african diaspora in india

African Diaspora in India

Manish Karmwar*

Introduction

Africans came to India in different circumstances through the ages. They played avital role in the Socio-political and Economic life of various dynasties. They came assailors, traders, soldiers and sometimes, as slaves and were absorbed in the militaryand administrative services. Their involvement in the court-politics increased somuch sometimes that they emerged as king-makers also. In the Janjira and Sachinkingdoms they rose from king-makers to Emperors.

African Diaspora is a relatively new concept than the other forms of Diaspora.Diaspora was first applied to Africans outside Africa by Prof. George Shepperson ofEdinburgh University, a pioneering scholar of African History. Intellectuals like W.E.B.DuBois, Avtar Brah, Robin Cohen, Colin Palmer, Joseph Harris, and Eric Williamsrecognized the social, political and historical ramifications of uncovering new meaningsof Diaspora. All of these intellectuals of the twentieth century linked the blackexperience around the world using a Diasporic framework. In order to understand theterrain of African Diaspora research and analysis we must first decide whether it is aconcept, a framework or paradigm, or an ideology. This paper sets out to highlight‘African Diaspora’ as a framework for understanding socio-economic and politicalcondition of a population that has been dispersed in different parts of India.

The objective of this paper is to look at the ways in which Africans came in Indiaand settled in different regions of the country, to explore the African participation ineconomic, social and political system in India and to investigate their acceptance and

*The author is an Assistant Professor at Shyam Lal College, University of Delhi, Delhi.

Diaspora Studies 3, 1 (2010): 69-91Organisation for Diaspora Initiatives, New Delhi

Diaspora Studies 3, 1 (2010): 69-91

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assimilation to Indian culture. The fields which are more focused are Diaspora, in abroader sense, African migration with the special reference to Indian Ocean trade, thetwo African kingdoms, Janjira and Sachin, Socio-economic condition of Siddis andtheir role and place in Indian society. Writings of Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, Periplus, andCosmos also indicate the ancient trade relation between Indian Sub-Continent andeast African coast. There are traces of African's role in socio-political and military lifeduring the period of Delhi sultanate, Nizamshahi, Adilshahi, Qutabshahi, Imadshahi,Mughal India and also in Hyderabad till India's independence. The study covers theareas where African dispersal is more prominent like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka,Daman and Diu, Goa and Andhra Pradesh.

The paper is divided into three major parts. The first part deals withconceptualization of Diaspora and African Diaspora in India. The second partdiscusses about their trade connections and assimilation in India. The third partfocuses on African kingdoms in India and their regional presence in the country.

Conceptualizing Diaspora

The nature and composition of the African Diaspora have undergone significantchanges over time from the forced migration to the voluntary emigration of free,skilled Africans in search of economic opportunities from a Diaspora with little contactwith the point of origin (Africa) to one that maintains active contact with the mothercontinent. There are numerous evidences of the fact that from ancient times, migratingAfrican traders, soldiers, slaves, and diplomats have established communities inEurope, the Middle East, and Asia. Naturally, they brought their cultures with them,cultures that blended with the cultures of their new homes.

The term ‘African Diaspora’ in its more modern usage emerged clearly in the1950s and sixties. It served in the scholarly debates both as a political term, withwhich to emphasize unifying experiences of African people dispersed by the slavetrade, and also as an analytical term that enabled scholars to talk about blackcommunities across national boundaries. Much of this scholarship examined thedispersal of people of African descent, their role in the transformation and creation ofnew cultures, institutions, and ideas outside Africa.

Recently the American Historical Association devoted the theme for their annualmeeting to presentations of Diasporas and migration. Colin Palmer led a panel on theAfrican Diaspora framework and wrote about his theories in the AHA newsletter. Henoted how the African Diaspora concept had been around since the 1800s, but itscurrent conceptualizations came about as a result of the independence movements in


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Africa. He warns that there is no single African Diasporic community, orconsciousness, because there are five major streams of the African Diasporamovement. Those streams in summary form are listed (i) 100,000 years ago whenpeople moved out of Africa, (ii) 3000 BCE when Africans moved to other parts ofAfrica, (iii) A trading Diaspora of Europeans and Arabs trading with Africa, (iv) Thefifteenth century forward Atlantic trade in African slaves, and, (v) After slavery'sdemise resettlement of people of African descent all throughout the world. To addressthe competing definitions of the African Diaspora, and to investigate when and howan African Diaspora identity was created. The work of Ronald Segal cannot beoverlooked. He points to slavery as the historical process that created the first instanceof an African Diaspora identity. What he outlines in his monograph Five Centuries ofthe Black Experience outside Africa are the various ways that the eleven-millionindividuals forged a Diaspora identity.

While conceptualizing Diaspora, it has been pointed out that the nature of Diasporacan be one with little contact with the point of origin (Africa) to one that maintainsactive contact with the mother continent. In context of India it is the first which fits.Africans in India are migrants who settled here and completely accepted the cultureand assimilated in it. Thus they have little contact or no contact with their homelandbut they came in the Diasporic framework.

