Indian AmericansAcculturation and Integration

Anagha Kamble

MUMBAI NEW DELHI NAGPUR BENGALURU HYDERABAD CHENNAI PUNE LUCKNOW AHMEDABAD ERNAKULAM BHUBANESWAR INDORE KOLKATA GUWAHATI

© AuthorNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording and/or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers.

First Edition : 2014

ISBN : 978-93-5142-497-0

Published by : Mrs. Meena Pandey for Himalaya Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.,“Ramdoot”, Dr. Bhalerao Marg, Girgaon, Mumbai - 400 004.Phone: 022-23860170/23863863, Fax: 022-23877178E-mail: himpub@vsnl.com; Website: www.himpub.com

Branch Offices :New Delhi : “Pooja Apartments”, 4-B, Murari Lal Street, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj,

New Delhi - 110 002. Phone: 011-23270392, 23278631;Fax: 011-23256286

Nagpur : Kundanlal Chandak Industrial Estate, Ghat Road, Nagpur - 440 018.Phone: 0712-2738731, 3296733; Telefax: 0712-2721216

Bengaluru : No. 16/1 (Old 12/1), 1st Floor, Next to Hotel Highlands, MadhavaNagar, Race Course Road, Bengaluru - 560 001.Phone: 080-22286611, 22385461, 4113 8821, 22281541

Hyderabad : No. 3-4-184, Lingampally, Besides Raghavendra Swamy Matham,Kachiguda, Hyderabad - 500 027. Phone: 040-27560041, 27550139

Chennai : 8/2 Madley 2nd street, T. Nagar, Chennai - 600 017.Mobile: 09320490962

Pune : First Floor, "Laksha" Apartment, No. 527, Mehunpura, Shaniwarpeth(Near Prabhat Theatre), Pune - 411 030. Phone: 020-24496323/24496333; Mobile: 09370579333

Lucknow : House No 731, Shekhupura Colony, Near B.D. Convent School,Aliganj, Lucknow - 226 022. Phone: 0522-4012353;Mobile: 09307501549

Ahmedabad : 114, “SHAIL”, 1st Floor, Opp. Madhu Sudan House, C.G. Road,Navrang Pura, Ahmedabad - 380 009. Phone: 079-26560126;Mobile: 09377088847

Ernakulam : 39/176 (New No: 60/251) 1st Floor, Karikkamuri Road, Ernakulam,Kochi – 682011. Phone: 0484-2378012, 2378016;Mobile: 09387122121

Bhubaneswar : 5 Station Square, Bhubaneswar - 751 001 (Odisha).Phone: 0674-2532129, Mobile: 09338746007

Indore : Kesardeep Avenue Extension, 73, Narayan Bagh, Flat No. 302, IIIrdFloor, Near Humpty Dumpty School, Indore - 452 007 (M.P.).Mobile: 09303399304

Kolkata : 108/4, Beliaghata Main Road, Near ID Hospital, Opp. SBI Bank,Kolkata - 700 010, Phone: 033-32449649, Mobile: 7439040301

Guwahati : House No. 15, Behind Pragjyotish College, Near Sharma PrintingPress, P.O. Bharalumukh, Guwahati - 781009, (Assam).Mobile: 09883055590, 08486355289, 7439040301

DTP by : HPH, Editorial Office, Bhandup (Sunita)Printed at : Hyderabad. On behalf of HPH.

Contents

Introduction 1

Indian Americans: A Historical Evolution 18

Ideas of Indian Culture in America 59

Identity Formation: Strategies and Associations 106

From the Farm to ‘The Hill’ 149

Conclusion 186

Notes 212

Abbreviations 244

Bibliography 246

Index 287

Preface

The book is a historical study of the process of migration andthe various strategies adopted by Indians in order to beintegrated and accultured in to the new environment, i.e., theUnited States. In the process of migration, Indians carried withthem a culture which they have maintained over the centuries inthe US. Several indicators of Indian culture are visible like thetemple societies and religious organisations which not only retainIndian culture but are also instrumental in passing it on to thenew generations which may have never experienced India.Indian music, dance, yoga and cinema are also some of theindicators of the presence of Indianess in America. A whole newgenre of diasporic writers and film makers are also contributingin preserving 'Indianess' in a foreign land. The book traces thesignificance of the religious, ethnic-cultural movements of theIndian Americans and proves how this has created an interest forIndian culture abroad. Indian Americans are aware of the politicsof a pluralistic society, and act as a pressure group and areincreasingly demonstrating it through their actions. Theincreasing participation of the community in the political processof America has been discussed. The book thus historically tracesthe evolution of this community from a small and apoliticalgroup to a politically and socially well-established part ofAmerican society. This book attempts to make a comprehensivestudy of the various immigration waves that brought in a largenumber of Indians into the United States. It also criticallyexamines the various institutions and organisations that wereformed in order to help them in safeguarding and furtheringtheir interests in an alien land.

