Pirkei Avot 1,14 (From early Christian- era Jewish ethical literature)
The question “who am I?” is one that plagues every individual throughout their lives. At the
metaphysical level there is no answer because in the face of the enormity of the universe and
our limited understanding of the mysteries of life, we can only continue to search. In the
realm of daily existence this question keeps on recurring as people living in the diaspora will
attest. The so-called Indian diaspora today made up largely of the 19th-century settler colony
plantocracy coupled with the different waves of immigrants from South Asia over the past 75
years, constitutes one of the largest demographic diasporas in the world. It stretches from
Natal in the southernmost tip of Africa to Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar and Thailand in the
South China sea, to Fiji in the South Pacific, East Africa near the equator, Mauritius and
Madagascar in the Indian Ocean and Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam in the Caribbean and
Latin America. Truly a product of the colonial venture. In effect, we are all, in political
scientist Yash Tandon’s words, “stepchildren of the colonial empire”.
Today our identity as children of the girmitya (indentured labourers brought to the colonies
through an agreement – “girmit” – by ex-colonial powers on the back of the so-called end of
slavery) raises a problem: Who are we? Are we Indians, or Afro-Indians, or Indo-Africans or
overseas Indians or Indo- (whatever nationality of our new post-colonial nation state)? This is
not a settled issue but rather one that gives rise to a number of conundrums and questions that
acquire a renewed significance at times of elections in various post-colonial states where
Indians are settled today. This issue also arises in the Western diaspora. Their minority
situation becomes instrumentalised and in many cases weaponised through a play on race, in
some cases their economic status and in other cases their religion or a conflation of all these
identity markers.
Whatever the situation, overseas Indians, particularly the girmityas, are seen to be perched
precariously on a colonial fault line which was not of their own making, and are often viewed
as part of the colonial exploitative heritage in which the so-called indigenous population was
robbed of their labour, dignity and personhood, while Indians are often erroneously seen as
having profited from that situation.
It is here that we can look at culture as a source of identity and a bridge to different worlds
and how culture can play a role in the creation of an identity which is able to nurture a sense
of belonging.
In 2024 on my first visit to Trinidad, I went to a little town on the island called Tunapuna. I
entered a small Indian restaurant called Taste of India and the smell of the spices immediately
awakened reminiscences in my olfactory senses – fenugreek, coriander, cumin, chilli and
turmeric. The owner, a woman who was part Indian and part Caribbean, took great pride in
her ability to blend the two culinary cultures with such virtuosity. I could feel the food
creating the bridges. It was Indian food in fact that became the greatest bridge-builder and
today in the Caribbean food is a critical element of cultural diplomacy.
Sadly, colonial education did not give us an opportunity of getting to know who we were and
of respecting the indigenous cultures among which we lived. Iconic figures of South Asia
were deliberately blotted out of our educational heritage. Little did we know that Mahatma
Gandhi, who himself was outcast for having left his motherland India to study overseas
embraced universal cultures, and who, while in prison in South Africa fighting racism in the
early part of the 20th century, read John Ruskin’s Unto that Last which became a cornerstone
of his moral philosophy of embracing the welfare of the most marginalised in society. Neither
were we aware of the universalism of Rabindranath Tagore, laureate of the Nobel Prize in
Literature, expressed so eloquently in his prose, poetry and music which are still sung by
millions each day.
However, colonial education instilled in us the sensibility to appreciate good literature, music
and art, and through our educational refinement we were able to capture our own heritage and
make it speak to us again with renewed vigour without our abjuring the civilization of the
West which we also embrace. In this context we can only laud for example the work of
leading Kathak exponent, Bangladeshi Akram Khan who was able to reinterpret Adolphe
Adam’s ballet Giselle under the patronage of the English National Ballet with a Spanish
artistic director Tamara Rojo and Erina Takahashi, a Japanese principal ballerina, fusing
kathak dance with classical ballet. It is in the context of Britain’s ability to accommodate
multiple cultures that we welcome Mukul and Ghetto Tigers’ presentation of the play Who
am I? which explores the powerful portrayal of life in India, East Africa and Britain over
several generations. Along with a film screening of oral histories conducted by Lata Desai
and Rolf Killius, it promises to be a major milestone in this epic journey to answer the
perennial question Who am I? Will we ever know?
Further details of the project on Home – Who am I
Above project is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Mohamed M. Keshavjee is a well-known commentator on the 19th-century Indian Diaspora
who authored the critically acclaimed book of short stories, Diasporic Distractions. He was
the 2016 winner of the prestigious Gandhi King Ikeda Peace award for his work on human
rights education.