Geographical Area

There are evidences of African's role in socio-political and military life during theperiod of Delhi sultanate, Nizamshahi, Adilshahi, Qutabshahi, Imadshahi, MughalIndia and Hyderabad. African dispersal in India covers several states/provincesnamely, Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Daman and Diu, Goa and AndhraPradesh. In Gujarat, they are found in the districts of Surat, Ahmedabad, Amerili,Jamnagar, Junagadh, Rajkot, and Bhavnagar, Broach/Bharuch near Ratanpur and theformer kingdom of Kutch/Katchch. They are normally settled in areas of their ownbut in Ahmedabad, Broach and Kutch they live in mixed areas as they do in parts ofAndhra Pradesh. In Karnataka, they are concentrated around Yellapur, Haliyal, Ankola,Joida, Mundagod and Sirs Talukas of Uttara Kannada and in Khanapur of Belgaumand Kalagatgi of Dharwad district. Their language is a mixture of Sidi-Konkani andSiddi-Marathi. They also speak Kannada. In Maharashtra they are settled in Raigaddistrict. In Uttar Pradesh they are situated in Jaunpur.

Habishis : Rose to Power

Several Africans played an important role in different Indian dynasties. The first


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Habshi, of whom there is historical record, was probably Jamal al-Din Yaqut, royalcourtier in the kingdom of Delhi. Habshis were also reported in the interior of northernIndia. Ibn Battuta recalls that at Alapur, the Governor was the Abyssinian Badr. Someof the Africans who rose to positions of considerable importance were: Malik Kafur,Malik Ambar, Malik Sarwar, Mubarak Shah, Ibrahim Shah, Malik Andil, Malik Sandal,Yaqut Dabuli Habshi, Ikhlas Khan, Dilawar Khan, Khavass Khan, Ulugh Khan. Theirrole in the History of India is significant. The Africans, who arrived in Hyderabad,Deccan, apart from playing their traditional role as bonded guards and servants, wererecruited as the Nizam's private bodyguard. The Siddi Risala (African Regiment) wasretained until 1948.

Historical Records

There have been both free and forced migration of Africans to India, but slavery hasbeen the mechanism by which most were displaced to a land far away from theirhomeland (Jayasuriya 2004). Forced migration of Africans to India increased in thesixth century when the Arabs became the masters of the Indian Ocean and expandedtheir trade in Asia. Significant numbers of slaves entered northern India after theexpansion of Islam at the end of the 10th century. In the 13th century, slaves seem tohave been obtainable through slave markets. Enslaved Abyssinians were soldiers,concubines, and eunuchs in Muslim India.

Africans had a high profile in the Indian political arena from the fourteenth to thenineteenth centuries in various parts .of India. Africans also wielded power in eastIndia. The ruler of Bengal, Sultan Rukn al-Din Barbak Shah (1460-1481), had 8,000African slaves, some of whom he elevated to the higher ranks. Barbak Shah's grandson,Sikander II, was deposed in 1481 after ruling only a few months. His successor Jalal-ud-din Fath Shah (1481-1486), attempted to control the power of the Habshis. In1486, however, under the leadership of the chief eunuch, Sultan Shahzada, the Habshisconspired, murdered Fath Shah, and gained the throne of Bengal (Pankhurst 2003).The Siddis controlled the island of Janjira for almost 300 years. Janjira was importantas a base for commerce with the interior of India. The Sidis were the unchallengedmasters of the Konkan coast from 1601 until 1870, when they formally submitted tothe British.

Nowhere in south Asia did African become more prominent than in the Deccan, orpeninsular India. This region, the present states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, andAndhra Pradesh, was conquered by the Muslim sultans of Delhi in the late thirteenthand early fourteenth centuries. In 1347, it broke away became the independent BahmaniSultanate, which a century and half later broke up into the sultanates of Ahmednagar,



Berar, Bidar, Bijapur and Golconda. The importance of Africans in the Deccan isindicated by their appearance in many kinds of paintings. Some of the best-knownelite African slaves in the Deccan were Malik Kafur, Malik Ambar, Malik Sandal,Yaqut Dabuli Habshi and Ikhlas Khan. Another African Dilawar Khan served asminister of revenue under sultan Mohamud Shah, the last Bahmani to exercise anyauthority (1482-1518). He is also said to have dismissed almost six thousand soldierswho followed the Shia Sect of Islam, replacing them with Africans of the Sunnipersuasion. Another prominent African figure was Khavass Khan Habshi of Bijapurwho became wazir of the sultanate till his overthrow in 1675.

The most famous Habshi in Indian history is Malik Ambar, who defeated theMughal army, became the wazir, and ruled the western deccan from Aurangabad, from1600 to 1626 (Harris 1971). He is renowned for his public works like mosques, palaces,schools, tombs, water systems and for his military and administrative achievements.Although for many years Ethiopians had fought in the service of Afaqi or Deccanienthrone a prince and rule the country as regent. During this period of Commanders,a new phase opened in 1600 when Malik Ambar became the first African to Habshiascendancy, thousands of Ethiopian warriors fought in Nizam shahi service, both asfreedmen and as slaves of other Habshis. The status of Habshi slaves in Deccansociety was not, however, fixed or permanent (Eaton 2005). The pointed shoes,waistband, purse, sash, turban and to be, the stunning portrait of Malik Ambar himselfprojects the image of a powerful African perfectly assimilated to the contemporaryAfro-Indian vision of courtly authority.

