Abstract
The book has a large canvas focusing on women in the Indian diaspora during the colonial and contemporary periods. Pande’s edited volume adds to the growing literature on the diaspora that is attentive to the experiences of women as being different from that of the men. Pande repeatedly reiterates the need to discard the tendency to study women from the lens of victimhood. It is, on the contrary, important to look at their ‘agency’ even in the most difficult times. She observes how until recently women’s experience and agency have been a missing element of diasporic studies, ‘Women were unquestioningly and quiet thoughtlessly and mindlessly subsumed under meta-narratives. This could be no further from reality where in women’s experience were “different, unique and specific to them”’ (p. 1). And it is equally important to be cognizant of the ways in which within the category of women there were varied experiences.
In the first chapter, Pande unpacks what the concept of diaspora holds. She provides a ‘clear and useful picture of different migrant categories whose movements from “home” to “host” are variously sourced’. She shows how gradually within the diasporic literature women and their experiences have come to be acknowledged and studied. The first time when women came to be looked upon as a separate category in migration research was during the late 1960s–early 1970s. By the mid- and late 1980s, ‘gender became the core analytical category of the “Feminist Standpoint Theory”’. For these theorists, women’s experience was radically different, if not superior. The third phase was in the 1990s of ‘post-rational feminism’ wherein gender was not the basic criterion of difference, but other differences such as poverty, class, ethnicity and race were equally important (pp. 4–5).
The other 14 essays, divided in four sections, capture well the editor’s objective of adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, given the ‘intersectionality’ of gender with ‘race, class, religion, national and several other categories (p. vi)’ rather than essentializing it. This work thus stands firmly in the realm of ‘post-rational feminism’.
The first section, ‘The Context of Theory and Identity’, has three essays. The first essay by Mehta carries forward Pande’s argument about the need to understand women’s diasporic experience through the ‘lens’ of ‘agency’ and the need to avoid binaries and vacillations between extremes of either completely ignoring the ‘male’ or the ‘female’ (p. 18). Mehta focuses on what she argues is a neglected segment of diaspora—the Indian diaspora in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. A large chunk of this consists of women domestic workers often without valid documents. This area, she argues, is under research—and needs greater attention to understand how women are affected—and affects the process of migration. The second essay in this section is on identity politics of the Indian women diaspora in the works of Jhumpa Lahiri. Ashima and Gauri, the two main characters of Namesake and The Lowland, respectively, bring out how context matters. For Ashima, her culture matters and she tries to maintain it through her interaction with the immigrant Bengali community. Over the years, she does become independent, but her identity continues to be hyphenated—rooted to the old, while connecting with the new. ‘The hyphen in her status is a space of conflict, ambivalence and negotiation’, and this would be the story of a large number of women in the Indian diaspora. For Gauri, her second marriage was an escape from a tragic past that she never really left behind. Her past is also deeply political—her Naxalite husband was killed by the State. In America, therefore, she is ‘at the margins of her own ethnic community’ (p. 34) which drives her to relate much more openly and resolutely with her new American surroundings. However, at no point can she completely overcome her ethnic identity. For the second generation diaspora women, the task of balancing ‘parents expectations’ and being accepted by American peers is one of the constant negotiations. In the course of such negotiations, these women exercise greater agency in constructing a ‘multicultural fluid identity.’ This is what has led some scholars to characterize the second/third generation as ‘skilled social navigators’. In the last essay of this section, Sharma highlights the need to study the subjective experience of women in the course of migration and settlement in new locales wherein they are burdened with creating a new home, replicating the familiar in the unfamiliar.
The second section is on ‘historical narratives’ with two essays on women among Indian indentured labour one focusing on the Caribbean in general and other specifically on Trinidad and one essay on Tamil women. In the first essay, Tewari rightly argues that the indentured labour system of the British Raj was an out and out exploitative system. In 1833, slavery was abolished in Britain and the British Empire, so the African slaves had to go, and what filled the demand for cheap labour was the indentured Indian labour. These were ‘destitute, impoverished and ignorant men and women’ who were forced to live in locales that were not only new but also openly hostile and exploitative. Under these circumstances the ‘home’ plays an important role in developing coping mechanisms. ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Ramcharitmanas’ provided, Tewari argues, the ‘religious, social, cultural and emotional anchor’ they desperately searched for. What did this mean for women? On the one hand, as with any other diaspora women, they shouldered the responsibility of upholding culture and associated honour. The role model fixed for them by the patriarchal system was ‘Sita’, essentially one who functioned within the set limits of patriarchy. However, in the Caribbean, the fact that Indian women were scarce and also earning, gave them to some extent, Tewari argues, the possibility of asserting themselves. ‘The women used the numerical scarcity to their advantage’ (p. 60). In the ‘post-indenture’ period, the women got back their respectability but were back in their traditional role of passivity and submission. The next essay of this section also brings out the ‘agency’ aspect of women even in the most difficult circumstances. Focusing also on the indentured system, it shows, ‘…how women used creative ways to negotiate… patriarchal controls’ (p. 66). They understood quite clearly that economic independence was one possible way of challenging or circumventing patriarchal controls. Thus, as Mahase’s essay shows, they were eager to take the government-offered opportunity to become landholders in lieu of foregoing their right to free return to India (pp. 72–73). In the third paper of this section, Sami talks of three waves of Tamil migration. The first phase was the movement of women to escape oppression and death (Sati) in their home country. The second phase was one in which Tamils integrated with the people of the host countries, and a Tamil diasporic consciousness emerged. The third post-colonial phase was one in which professionals and students migrated. And in all the three phases, Sami argues, Tamil women created a space for themselves.