This book is a revised version of my doctoral dissertationwhich I submitted to the Department of History, University ofMumbai and thus my first debt of gratitude incurred in this studyis to my academic supervisor, Dr. Ruby Maloni, Professor andHead, Department of History University of Mumbai. She

supported the project ever since it was conceived. Her constantencouragement made this work possible. I am grateful to her forher many thoughtful and learned suggestions.

I would like to express my special gratitude to the UniversityGrants Commission, which awarded me the Rajiv GandhiNational Fellowship. I also thank the Indian Council of HistoricalResearch for the Foreign Travel Grant to conduct research in thevarious archival repositories in the United States. I record myappreciation for the concerned inquiries about the progress of mywork by Dr. Ishrat Alam, Member Secretary, ICHR. I am alsograteful to Dr. Tanmay Kanjilal, Kolkata who went out of his wayto send me copies of his books. An Exchange of e-mails with himhas given this work good direction.

I am grateful to the staff of the Jawaharlal Nehru Library(Kalina Campus), The American Resource Centre (Mumbai), theNational Archives of India, the Nehru Memorial Library, theIndian International Centre Library, The Central SecretariatLibrary (New Delhi), the Library of the State University of NewYork at Albany, Library of Congress, the National ArchivesWashington D.C.

I have to thank many near and dear ones who stood by meduring the course of this research. My friend Ms. Moon MoonJetley, her constant prodding made me complete this project intime. Our trips to Delhi, London and the US were not onlyfruitful for the research work but have left memorable imprints,which I will cherish for the rest of my life. I must thank Mr.Jagdish Patel (Jag Sir), himself an Overseas Indian settled in theUK not only for the regular inquires about the progress of mywork but also for the several informal discussions with him,which have added to my knowledge about lives of Indiansabroad. I also thank Mr. Frank Christopher, Director, CentralSecretariat Library, for enabling me to access documents in thelibrary. I am grateful to Mr Babasaheb Kambale for helping me inthe finalisation of my chapters. A whole lot of other friends andcolleagues in their own ways have contributed to the completionof this project. I am indebted to each one of them.

I must place on record the warm welcome that I receivedfrom several people while on my trips to Delhi and the US. I

thank Gauri and Ashish Sharma for very lovinglyaccommodating me in their home in Delhi. Dr. Aruna and Dr.Rakesh Mehta who accommodated me in their home in NewYork, took me around New York City and helped me to meet anumber of other Indian Americans, Seema Sharma whoaccommodated me in her home in Albany. I particularly thankMr. Vijay Sharma, who went out of the way took time out of hisbusy schedule and made my trip to Washington D.C. comfortable.

My family stood rock strong behind me during the course ofthis work. The constant support and guidance that I receivedfrom my husband Mr. Bhushan Arekar (Head, Dept. of PoliticalScience, R.J. College, Mumbai) has given this book a strongtheoretical ground. His pertinent comments and healthycriticisms have given this research a new perspective. Thelengthy discussions with him on the subject stirred myimagination and have finally taken shape in this work. Hispatience and encouragement have given me the strength tocomplete this daunting task. I thank Mr. Anish Kumar Jha, mybrother-in-law, for helping me overcome all the technicaldifficulties that I encountered in the course of this work. I owe ahuge debt to my sister Mrs. Aparna Kamble Jha. She has alwaysbeen there for me, listening to my troubles and has alwayssupported me.

Finally, this day would not have been possible without thesupport of my parents Mrs Shaila Kamble and Mr. Anant Kamble.They provided me with all the comfort and support. Wordscannot express my gratitude and love for them. Their patienceand love made this research a pleasurable task. I dedicate thisbook to them.

