India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England

329 Pages·2003·18.217 MB·English

by  Sandhya Shukla

INDIA ABROAD
INDIA ABROAD
DIASPORIC CULTURES OF
POSTWAR AMERICA AND ENGLAND
Sandhya Shukla
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
COPYRIGHT2003BYPRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS
PUBLISHEDBYPRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS,41WILLIAMSTREET,
PRINCETON,NEWJERSEY08540
INTHEUNITEDKINGDOM:PRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS,
3MARKETPLACE,WOODSTOCK,OXFORDSHIREOX201SY
ALLRIGHTSRESERVED
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
SHUKLA,SANDHYARAJENDRA.
INDIAABROAD:DIASPORICCULTURESOFPOSTWARAMERICA
ANDENGLAND/SANDHYASHUKLA.
P. C.M.
INCLUDESBIBLIOGRAPHICALREFERENCESANDINDEX.
ISBN:0-691-09266-4(ALK.PAPER)—ISBN0-691-09267-2(PBK.:ALK.PAPER)
1.EASTINDIANS—UNITEDSTATES.2.EASTINDIANS—ENGLAND.
3.EASTINDIANS—FOREIGNCOUNTRIES.I.TITLE.
E184.E2S582002
305.891'4041'09045—DC21 2002035550
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATAISAVAILABLE
THISBOOKHASBEENCOMPOSEDINSABON
PRINTEDONACID-FREEPAPER.∞
WWW.PUPRESS.PRINCETON.EDU
PRINTEDINTHEUNITEDSTATESOFAMERICA
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For My Parents
and
For Tom
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
GeographiesofIndianness 1
ONE
HistoriesandNations 25
TWO
LittleIndias,PlacesforIndianDiasporas 78
THREE
AffiliationsandAscendancyofDiasporicLiterature 132
FOUR
IndiainPrint,IndiaAbroad 175
FIVE
GenerationsofIndianDiaspora 213
EPILOGUE
PresentsandFutures 249
NOTES 253
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 303
INDEX 305
INDIA ABROAD
INTRODUCTION
GEOGRAPHIES OF INDIANNESS
I
NA“MILLENNIUMSUPPLEMENT,”theAugust1999issueofNa-
tionalGeographicfeaturedasetofarticlesonglobalization.Onthe
coverwasaphotographoftwoIndianwomen:onedressedinatradi-
tionalsari,goldjewelry,andflowersandtheother,herdaughter,cladin
a vinyl bodysuit (see fig. 1), with the title “Global Culture.” The same
photographalsoappearedinsidethemagazine,withacaptionthatread,
inpart,“SOPHISTICATEDLADIES.They’rewell-off,welleducated,widely
traveled, fluent in several languages.... The global marketplace for
goods,information,andstyleistheircornerstore.”1Thoughthewomen
wereapparently“Indian,”thepicture’ssignificancewasdescribedbythe
magazine’s editors in more global terms: “Goods move. People move.
Ideas move. And cultures change.” We are in a new moment, suggests
a magazine that has served as a prime vehicle for middlebrow cultural
representation, and that moment can be read through a chaotic Indi-
anness.
Lest difference get out of control, readers in the United States have
NationalGeographictohelpordertheirperceptions.2Remarkingonthe
millenniumtheme,theeditorconfessedsomeanxietyaboutthegrowing
association between globalization and cultural homogenization, while
adding:“Butforthemoment,atleast,itisstillarrestingtoseethejuxtapo-
sition of different societies, as men in Shanghai carry around a life-size
MichaelJordancutoutoraLosAngelesartisanappliesOldWorldhenna
designs to a woman’s hand.”3 And indeed, a kind of ironic, tongue-in-
cheekdetachmentisthemoodoftheimagesinNationalGeographicthat
suggest difference. Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh is suspended
fromaropeinfrontofthefamousHollywoodsigninsouthernCalifornia
inanimageappearingasidethetitle“AWorldTogether.”Inanotherpho-
tograph,withacaptionnotingthesignificantpopulationofThaipeoples
inLosAngeles,alargegroupoffullyrobedBuddhistmonkseatsbreakfast
ataDenny’srestaurantamidseemingnonchalancefromotherdiners.
About a third of the photographs accompanying the National Geo-
graphicseriesfeaturesomekindofIndianness. Thisfact,alongwiththe
decision to frame the issue with the image of the Indian mother and
daughter,certainlypromptsustoconsiderthecentralroleofIndiannessin
thebroaderproductionofinterpenetratingglobalism,wherenationalities
comeintodirectcontactandyetremainhighlydiscrete.Anoverlypolar-
2 I N T R O D U C T I O N
Figure1. TheNationalGeographicofIndiaonthemove
(copyrightJoeMcNally).
ized sense of the traditional and the modern, unsurprisingly, is signaled