The third section focuses on contemporary challenges of the women diaspora in various country settings, for example, America and the Netherlands. Bhattacharya’s essay is one that builds on her personal journey in America after her second marriage to an American whom she met during her visiting fellow stint at the University of Chicago. Her journey shows the importance of community to fight alienation, loneliness and disconnect that one experiences in a new setting. As she and her husband moved to Pennsylvania for professional reasons, the need for support and connect in the new locale was immense. This led them to fall back on the Indian community. However, the community can at times be limiting if not oppressive. In such a situation, whether to conform or defy and move away is a matter of individual choice and ‘agency’. Gopalan Ravindran in his essay explores the action of three Tamil women arguing that bulk of the literature on diaspora studies focus on the macro-processes as ‘nationalism, globalization, migration, displacement, flows, scapes and cultural identity… the idea of the diasporic subject, who can be a self-determined site of individuated agency and performative identity, is missing’(p. 108). To support this argument, Ravindran discusses the negotiations by three individual diasporic subjects, namely Susheela Raman, M.I.A. and Ahalya Dharmalingam, which ‘have little in common with the macro-processes of colonialism, post-colonialism, nationalism, globalization, migration, displacement, flows, scapes and cultural identity’. The ‘agency’ that each gained, in fact, emerged from the micro-processes caused by their ‘performative identity seeking acts’, and also from their individual visions of the change they wish to bring about, both in their own lives and in the lives of others. Thakur and Khadria in their paper show how gender inequality is a carry forward for immigrants to the United States. Participation and earnings of Indian females in the high-skilled segment of labour market are low, as compared to their female counterparts from other countries/regions. Indian women continue to shoulder the primary responsibility of ‘children’s education and care of spouses and aged parents’ (p. 130). In the last paper of this section, Kherkoff and Kirk focus on lives of accompanying wives of highly skilled workers in the Netherlands. It shows that for these women, who were themselves qualified, the language barrier made their lives in the Netherlands a limiting experience. They were confined within their homes and became dependent. However, after initial hiccups they did settle down and exercise ‘agency’ to involve themselves in voluntary work at International school working in expat organization linking up with Indian community.
The last section, ‘Diasporas across the World’, has four essays. Reddy’s essay on the Indian women diaspora in South Africa argues that across classes, Indian women have been simultaneously empowered and disempowered. So, some have jobs, are better educated and earning more than their husbands, and are strong community activists, but majority have been disempowered. Women have fought this through their own groups organized around simple activities like food, cooking and exchange of recipes. Thandi’s essay, that follows, examines the diversities, continuities and discontinuities of traditions in the contemporary Sikh diaspora. While Thandi highlights the experience of women as victims of ‘patriarchal norms and generated power relation … subject to sexual violence, alcoholic and drug abuse’, he also talks of the counter-narrative of successful women that is slowly emerging. These are women who are doing well professionally and have therefore the resources that empower them. Kaur’s essay also analyses the processes of migration, settlement and integration in Canadian society from the perspective of Sikh women. The first-generation women led their lives under rigid patriarchal structures and norms. Kaur shows that though family and community continue to be important for the following generations of Sikh women, the fact that they are born and raised under intercultural influences makes them willing and confident to resist inhibiting community limits and assert themselves. The other paper in this section is on the Anglo-Indian community focusing on groups that did not migrate from India.
Essentially, the volume brings out how Indian women are ‘patriarchy bounded’, in the sense that conditions of patriarchy travel with communities and therefore migration is a different experience for women. It also shows how by the second generation, women manage to gradually break free of some of the constraints and exercise choice. The reality of women appears to be somewhere in between the binaries of ‘victimhood’ and ‘agency’. Given the rich array of essays, Pande’s volume makes an important contribution to the growing literature on diaspora studies through the ‘gender lens’. However, she would have done well to use her introductory chapter to clearly state the rationale behind the organization of the sections and their essays. Apart from the first two sections, one is confused why the next two sections could not be clubbed together, because both essentially focus on contemporary developments. Moreover, in the last section, there are two essays on the Sikh diaspora, which should have followed each other, rather than having an essay on Anglo-Indians in between. The essay on Anglo-Indians focusing on the community in India leaves the reader confused as to how that can count as diasporic experience. These arrangement issues notwithstanding, this book makes a valuable contribution to diaspora studies successfully bringing out how women have been far from passive recipients of their diasporic contexts.