– Author

Ch - 1Introduction

People have been on the move since the beginning of humansocieties. Migration in small and large groups, and theestablishment of new homes have been among the strongestcreative forces in the settling of the world’s land mass and themaking of human history. The nineteenth and twentiethcenturies particularly are witness to large movements ofpeople. Among the most dramatic of these relatively modernflows of people have been those who travelled as slaves fromAfrica across the Atlantic, the Chinese who travelled aslabourers and traders, the Europeans who migrated to northernAmerica and to temperate climates in southern Africa,Australia and New Zealand, and the people of the Indiansubcontinent who have spread out in the world in significantnumbers. Some have been driven by force, others by freechoice, some moved by hope and others by fear.Migration from India has created a significant and diversediaspora which has spread through every continent. Thisdiaspora has become important not only for the places wherethey settled but also for their home country i.e., India. Themodern experience of migration from India is part of a farlonger history of the interconnections between India and awider world. The absolute size as well as the distribution andconcentration of people of Indian descent outside thesubcontinent makes this migratory experience a study ofconsiderable interest and importance. The Indian diasporareflects a growing self-consciousness that has been furtherstrengthened by new modes of travel, within the politicalcontext of imperialism and decolonization, and the economicenvironment created by industrialization of the Western world,developments of new communication technologies and rapidglobalization. In the last decade of the twentieth century theIndian diaspora has increasingly begun to acquire a distinctglobal identity.

Since the beginning of economic liberalization in India in19911, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) have played an active rolein foreign direct investment in India. While the economicinfluence of the Indian diaspora has been growing, it hascaptured the popular imagination in several ways. Politicalmobilization of previously quiescent overseas communities ofIndian origin has reached new heights. Most significant of all isthe imaginary relationship between the Indian diaspora andIndia that has been the most creative site for theoreticalreflection. Thus the core feature that defines the Indiandiaspora is the collective imagining of India of emotions, links,traditions, feelings and attachments that together continue tonourish a psychological appeal for the ‘mother’ country amongsuccessive generations of emigrants.Indian migration can be understood in two distinct phases: thenineteenth century colonial phase and the twentieth centurypost-independence phase. A first and relatively small numberwent to the New World mostly around the turn of the century,when India was a British colony. A second, much largersegment of people have migrated since India becameindependent in 1947. With historic settlements around theworld, and successive migrations in the last two centuries,around nine million people of South Asian descent have livedoutside the Indian subcontinent, outnumbered by those ofAfrican, Chinese, European and Jewish descent who livedoutside their homelands.2 Widely spread in Europe, Africa,Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, North America and thePacific, they have contributed to the economies, societies andcultures of the places to which they have gone. This has beenin the form of semi-free labourers on contracts of indenture onplantations in Natal, the Caribbean and Malaya, as traders andentrepreneurs in East Africa, as semi-skilled industrial labourin Europe, or as high-flying professionals in electronics andcomputing in U.S.A.This book is an analytical study of the Indian Diaspora in theUnited States during the period 1947 to 2000. The focus is toexplain the history and experience of one of the largest

movements of people in the modern world, namely out-migration from India to U.S.A. It is an attempt to understandthe political and socio-cultural lives of Indians in America. TheUnited States is home to one of the largest Indian diasporicpopulations in the world, as well as to substantial diasporicIndian communities from places as far afield as Fiji, Trinidad,and Guyana. As an ethnic group Indian Americans haveenlarged the diasporic space with compatible and incompatiblepatterns and images that converge and diverge from Indian andAmerican ethos. The varying experience, profiles andperceptions of the Indian immigrants have been examined.Their ethnic affiliations and expanding socio-cultural landscapehave been reviewed. The community’s efforts to buildorganizations, as well as develop symbols and structures topreserve their culture and identity juxtapose a process ofselective integration with American culture.3 Like theAmerican mainstream, an ‘Indian mainstream’ is evinced. TheIndian population in America has sought an identity forthemselves as the global face, not merely of overseas Indians,but even India.The mid-twentieth century forms the period of this researchsince the political map of the Indian subcontinent drasticallychanged after 1947. The British withdrew from India and withpolitical freedom came expectations of major economictransformation. The pressure of the rising population,particularly in areas where land was the major resource andmeans of livelihood, forced several rural families to lookabroad for alternative occupations and access wealth from newresources. A further aspect of the post-independence domesticexperience in India was the growth of higher education, usingEnglish as the medium, and the expansion of the modernprofessions. This led over the decades to a major up-skilling ofthe growing elite, with portable skills, for example in medicineand later in information technology. This group took advantageof job opportunities abroad when these became available.4 Onthe other hand the United States, particularly after World WarII, changed its immigration laws and removed the previous bias