by the cover, in images—familiar and shocking—of exotic femininity.
Heightened ironies are signaled by the appearance of Coca-Cola signs,
tubesofColgatebrandtoothpaste,andaninflatableAmericanastronaut
amid Mumbai’s shack houses, small villages, and a Bangalore shopping
mall.JuxtapositionhereisavisualstrategythatgivesAmericathemark
ofcommercialmodernity,andIndiaandothernon-Europeannationscul-
tural(andeconomic)difference;thepenetrationsofeastbywest,aswell
asofwestbyeast,retainsomemeasureofcontrast.Still,thephotoshint
atthepossibilityofanationalIndiannessbeingreinventedthroughcom-
moditycapitalismthatcanilluminatethegoverningthemeofgoodsand
people moving, cultures changing. Dislocations and reconstructions of
India in a global context begin to expand the field of representational
possibilities,even beyondthecategoriesof “here”and“there” inwhich
themagazinetraffics.
India onthe move andIndianness remadeare central concernsof this
book.WhileNationalGeographiccannothelpbutexhibitresidualinter-
estintheprojectofidentifyingwherethenationanditsculturesare,India
Abroad seeks to thoroughly disturb that sensibility by explaining how
migrant cultures express global belonging in multiple national spheres.4
EchoingamajorIndianimmigrantnewspaperinNewYork,Iusethetitle
G E O G R A P H I E S O F I N D I A N N E S S 3
“IndiaAbroad”toevokeamobileand dynamicnationthattakesshape
inspacesfarremovedfromaterritorialstate. India,thisbook’s“national
geographic” is thus not a precise location of homeland, nor a singular
motivating impulse, but instead a heterogeneous imaginary that draws
energyfromhistoricalformationsofcolonialismandpostcolonialism,dis-
coursesofdiversity,andexercisesofbureaucraticpower.
Likeallnations,Indiaisfreightedasmuchwithmetaphoricalpossibil-
ityaswithgeopoliticalpresence.Secure,now,intheinsightthatthenation
hasalways beenunderproduction,scholars inSouthAsian studieshave
beenabletodevelopsophisticatedanalysesofcomplexsocialformations
andculturesofresistance.5Sinceworkonimmigrantshasneededtoover-
comethefixationonlandsofsettlementasdefiningitsobject,andstudies
ofdiasporahavetakennationtomeanhomeland,therehasbeenagreat
dealofemphasisonhowIndianmigrantsdeveloprelationshipswiththe
Indian nation-state.6 But some of the constructedness, the fictiveness, of
nation in cultures of migration can be lost when Indians are too thor-
oughlylinkedwiththeircountryoforigin.Certainlyassociationsbetween
Indians and the Indian state abound, in transnational capital flows, in
politicalmovements,andinsocialrelations,buttheargumentImakehere
is that the excesses of “India” in the space of Indian diaspora suggest
morethanlong-distancenationalism.Isuggestthatitisthroughabroadly
symbolicIndiathatIndianscanseethemselves notonlyasnationalsub-
jectsofamodernworld,butalsoascitizensofpostwarUnitedStatesand
England—nations that themselves are undergoing processes of recon-
struction. As India is built abroad in what we might see as the “contact
zones”7 of migrant cultures in unstable first-world spaces, a new set of
discoursesforcitizenshipandsubjectivityarecreated.Ultimatelyadiffer-
ent sensibility of how one can live in a multicultural space is performed
notonlyforIndians,butalsoforotherAmericanandBritishpeoples.
There are 1.7million people in theUnited States today whoclaim In-
diandescent.8Whilethenumberitselfissignificant,evenmorestrikingis
how recently the migrations that created this heterogeneous population
tookplace:largelyafter1965,whentheImmigrationandNaturalization
Actwaspassedtocreatelessraciallydiscriminatorystandardsforentry.
England’sIndianpopulationiscloseto1million,ahugeportionofwhich
is attributable to migrations after the mid-1950s; at 1.9 percent of the
population, it represents the largest ethnic minority.9 The Indian immi-
grant, in both the United States and England, is a presence in daily life,
in urban and suburban residential communities, in business and educa-
tion, and even in politics. The postwar period, of roughly fifty years, in
whichIndiannesshasbecomelocallyvisibleandrecognized,hasbeenone
of quite dramatic transformations in the world: massive movements of
peoples,theunfoldingconsequencesofcolonialismandpostcolonialism,