Circulation in Gujarat [pp.392-425]Migration and Social Change: A Survey of Indian Communities Overseas [pp.426-449]Field Patterns in Indiana [pp.450-471]The Quality of the Environment: A Review [pp.472-481]The American Geographical Society [pp.482-483]Geographical Record [pp.484-494]Geographical Reviewsuntitled [pp.495-497]untitled [pp.497-499]untitled [pp.499-500]untitled [pp.500-501]untitled [pp.501-503]untitled [pp.504-505]untitled [pp.505-507]untitled [pp.507-508]untitled [pp.508-509]untitled [pp.509-510]untitled [pp.510-511]untitled [pp.511-512]

Abstracts of Articles [pp.513-514]Back Matter

Jayawardena - Indian Communities Overseas

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