against Asians immigrating to the U.S. The year 1946 marked aturning point in the history of U.S. immigration when the Luce-Celler Bill, the new immigration legislation, granted a limitedquota of 100 immigration visas per year to Indian Americans.According to Gary Hess, “Had not immigration andnaturalization laws changed in 1946, the East Indiancommunity would almost certainly have eroded significantly,perhaps to the point of extinction”.5 The subsequent changingof American Immigration Laws in 1952, 1965 and thereafterled to a large influx of Indians into America. By the mid-1960s,official U.S. ideology had moved from earlier models ofimmigrant integration to a model of cultural pluralism wherebyethnic groups including new immigrants were encouraged toretain and even recreate their separate ethnic identities as partof their celebration of ‘Americanness’. Within this contextIndian migrants were quick to create customs and institutionsemphasizing the most picturesque and nationalist aspects oftheir Indian heritage. This has turned out to be particularlyimportant in the twenty-first century when India is able tospread its cultural and political strength to acquire gains forIndian Americans and India.The history of the Indian diaspora in the U.S. makes itimperative to understand the concept of ‘Diaspora’. The term‘Diaspora’ came into English usage in the late nineteenthcentury, as a borrowing from a Greek word which meant to‘disperse’ or literally to ‘sow over’, and was used to describethe scattered Greek communities of the ancient Mediterraneanworld.6 It was first used in the Septuagint, the Greektranslation of the Hebrew Scriptures explicitly intended for theHellenic Jewish communities in Alexandria (circa 3rd centuryB.C.), to describe the Jews living in exile from the homeland ofPalestine.7 This was originally a neutral word merelyindicating geographical dispersion, but in English it took acatastrophic overtone of forced expulsion of an ethnic andreligious minority from its homeland, of persecution and exile,the Jews being the best example. Another early historicalreference is the Black African diaspora, beginning in the

sixteenth century with the slave trade, forcibly into the ‘NewWorld’— parts of North America, South America, theCaribbean and elsewhere that slave labour was exploited. Theearly historical references reveal that diaspora is not alwaysvoluntary.8 This early transatlantic African diaspora resulted innumerous fractured diasporas in the late nineteenth century andthroughout the twentieth century, as Black Africans migratedfrom south to north in North America and across the Westernhemisphere from Port au Prince to Montreal, from Kingston toNew York and from west to east across the Atlantic Oceanagain from Trinidad to London and elsewhere. Later twentiethcentury scholars became interested both in older and newerforms of forced and free migration and the word has acquired afar looser meaning, describing almost any group of migrantspermanently settled outside their place of origin.9 Diaspora hasattained new epistemological, political and identitarianresonances. The term is being increasingly used to describe themass migrations and displacements of the second half of thetwentieth century, particularly in reference to independencemovements in formerly colonized areas, waves of refugeesfleeing war-torn states, and fluxes of economic migration in thepost World War II era. In this book the term has been used todenote groups of people with a common ethnicity, who haveleft their original homeland for prolonged periods of time andoften permanently, who retain a particular sense of culturalidentity and often close kinship links with other scatteredmembers of their group, thus acknowledging their sharedphysical and cultural origins, and who maintain links with thathomeland and a sense of its role in their present identity. Thecore feature that defines the Indian diaspora is its collectiveimagining of India, of emotions, links, traditions, feelings andattachments that together continue to nourish a psychologicalappeal among successive generations of emigrants for thehome country.The term ‘Acculturation’ refers to taking on material andnonmaterial attributes from another culture as a result ofprolonged face-to-face contact. Such an interface can come

about in several ways. It can be the result of war, conquest,military occupation, or colonization, or it may be throughmissionaries or cultural exchanges. It may be produced bymigration or the transportation of labour, such as throughslavery or penal deportations. Voluntary labour movement isanother factor in creating contact. Trade, technical exchange,and the spread of ideas and institutions represent other sourcesof contact.10 The first systematic definition of acculturationwas by anthropologists Redfield, Linton and Herskovits,“Acculturation comprehends the phenomenon which resultswhen groups of individuals having different cultures come intocontinuous first-hand contact with subsequent changes in theoriginal cultural patterns of either or both groups”.11Acculturation can also be seen as the interaction between aconstant and a variable, that is between an essentially stablereceiving culture and an adapting immigrant group.12 Theacculturation of immigrants can be depicted on a continuumranging from total integration to total non-integration, withmost cases falling somewhere in between. This typology maybe analyzed in terms of a tripartite typology devised by RalphLinton. He considered social roles in any culture under threecategories: universals, specialties, and alternatives. Universalsinclude attributes that are common to all members of a society.Specialties are shared by the members of certain sociallyrecognized categories but not shared by the total population.Alternatives include roles shared by certain individuals that arenot common to all members of the society or even to allmembers of any one of the socially recognized categories.13Conformity is expected of immigrants only with respect tothose ideas and behaviour patterns to which all members of thesociety must conform. Alternatives refer to the selectiveacceptance of attributes and the simultaneous retention ofcertain old country habits. Food preferences among the variousimmigrant groups in America are illustrative of this. Specialtiespertain to the kind of work an individual does, which, in turn,is a factor in his or her social status. Thus, total acculturationfor immigrants is seen only in terms of Linton’s ‘Universals’