In the Sixteenth century, African slaves were also brought to India by theEuropeans, who established themselves at various coastal entrepots. The Portuguese,who exercising political and economic control over parts of the west coast of India,particularly the Konkan coast transported slaves from East Africa to India from about1530 until about 1740. Sayf-al-Mulk Miftah, the governor of Daman during thePortuguese occupation in 1530, was a Habshi chief whose force included 4,000Habshis. In the 1730s, Indian Gujarati merchants on Mozambique Island owned asmall number of slaves and shipped a few slaves to the Portuguese enclaves of Diuand Daman (Machado 2004). From 1724, the Nizam of Hyderabad who had Africanslave-soldiers also brought to the fore their musical talents by asking them also toentertain him with their traditional singing and dancing: The descendants of theseAfrican military men ‘African Cavalry Guards’. In 1811, the British colonial governmentin India enacted the Abolition Act, which prohibited the importation of African slaves.This, however, did not end slavery in India. In 1837, the British government pledged


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to abolish slavery in the empire, and this was officially accomplished in British Indiain 1838. In the wake of the major uprising against the British throughout India in 1857,a Siddi named Bastian led a group of rebels, including both Sidis and Kanarese(indigenous Indians in Karnataka), around Supa in Uttara Kannada (north Karnataka),where they wreaked havoc until 1859 through a campaign of looting and burningalong the border with Goa (Shirodkar 1998).

Trade Connections

Indo-African trade relations are one of the very important segments among others tounderstand African settlements in different parts of Indian sub-continent. Theevidence of African trade in India dates back many centuries. Archaeological sitestrace the earliest relation between these countries and provide evidences to supporttheir trade related bond. Archaeological excavations at the site of Rojdi in Gujarathave revealed the presence of domesticated grains that had their origin in Africa.These include finger millet dating around 2500-2300 BC (Weber 1998). There areancient sites in South Asia which have yielded evidence for the prehistoric productionof Jowar of African origin (Chauhan 1995).

According to Cyril A. Hromnik, India had seaworthy ships and it must have lefta deep mark on all the coasts of the ocean that bears its name i.e. the Indian Ocean.The works of early writers make it amply clear that Indian ships sailed regularly to thecoast of East Africa at the time. The range of items such as Indian 'Bhang', Coconutscrapers, Beads, Cotton, Metalwork, Architecture, different currencies in the eastand even South Africa covered the period between 3000 to 200 B.C. Indian goldmining on and around the south Zambezi plateau might have started as early as theend of the Second millennium B.C. in the opinion of Hromnik, the arrow heads, thefirst tools made in Africa, had Indian origin (Hromnik 1981).

Indian commerce with the Horn of Africa was, as the Periplus suggests, of greatantiquity, it owed much of its importance to the fact that the African coast lay on thetrade route from India to Egypt and the Roman Empire. By the first century B.C. thistrade had become so lucrative that it was carried out by large numbers of merchantsand navigators from both east and west. Strabo remarked that as many as one hundredand twenty vessels sailed in his time from the Egyptian Red Sea ports of MyosHormus, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a few ventured to undertake thevoyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise (Meineke 2007). Pliny, too,underlined the importance of India's trade with the west. Writing about a century laterhe declares that in no year did India absorb less than fifty million sersteces of theRoman Empire's wealth, and that it sent back merchandise which sold at 'a hundred



times its prime cost'. Over a millennium and a half later James Bruce pointed to thesignificance of the trade winds which from early times had so greatly facilitatedtrading connections between India and the Red Sea. The Periplus has little to sayabout the exports of Adulis and sums them up briefly as ivory, tortoiseshell andrhinoceroshorn. Pliny, on the other hand, relates that the port traded in a large quantityof ivory, rhinoceros-horns, hippopotamus-hides, apes and slaves. All these portsalong the coast of the Horn of Africa were of international fame and were visited byvessels which either sailed there expressly or else exchanged their cargoes therewhile journeying along the neighbouring coast. Trading ships came both from Egyptwhence they set forth every year in July, and from the ports between Ariaca andBarygaza on the north-west coast of the Indian sub-continent. These vessels broughtthe products of their own lands, such as wheat, rice, clarified butter, seasame oil,cotton cloth, girdles, and sugar, which the Periplus terms 'honey from the reed calledsacchari. The exports of these lands to the south of present-day Ethiopia included alittle palm-oil and a great quantity of ivory, though inferior to that of Adulis, rhinoceroshorn and tortoise-shell, which, the Periplus says, was second only to that of India(Pankhurst 1961).

During the third to fifth centuries A.D., the trade between East Africa and SouthAsia seems to have ceased as no ceramics from there have yet been discovered atRas Hafun, an evidence of Safavid Persian hold over western Indian trade. But theconnection with the Gulf did continue. The force migration of Negroes from theAfrican sub-continent into India went up only in the sixth century A.D. when theArabs expanded their trade with India. Ample sources are available to substantiatethis contention. As early as 636 A.D., an expedition had been dispatched from thePersian Gulf to pillage the flourishing port of Thana on the western coast of India, inthe vicinity of Bombay. Thirty years later, the Arabs again touched this port. After thecoming of Islam on the world scene and consequent upon the conquest of Persia bythe Arabs in the seventh century, the Arab merchants tried to control the Oceaniccommerce of the Konkan ports (Chauhan 1995).

The Persians and the Persian Gulf may also have begun to play an important roleas an intermediary between East Africa and India. The collapse of the Roman Empirehad deprived East Africa of its major ivory market at a time when India was still largelyself-sufficient. But already by the beginning of the sixth century Indian demand forivory for the manufacture of bridal ornaments seems to have begun to outstrip localsupply. That demand was securely based on the regular ritual destruction of theseornaments upon the termination of the Hindu marriage by the death of either of the


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partners (Sheriff 2001). Gervase Mathew has suggested that eighth and twelfth century,under Cholas of South India must have developed flourishing trade with East Africa.With the advent of thirteenth century when Muslim influence was experienced bynot only East Africa but by west Asia, this branch of trade came up with new vigour.Bulk of the Indian Ocean trading system passed into Muslim hands and all itsparticipants acquired a new solidarity. Survivor of emporia (Adulis, Ocelis) adoptedIslam and before A.D. 1000 new settlements were founded that were either Muslimfrom the beginning or subsequently became so. The Muslim invasion and expansionin India was already brisk in thirteenth century which attracted Muslim traders fromYamen and Persian Gulf linking India directly with East Africa. Besides there weredirect trade contacts between India and East Africa in this period. Indian merchantstook up residence and exercised a profound influence. Conversely merchants fromthe East African coast are known to have frequented western coast of India and Eastat the beginning of the Sixteenth century (Ali 1960). The Siddis of Gujarat trace theroots of their saint and community progenitor, Gori Pir, who is usually described as anAbyssinian who came to Gujarat to trade in the fourteenth century and whose arrivalis associated with the extension of trade in locally mined agate to Africa. This datingaccords well with evidence that by the end of the twelfth century there were residenttraders and slaves being traded from both Abyssinian and Zanzibar at Tiz, an importantports of the Makran in what is today Iran, and that in 1451 Sultan Mahmud Khilji(1436-1469), founder of the Khilji dynasty of Malwa, is reported to have visited GoriPir's dargah (Catlin 2004).

It is obvious from the archaeological evidence that from middle of thirteenthcentury until the coming of the Portuguese at the end of fifteenth century the EastAfrican coast enjoyed a period of quite remarkable prosperity based on overseastrade (Oliver 1972). Edrisis, Al-masudi, Ibn-i-Batuta and Marco Polo, though silent ontrade exchange, speak in length of Arab and East African contacts on the other. It isevident that during the early medieval period, India's trade with East Africa survivedon the Arab and Chinese demand. Edrisis has shown greater demand for East Africaniron ore in India. Ivory had always been imported in the same way (Davidson 1961).Al-Baruni mentions, the prosperity of the ports of Somnath on the north coast ofIndia was based on the African trade (Posnansky 1966). Gold was another stapleimport of India. Large quantity of gold must have gone to India from the ports of EastAfrica. Sofala is referred to by Al-Masudi as a land of gold and in tenth century thegold mint of Oman began striking coins of gold from Sofala. Therefore, it is probablethat the merchants of Oman might have exported gold of Sofala to India (Davidson1961). Ibn-i-Batuta also refers to the slave trade and their role in Delhi Sultanats.



‘Rukh -Ud-din Barbak, king of the old muslim kingdom of Bengal (1459-74) had8000 African slaves, Delhi Sultanate, provincial kingdom of Bahamanid, Jaunpur andJanjira also witness a significant role of African slaves in their dominions (Toussaint1966). Mughal emperor, Aurangazeb, employed an African admiral in Bombay;Nizam of Hyderabad had an African guard during the same period (Mahalingam1955). But slave trading nonetheless remained subsidiary. The trade still remainedbased on barter system, where Indian merchants came to play a vital role as stockiestand middleman in the following century. This period established a definite pattern tothis branch of trade, called medieval trade pattern, in which East African naturalproducts attract India's finished goods, cloth, tools, implements and food articles.

During the course of the sixteenth century the Portuguese dominated the IndianOcean and its littoral. Portugal was determined to eliminate Muslim merchants,especially Arabs, in the Indian Ocean system. During the seventeenth century A.D.the increasing vulnerability of the Portuguese in Asia and the steady attrition of theirmaritime empire in the face of English, Dutch, and Umani Arab competition made themall the more responsive to protest and pressure from Gujarati merchants upon whosecommercial activities they came increasingly to rely. At the same time as Portugal wasconsolidating its hold over Diu.