categories, whereas social roles in the ‘Specialties’ and‘Alternatives’ categories retain a degree of uniqueness andflexibility. This means that a person is no longer only assumedto be moving towards the mainstream culture, but that person’sacculturation process takes into account the retention of his orher culture and ethnicity. In this context the first generationIndians in America have continued to base their lifestyles ontraditional values, beliefs and expectations. The secondgeneration faces the same acculturation process as their parents,but in a different way since they have been socialized andeducated in the mainstream host society. In sum, acculturationis a form of change that is conditioned by various degrees ofconvergence among cultures.The discussion on the History of the Indian Diaspora in theUnited States, particularly post 1947, makes it essential toestablish the terminology that needs to be used to denote suchan important ‘diaspora’. For a very long time all people fromthe Indian subcontinent were invariably referred to as‘Hindus’.14 However officially there were several conflictingviews. Indians in America themselves seemed to have aconfused identity. Most often they preferred to be categorizedas Caucasians or ‘White Persons’ rather than grouped as‘Blacks’. This barred them from acquiring minority benefitswhich the African Americans received. On the other hand, theU.S. Immigration controls discriminated Indians along thesame clauses which applied to the Chinese and Japanese, thuscategorizing the entire population as Asians. This ambiguity inidentity posed questions at the time of naturalization andcitizenship. The U.S. Census of 1980 for the first timecategorized Indians as ‘Asian Indians’. Much like AmericanIndians (native Americans), Indians are also designated byseveral terms, none of them having universal acceptance.Scholarly literature refers to them as Asian Indians, SouthAsians, South Asian Americans, and ‘Desi’. Terms like NRI(Non-Resident Indian) or PIO (People of Indian Origin) havealso been used lately to denote this diasporic community. Thisdissertation will use the term ‘Indian America’ to refer to the

Indian community in America. The nametag ‘Indian American’is suggestive of their bi-national character: ‘Indian’ by originand ‘American’ by naturalization. American citizenshipdenotes their legal identity, while the word ‘Indian’ identifiestheir ancestral identity. Indian American have very adeptlysucceeded in identifying themselves with American interests atthe same time maintaining their deep rooted links with Indiaand its culture.The objective of the study is to historically trace the socio-cultural and political developments of the Indian Americancommunity. The concentric aim of the book is to analyze theprocesses by which Indians have integrated in a newenvironment. It is by a critical analysis of the waves ofmigration and by evaluating the role of the various associationswhich were established by the migrants to safeguard theirinterests that the socio-cultural and political influence of thiscommunity has been established. The main goal of thisappraisal is to estimate and assess the role of the Indiandiaspora in the context of Indo-U.S. relations. It is hoped thatthis research will substantially contribute to the existingknowledge on the subject and be useful to scholars fromdifferent areas of interest.The history of Indo-U.S. relations has been explored by anumber of scholars focusing on several key elements like thePL – 480 loan from U.S. to India, or the assistance in scienceand technology. The nuclear relations between the twocountries have also received increased attention in the works ofrecent scholars. Political relations, however, remainindispensable for any researcher interested in this area of study.This book focuses on a completely new area of relationsbetween the two countries, i.e., the ‘People-to-People’ contactwhich has been brought about due to large scale migration ofIndians to the United States over the last two centuries. Theseimmigrants have in turn grown into an important and integralcommunity in the U.S., and are playing a crucial role not onlyin the domestic politics of the U.S. which affect them (Indians)as a community but also the foreign policy of America vis-a-