The products of Gujarat clearly continued to dominate the trade of East Africaduring the seventeenth century, and most of the products of East Africa wereconsumed by Gujarat. In 1630, Jean Mocquet noted that bertangil, a cotton clothdyed blue or dark purple, was the proper trading cloth for the East African market.This seems to have been a specific kind of plain white calico, which was taken,bleached to Agra and Ahmedabad, near the source of indigo, to be dyed blue, black,or red. For the decades after 1630 A.D. Tavernier notes that "these kinds of cottoncloth, which cost from 2 to 12 rupees the piece, are exported to the coast of Malindi,and they constitute the principal trade done by the Governor of Mozambique, aboutwhich he was unusually well informed. Most of these cloths were probably obtainedby the correspondents of vania merchants in Diu and Goa who operated in the maintowns of Mughal Gujarat. But there also was a certain amount to direct trade inPortuguese vessels with Cambay, and perhaps other Mughal ports, for theMozambique market. In 1600, it was probably no more than about four percent of thetotal exports trade of western India. East Africa's share of this trade was probably notmuch different at the end of the seventeenth century. But, if the trade of East Africawas peripheral to that of Gujarat as a whole, it was absolutely central to that of Diu.

At mid-century, however, the colonial economy of Mozambique was completely


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dominated by the ivory trade to Gujarat, and this was exclusively in the hands of thecompany of Mazanes and a handful of vanias and Muslims from the much lessimportant Portuguese port of Daman in Gujarat, as well as Goa. During the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries the trade of Gujarat with Portuguese East Africa, includingboth Mozambique and the Swahili coast, was almost entirely mediated through theagency of the Indian merchants of Diu (Alpers 1976:24).

During the 1750s and 1760s, slaves continued to be used extensively on MozambiqueIsland, chiefly as dock labourers serving vessels from Diu and Daman, and as porters,carrying goods cleared at customs to nearby warehouses and subsequently to marketsin the interior. Slaves could be cheap enough for even 'poor' Indians to purchase, butthe average number owned by Indian residents of Mozambique Island was two orthree, although a few possessed ten or more slaves (Campbell 2004).

From 1795 to 1801, Indian connections with Quelimane slackened due to thedanger of attack in the Mozambique Channel by French corsairs, although those likeLaxmichand Motichand and Shobhachand Sowchand who could afford the riskmanaged to continue trading for slaves. From 1800 to 1810 an estimated 20,800 slaveswere shipped from Quelimane, mostly to Mozambique Island which over the sameperiod exported 50,000 slaves ( Liesegang 1983). However, slave imports into Diu byIndian merchants dipped in this decade to approximately 220, possibly due to areduced number of voyages to Quelimane. The difference between the Diu and Damanslave-trades reflects different commercial structures (Campbell 2004).

Anti-slave-trade measures from the mid-1820s increasingly impacted on Indiancommerce with Mozambique, notably on Gujaratis whose cloth trade was inextricablylinked to the slave-trade from the interior of Mozambique. In 1829, Diu stateddespondently: The trade with the capital of Mozambique is the only way open tomake this island prosper but the news of the ending of the slave trade has meant thatmost of the goods exported last year have not been successfully traded; as a result,the return has been very small, and has discouraged the trade of the merchants(Campbell 2004).

Socio-Economic Condition of Siddis

The major Siddi populations in India are found in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra,Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Besides being names Siddis, other than themselvesalso refer to the African descendants as Habshi, Shamal, Badsha, Kafir, African andNegro in various languages such as Marathi, Kannada, Konkani, Gujarati, Teluguand Urdu. This section deals about the socio-economic condition of siddis in India ingeneral and Siddis of Gujarat, Karnataka and Hyderabad in particular. This focuses



on the assimilation process of Africans in different stages.

The Siddis are one of the most interesting Scheduled Tribes (some parts) in India,being the only ethnic group among the population of mainland of India whichpossesses well-defined and uncontroversial Negroid features. But it is only in Gujaratthat the Siddis are included in the list of Scheduled Tribes. Even in Gujarat they aretreated as a Scheduled Tribe only in Rajkot Division. It is a matter of great socialsignificance that notwithstanding the fact that so many outstanding personalitieshave arisen from among the Siddis. The image of the community that prevails amongtheir neighbours is that of a group of people, who are in a condition of near anomie.There are also some aristocratic families of Siddi origin, like the Jafarabad house. Butthey do not appear to have any social relations with the ordinary Siddis of Gujarat.

Though the Siddis are mostly Muslim, religion does not appear to be the mainplank for their group identity. According to 1961 Census, which provides data inrespect of the Siddis of Rajkot Division only there are 23 Hindus out of a total of3,645. The rest are Muslims. Earlier Census reports indicated that in other areas thereare some Siddis who practice Christianity. Though there are no well recognized subtribes, Reginald Edward Enthoven mentions that the Muslim Siddis have two divisions-Vilaities, the new comers, and Muwallads or countrymen. Siddis in the subdistricts ofHaliyal, Mundgod, Yellapur, and Sirsi venerate a Muslim saint, Abd al-Qadir Jilani(also known as Mahbub Subhani), who is considered to be the founder of the QadiriSufi order (Obeng 2003).