vis India. The book thus historically traces the evolution of theIndian community from a small minority group to a politicallyand socially well-established part of American society.Through this appraisal the book aims to establish the strategicrole of the Indian Americans in Indo-U.S. relations.An attempt has been made to achieve all these objectives bydealing with some key questions important to researchers ofhistory. These are: why did Indians migrate in the first placeand why did they decide to migrate to the United States? Whatfactors prevailed in India immediately after independence thatmotivated Indians to migrate to the United States? Inspite ofindependent India’s pro- Soviet tilt a large number of Indianspreferred to migrate to the United States. What were the socio-cultural dynamics that motivated this course of action? ThePunjabis (Sikhs) and Gujaratis were the pioneer communitieswho migrated to the U.S. What were the opportunities andavenues open to them in the U.S. in the later half of thetwentieth century? What methods did they adopt to integrateinto the main stream of American life and in this process howdid they preserve their core values of Indianness? The studywill also try to understand the degree of acculturation withinthe second generation. What is the importance of thiscommunity to the policy makers in America and India? Havethey influenced the course of American decision makingtowards India? If yes, then to what degree? These are some ofthe questions that have been addressed in this research work.The book focuses on the post-colonial period. However, factorsregarding pre-colonial history have been briefly touched uponas they are essential in understanding what makes Indians notonly groups of migrants, but a complex set of diasporas. Indo-U.S. foreign relations have experienced several upward anddownward shifts. It is this ‘People-to-People’ contact thatexists between these two nations which is influencing policymakers and is also instrumental in creating an overall positiveopinion. For both India and the United States this ever-increasing diaspora proves a very important resource whichcannot be alienated in the course of the foreign policy decision

making process from both countires. With the analysis of howimmigrants have created an ‘India Abroad’ and the focus onIndianness outside India, and their increasing role in theAmerican political process, the research has yielded severalnew findings and has provided a fresh understanding of howthe Indian diaspora has become a asset in Indo-U.S. relationswhich in the twenty-first century in the wake of globalizationhas turned into a ‘Brain Gain’ for India and a useful toolaffecting Indo-U.S. relations. With the Indian diasporaacquiring a global face, historical research on this seemsnecessary.The study has been built upon the previous research on relatedsubjects. A wide range of literature of sociological,anthropological and political nature already exists. Brij V. Lal,Peter Reeves, and Rajesh Rai, (eds.), The Encyclopedia of theIndian Diaspora furnishes the most complete overview of theIndian Diaspora. Colin Clarke, Ceri Peach and Seven Vertovec(eds.) South Asian Overseas: Migration and Ethnicity, is anoutstanding scholarly anthology on the subject, though thereare more specialized anthologies like Peter van der Veer (eds.),Nation and Migration: The Politics of Space in the South AsianDiaspora. The work of Ronald Takaki, Strangers from aDifferent Shore: A History of Asian Americans is also ascholarly work on this area of study.The Indian American community in the post-1965 period, andmore particularly in the 1980s, when their presence becamewell- established, has been the subject of numerousmonographic studies and edited volumes. Among them areMaxine P. Fisher, The Indians of New York City, A. WesleyHelweg and Usha Helweg, An Immigrant Success Story: EastIndians in America, Madhulika Khandelwal, BecomingAmerican, Being Indian: An Immigrant Community in NewYork City, Padma Rangaswamy, Namaste America: IndianImmigrants in an American Metropolis, Bandana Purkayastha,Negotiating Ethnicity: Second-Generation South AsianAmericans Traverse a Transnational World, Sandhya Shukla,India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and

England and a volume edited by Lavina Shankar and RajiniSrikanth, A Part, Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America. Asecond generation voice more attuned to the politics ofmulticulturalism and somewhat less enamored of the Americandream, is best encountered in S. Mitra Kalita, Suburban Sahibs:Three Immigrant Families and their Passage from India toAmerica.The so called Brain Drain from India has been dealt with indetail by Binod Khadria, Migration of Knowledge Workers,Second Generation Effects of India’s Brain Drain, RaymondBady Williams has devoted the better part of his scholarly lifeto the study of the transmission of South Asian religioustraditions to the West. His edited volume, A Sacred Thread:Modern Transmission of Hindu Traditions in India and Abroad,is a comprehensive work on the topic. Raymond BadyWilliams, An Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism, movesin the opposite direction and focuses on a sectarian tradition ofHinduism which, especially in its disaporic setting, has come toconsiderable prominence in recent years. Scholarly work hasalso drawn attention to previously neglected constituencies inthe Indian population. Suanina Maira, Desi in the House:Indian American Youth Culture in New York City and RakeshRatti, (ed.), A Lotus of Another Colour: An Unfolding of theSouth Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience, Monisha Dasgupta,Unruly Immigrants, Rights, Activism, And TransnationalSouth Asian Politics in the United States are the mostprominent illustrations of this type of literature. Besides this, alarge number of scholarly articles that have appeared in variousjournals have proved to be an important source. The categoryof Non-Resident Indians has been explored in the records ofthe Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, andProceedings of the Pravasi Bahratiya Divas. However acompelling scholarly study is lacking in this respect.Apart from specific studies there are some comprehensivehistories of Indian Americans. Roger Daniels, History of IndianImmigration to the United States: An Interpretative Essay andKaren Isaken Leonard, The South Asian Americans are

important works in this area. The early political history ofIndian Americans has attracted a wide body of scholarly andpopular work. The best known among these studies are Joan M.Jensen, Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in NorthAmerica, Uma Segal, A Framework of Immigration: Asians inthe United States, Judith Brown and Rosemary Foot (eds.),Migration The Asian Experience, Darshan Singh Tatla, TheSikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood, is a global history ofthe Sikh diaspora, though the accent is on the political historyof Sikh diasporic communities in the United States and also theUnited Kingdom. Mark Juergensmeyer’s much circulatedarticle on the ‘Ghadar Syndrome’, is collected together in ananthology which remains indispensable for the study of earlyIndian immigration to America. S. Chandrasekhar (ed.), FromIndia To America: A Brief History of Immigration, Problemsof Discrimination, Admission and Assimilation and Harold A.Gould, Sikhs, Swamis, Students and Spies: The Indian Lobbyin the United States, 1900-1946, are highly intellectual andauthentic works on the subject.However, most of the historical works on Indian Americanshave focused on the pre-independence period. A historical andcomplete study of the post-1947 period seems to be somewhatlacking. The Indian diaspora has become a premier subject ofreflection among scholars in ways that provide an innovativedeparture for theoretical insights in the humanities and thesocial sciences. Yet despite this intense interest there isremarkably little systematic research into overseas Indians thatreflects on their comparative experience as communities. As abroad generalization it would probably be fair to say that theexisting literature either is based on the traditional historicalcase-study method within the familiar paradigms of migrationand settlement, or has become the ‘text’ for post-structuraltheorizing on a grand scale, often with little relevance toempirical reality. Between these two extremes there isconsiderable middle ground that needs to be covered in order todevelop richer and deeper empirical and theoreticalunderstanding of the complex processes that underpin the

dynamics of change in the contemporary Indian diaspora. Thisbook, while enhancing the already available literature, will dealwith the post-1947 history of Indians migrating to the UnitedStates, and thus throw some new light on the Indian Americancommunity and the processes of acculturation and integration.It will also try to underline the significant role that IndianAmericans can play in the twenty-first century.The research design and methodology is narrative as well asanalytical. Primary sources such as government records, U.S.Census Reports, Immigration and Naturalization documentshave been utilized. Articles featuring in a wide range ofjournals have been referred to. Diasporic magazines like LittleIndia and newspapers like India Abroad and India Tribunehave also been consulted. Besides, a whole range of articlesand editorials featured in prominent newspapers in India andthe U.S. like. The Times of India, New York Times, San JoseMercury, The Pioneer have provided factual information whichhas proved useful in building the arguments of this dissertation.Surveys by means of Questionnaires and Personal Interviews toacquire first-hand information from among the IndianAmerican community have helped in giving the dissertation aconcrete shape. The research work has also been supplementedby interviews with some of the successful Indians in the U.S.15who have made a mark in their respective fields. Theinformation based on their experiences, which has beenprovided, is very pertinent and useful.It is a daunting task to analyze all aspects concerning theIndian diaspora in the U.S. In this book the history of thediasporic developments of the Indian Americans from 1947 to2000 has been discussed. The research has been confined tothis period as post-2000 a paradigm shift has taken place. Thetwenty-first century is witnessing changes like ‘Globalization’that have heightened the political and cultural complexity ofthe subject. In the United States, the post-9/11 period sawseveral harsh policies towards foreign born individuals. InIndia several attempts have begun to attract the Overseas

Indians to invest and actively participate in Indian affairs. Allsuch developments require a separate in-depth study.The scope of the book is a historical one. It aims to explain thegrowth of the Indian community in America as an importantforce affecting India and Indo-U.S. relations. Thus, a detailedstudy of the various communities which migrated and theinteractions among these communities have not been dealt inthis work. While the Indian American community has beenanalyzed as a homogenous group, wherever possible referencesto specific communities have appeared. The book does not dealwith the economic profile of the community in depth as themain aim is to focus on the socio-cultural and political profileof Indians in America. However, several references to theireconomic ‘clout’ are given.Here an attempt has been made to draw a historical graph ofintegration and acculturation processes among the IndianAmerican community, which began with their immigration tothe U.S., their fight for naturalization and citizenship, thedesire to maintain their Indianness which has not only changedthe American cultural milieu but also enhanced Americanculture, to their gradual growth as an important political lobby.Within only one generation the Indian American communityhas become prominent in the field of politics, economy,technology and development of cultural structures andmissions. Some significant aspects of this diasporic saga havebeen undertaken here.Chapter 2 traces the history of the Indian diaspora duringcolonial and post-colonial times right from the eighteenthcentury when the first reference of an Indian American isdocumented. This chapter presents a detailed historical canvasto understand the process of immigration of Indians to theUnited States. It also highlights the problems faced by theIndians in this endeavour. From 1820 onwards a trickle ofIndians entered the United States. Migration of the Indians tothe United States slowed down after 1910 due to the AmericanAsian exclusion policy. With the new immigration laws of1946, 1965 and thereafter, there was a large influx of Indians