Settlements

The Siddis have permanent dwellings but the structures of the same cannot be saidto be pucca. Locally available stone and mud are the main building materials. Thehouses do not have separate compounds or surrounding walls. These are built on 2ft. or 2½ ft. high plinths. Such high plinths are necessary as protection against theflood waters of the rivers Saraswati and Karkari, which when in spate, submerge theroad, streets and lanes. The floors are mostly kutcha and plastered with mud. Theroofs are generally very low and the interiors of the houses are dark. The doors arelike flaps and prepared out of kerosene tin sheets very small in size. The door framesare very low. One has to bend forward in order to enter the house. The doors aregenerally prepared from wood of Jambuda tree.

An average house is a single room tenement. The same room is used for cooking,eating, sleeping and storing household materials. There is no separate bathroom.Generally they take bath in open space near their house or in the nearby rivers.


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Similarly, there are no latrines. No separate cattle sheds are provided. The cattle aretethered inside the house, as in the forest area there is a constant danger from lions,cheetahs and leopards. As the twilight approaches, all the grazing cattle are herdedtogether and bounded inside the house. The houses of Siddis living in larger townsare sometime slightly better and in some cases built of bricks and mortar. Muraldesigns of animals, such as a dog and a horse and birds like sparrows and parrots andother floral designs are drawn on the wall bordering the door frame; the bases of thepillars are coloured with floral designs (Census of Siddis 1998).

Economic Structure

Africans have contributed to the Indian economy through their expertise and talentsin several spheres and at various levels of the economy. The Siddis have made ratherpoor progress in the field of education. As mentioned, the Siddis were mostly broughtto India as slaves and were made to serve as domestic servants and soldiers. Lateron, some of the Siddis rose to prominent positions and a few founded their separatekingdoms such as those of Sachin and Janjira. It is said that the rulers of formerJanjira State were the descendants of the Siddi slaves and soldiers accompanying theArab invaders and tradesmen after the eighth century onwards. Some of the formerrulers of the States still retain a few Siddis as attendants, night watchmen andchowkidars, etc (Ali 1996). In the rural areas they have taken up agriculture for quitesome time. However, most of them do not have sufficiently large holdings and veryfew among them are prosperous agriculturists. Most of them cultivate or earn enoughfor their maintenance and livelihood from agriculture and other subsidiary work. TheSiddis who reside around the forest area in Junagadh district resort to forest labour.They also collect forest products, such as firewood, honey, gum, herbs of differentvarieties and fruits like jambu, karmads, etc. and sell vegetables and fruits. In urbanareas, the Siddis have taken up jobs such as those of fitters, mechanics, factoryworkers, watchmen and truck drivers. It reported that they have also been working asfitters and mechanics in the ships or dock-yards in Bombay and other coastal cities ortowns (Russel 1916). As labourers they are also engaged in construction work or ascoolies in port areas while others pull hand-carts in market places and some of themdrive trucks.

The cultivation, agricultural labour, mining, quarrying, hunting and fishing andhousehold industry are considered to constitute the traditional sector of the nationaleconomy. It is found that almost half (49.34 per cent) of the Siddi working force isengaged in the traditional sector and the remaining half is engaged in the non-traditionalsector. In the traditional sector, a special mention is to be made of the persons engaged



in mining, quarrying, fishing, forestry, etc. They are truck and taxi drivers as well asrickshaw and handcart pullers.

Social Fabric

The Siddis trace their descent along the male line. They are patronymic and patrilocal.It is very rarely that the married sons continue to live with their parents. The nucleartype of family among the Siddis does not give much scope for a large household.Usually 5 to 6 persons live in a household. Among the household articles, woodencot is a common article in a Siddi house.

Siddis regard barrenness as the result of the wrath of the God. When a womandoes not beget a child for quite some time after marriage, the chief deity, Nagarch Pir,is appeased and a vow is taken. It is their implicit faith that the Pir's blessings willfulfill their wishes. However, calamities during and after delivery, like still-birth, abortion,miscarriage, infant death, etc., are considered to be the will of God and not necessarilyhis wrath and they have developed a more philosophical attitude towards suchmisfortunes. A new mother is given advice about child care by her elderly femalerelatives. On the 6th day after the birth of the child, the chhatthi ceremony is performed.When the child is bathed and clad in new clothes. When the child is five to sevenyears old the Siddis sometimes perform akiko which is accompanied by certain religiousrites. On this occasion, the child's head is shaved and fatiha is done. Also, two goatsare sacrificed, if the child is a male and one goat is sacrificed if the child is a female.

The Siddis do not perform any puberty rite for either sex. They, however, practiceCircumcision for the males, in keeping with the practice among the other Muslimcommunities. This ceremony is known as Sunnat sadi. It is said by Siddis that nikah ofa boy cannot be performed unless he has been circumcised. The Siddi informants,however, Confirms the existence of adultery or extra-marital relations in their community.They say that if they come to know that any Siddi woman has given birth to childbearing non-Siddi features, they will stifle the child to death. As mentioned earlier, theSiddis are divided into a number of clans; they do not marry within the same clan.Cross-cousin marriage is however, in vogue among them. Marriage usually takes placeas a result of negotiations between the parents of the boy and the girl. Nowadays, theconsent of the girl and the boy is obtained before closing the negotiation. The Siddispermit their widows to remarry. It is, however, neither, compulsory nor customary for awidow to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband. However, they have noobjection if she so desires. In case of widow remarriage there are no elaborate rituals. Itis a simple affair and is practically confined to the reading of the nikah by the kazi.


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Among the Siddis, followers of three religions, namely, Islam, Hinduism andChristianity are found. Most of them, however, are adherents to Islam. In Maharashtraand Karnataka, Hindu, Muslim as well as Christian Siddis are found. The Hindu Siddisare also referred to as Maharashtra Siddis. In Gujarat, however, the Siddis are mostlyMuslims. They are Sunnis of the Hanafi School. It is interesting that faith in Oliyas andPirs is very widespread among them. Their chief object of worship is Baba Ghor and'Abyssinian' saint whose tomb stands on a hill near Ratanpur village of the formerRajpila State. The Siddis have also strong beliefs in ghosts, evil spirits and sorcerers. Ifany person is affected by an evil spirit, he is taken to the dargah of Negarchi Pir.TheSiddis are considered to be a people of a happy-go-lucky disposition. They do not carefor the tomorrow. During leisure hours, Siddi men can be seen flocking around tea-shops, taking tea or smoking bidis and gossiping (Census of Siddis 1998).

Cultural Assimilation

Since the early medieval era, Africans who came with Persians, Turks, and Arabshave contributed to the socio-cultural landscape of India. In particular, the Siddishave carried their musical traditions with them. Today Siddi Goma groups perform inIndia and abroad. They play sacred music and dance as wandering fakirs, singing tothe Siddi saint, Bava Gor. They perform dhamal, which they call goma, a word that hasits etymon in the Swahili word ngoma, which means ‘drum.’ The most significantAfrican retention is the malunga, a braced musical bow, which is found in manyAfrican communities. Siddi servants performed ngoma dances with drums, rattles,and shells on birthdays and weddings in the noble courts (Basu 1993). Siddis wearinganimal skins and headgear of peacock feathers or other bird feathers, and with paintedbodies, perform a sacred traditional dance to the rhythm of the dhamal (small drum),madido (big drum), mugarman (footed drum), Mai Mishra (coconut rattle), nafir (conchtrumpet), malunga and other musical instruments. Bava Gor's urs (the death of aMuslim saint) is celebrated over several days and is an occasion for playing dhamalmusic and dancing.

Music seems to be the main African cultural retention in the Hyderabad Siddis,who excel in music. They have drum bands that play African drums and are hired toplay music and dance in ‘African ways’ on special occasions such as weddings.They had learned songs that are sung in a Bantu language in Tanzania during spiritpossession rituals to effect healing. African retentions also remain in Swahili wordsin the lyrics of the songs of the Siddis and in the names of the musical instruments ofthe Siddis. Siddis in Karnataka play the gumat, a type of drum that is also used byIndian musicians in Goa and the Goan Diaspora who play Goan Catholic folk songs,



which indicates culture crossings. The popular folk songs of the Siddis- Balo, Leva,Bandugia-are replete with pride for the community and religious fervor (Chauhan1995). In India permanent settlements of African descendants have been establishedat least since the early sixteenth century onwards. Several of these settlements existtoday in various pockets in the country, though not necessarily in the same placeswhere they historically were formed. One of these settlements is located in the hillydistrict of Uttara kannada (Catlin 2004).

In the hilly areas of Uttara Kannada, located in the Western Ghats, there areapproximately 12,000 Siddis. They adhere to three world religion. 45 per cent areRoman Catholics, 30 per cent are Sunni Muslims and 25 per cent are Hindus. TheSiddis also believe in various kinds of spirits inhabiting in the natural environmentand they practice ‘ancestor worship/veneration’. Some scholars believe that Siddisbelong to a common ethnic stock (Lobo 1984).

The Siddis of Karnataka are found in the Ghat area of Uttara Kannada, Dharwarand Belgaum districts. In Uttara Kannada district they are concentrated in Ankola,Mundgod, Sirsi, Supa, Haliyal and Yellapur talukas. In Dharwar and Belgaum they arefound in one taluka each Khalghatgi and Khanpapur respectively. The majority ofthese Siddis were said to have come from Goa where they were imported from EastAfrica, mainly Mozambique, by the Portuguese as slaves.

Most of the Siddis are settled in the rural and forest areas of Uttara Kannda. Thesettlement locations are of two types: on slopes and on plateaus. On the slopes theylive in homesteads, that is, each nuclear family has its own houses and agriculturalplot, and remains separate from others. An average village in the plateau is constitutedof two to six dozen houses. The village itself is cut by a few meters wide mud road andentrance door faces the mud road (Catlin 2004). Among the Siddi families in Karnatakathere are Catholics, Hindus and Muslims. In Haliyal there are only Muslims andChristians, and in the Ghat areas of Yellapur and Ankola only Hindus. Owing to thedivision of the Siddi people into three religious groups a distinct Siddi self-identityhas not developed.