into the United States. This coincided with India’sIndependence, as people migrated to the U.S. in search of newopportunities for their personal and professional progress. TheIndians who migrated in this period were different from theearly migrants in that they were educated and professionallyqualified. They had little in common with the earlier migrants.Chapter 3 analyses how the idea of Indian culture andIndianness has been interpreted in the United States. It inquiresinto the idea of Indian culture and its interpretations by the firstgeneration and second generation Indian Americans. Itdiscusses the methods by which Indians have tried to preservetheir cultural ethos and at the same time integrated into theAmerican life. The chapter outlines the role of various religiousand cultural institutions as protectors of Indian culture in analien land. The ‘Little Indias’ as representatives of Indianculture in the United States have been looked at. Culture is abroad aspect of study, and thus not within the reach of thisthesis to discuss each and every aspect of culture as representedby Indian Americans. Some sample categories which help inunderstanding the presence of Indian culture in the U.S. havebeen highlighted in this chapter.Chapter 4 deals with some of the important Indianorganizations in America and evaluates the role played by themin helping the community to settle and advance in a new land.This chapter traces the history of the several organisations thatwere established in order to support and safeguard the interestof the Indian Americans. In their struggle to adapt and survive,Indian immigrants created a sub-culture and a sub-societythrough these organisations. An attempt is made to explain howthrough these organisations the Indian Americans havestruggled to maintain their unity and cohesiveness as an ethnicgroup without surrendering their separate identities. Thehistory of organizations set up by the Indian Americancommunities, like the American Hotel Owners Association,Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin, etc., andtheir role in aiding the community’s efforts at assimilating inAmerican life have been explored.

Chapter 5 explains the political development and increasingparticipation of migrants Indians in the American politicalprocess. The focus is on the patterns of civic activism of avariety of Indian American groups in the United States and therole that religion and transnational interests play in theformation of Indian American ethnic constituencies. Thechapter has traced the evolution of early immigrant politicswhich was only concerned with surviving and withstanding theanti-Asian violence of the White community. Indian migrantsgradually became an important voting block, active fundraisers for political parties and a strong pressure groupinfluencing American policy decisions. Thus, the evolution ofthe Indian Americans from struggling against racialdiscrimination to becoming one of the most influential pressuregroups in the U.S. has been assessed, in order to formulate acomprehensive picture of the Indian American community.Chapter 6 makes a final appraisal of how Indians as acommunity have succeeded in the United States. It outlineshow the Indians have been integrated into the American socialand cultural life and at the same time have succeeded inmaintaining their Indianness, thus creating a new culture initself what may be referred to as ‘Sandwich Culture’.16 Thisstudy thus outlines the process by which Indian immigrantsimmerse themselves in American society. But they do notintegrate or acculturate completely. They rather modify andrenegotiate their roles to fit within the American milieu. Theyconstruct their new identity in both the material landscape ofimmigrant community and in the imaginary landscape of theIndian diaspora.The role played by the Indian Americans in bringing about achange in the often strained Indo-U.S. relations is discussed.For instance, with the success of Piyush Bobby Jindal17 theposition of the Indian Americans seems to be further enhanced.This chapter discusses how successfully the ‘Brain Drain’ hasbeen converted into a ‘Brain Gain’ and stresses on the growthof the India American community as a ‘Soft Power’.

The book while adding to the already existing corpus ofliterature aims at giving a new perspective to the study ofIndian diaspora in the twenty-first century. The book concludeson a futuristic perspective, establishing the community’s role inaffecting crucial decisions relating to Indo-U.S. policies in thefuture. Thus the Indian diaspora’s role as an essential factor notonly in Indo-U.S. relations but also in affecting U.S. policiestowards the entire South Asia region has been established. Theview of some scholars is that “Diaspora refuse to die… CanDiaspora be anything else but travelers? …Indians will remainin Diaspora because they are unable to die for a cause”.18 Thisbook establishes that the Indian Diaspora in the U.S. does notdie for a cause, instead lives for one.