Palakshappa notes that the Siddi assimilation is two-fold; first, to the total Hinduculture of the region, and secondly, to the social structure of various religions. TheSiddi identity lies in the Hiriyaru belief for their conceptions are uniquely Siddi, evenif the symbols representing the Hiriyaru are adopted from their respective religions. Astranger to the area would not be in a position to distinguish the Siddis from othergroups except through their racial characteristics. The Siddis do not suffer from anysort of prejudice, either racial or cultural. Moreover, there are no pressures to change;


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whatever changes have taken place is voluntary. He concludes, by saying ‘In acceptingthe value of the local area the Siddis have kept before the dominant castes - HavingBrahmins, Marathas - to initiate and evaluate their behaviour’ (Palakshappa 1976).

African Kingdoms

Two African kingdoms survived in India until the independence of India. Thesewere JANJIRA in Maharastra and SACHIN, in Gujarat. Janjira came into prominencein the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The fortified inland of Janjira wherethe Africans emerged as a political force is located between Kolaba and Ratnagiri inwestern Maharashtra. It is situated in Konkan which includes the areas betweenthe Western Ghats and the Indian Ocean, from Daman on the north to that ofTerekhol on the Goa frontier, on the South. The descendants of immigrantAbyssinians and Arabs still found there in large numbers further speak greatlyabout its historicity (Campbell 1883). In the sixteenth century, the Siddis were givencontrol of the island fort of Janjira and for the next two centuries, they were theunchallenged masters of the Konkan coast. They maintained their independenceuntil 1870, when they formally submitted to the British. Most Siddis in Janjira wererelatives of the nawab (the head of state) of Janjira; they had inherited state grantsand allowances. Most Siddis were landowners and state servants (Pinto 1992).

In fact, the word Janjira is derived from the corrupted version of the word inMarathi of the Arabic 'Jazira' which means 'an island'. This terminology is quitemisleading because now the entire area is called Janjira. What adds more to theconfusion is that even the fortress of Danda-Rajpuri, six kms from Murud is alsoknown today as Janjira. While Ptolemy called this place an island, Pliny identifiedit as a river and a port, and the author of Periplus simply as a place on the continent.Janjira also came to be called Habshan or Habsan meaning Abyssinian or African orNegro. Actually, the term Janjira has, during historical times, come to be known asthe great maritime Department of Danda-Rajpuri in the middle of which lies thefortified rocky island of Janjira. (Campbell 1883).

By the nineteenth century the great days of Siddi naval power in the Indian Oceanhad passed. In 1818, the British annexed the kingdom of the Peshwa, which gave thempossession of almost all of Maharashtra. Janjira remained independent for some years,but in 1834 the British declared it to be subject to their paramountcy. It was thereafterone of the Indian Princely States, whose kings ruled their territories in subordination toBritish power. On 14 August 1947, Siddi Mohammad Khan III signed the Instrument ofAccession to India; the accession was accepted on 16 August 1947, and paramountcy



over Janjira passed from the British to the new India (Ali 1996).

The Sachin State was a second class state in the Bombay Presidency . Sachin, thecapital of the State was about ten miles south of Surat in the province of Gujarat. Thestate contained Twenty-one villages scattered through the Chorasi and JalalpurTalukas (Sub divisions of Surat). The villages were much more scattered, some beingsurrounded by the British territory and others by the portions of the Baroda State.The Nawabs of Sachin were Abyssinians by descent they made their first fullappearance in India sometime during the latter half of the 15th century as merchantsor freebooters. Anyhow they soon settled down and became masters of Janjira whichthey have retained.

During the fifteenth century under the name of the Siddis of Danda Rajpuri andJanjira in the Konkan they were known first as the Bijapur (1489-1686) and afterwardsas the Mughal admirals. Under Bijapur their fleet guarded commerce and carriedpilgrims to Mecca. In 1660 they received a yearly grant of Rs.30,000/- from Suratrevenues and they became Aurangzeb’s admirals. ‘In the eighteenth century, on thedecline of the Mughal power, the Janjira Siddis plundered the ships of all the nationsexcept the English whose friendship they cultivated. By the treaty of 1733 the Englishand the Siddis pledged themselves to be perpetual friends. In 1791 Janjira wasexchanged for a place of land near Surat known as the ‘Sachin State’. The MarathaPeshwa promised Balu Miyan that in return for all his rights to the throne of Janjira,he would grant him territory that yielded the same revenue as the Habshi kingdomJanjira was then in the hands of Balu Miyan's brother-in-law Siddi Jauhar, and thePeshwa safeguarded himself by undertaking to give Balu Miyan immediate possessionof only a small portion of the promised lands, with the rest to follow once Janjira hadbeen conquered. As the Peshwa was never able to take Janjira, Balu Miyan's newkingdom remained very small (Robbins 2006). The title of ‘Nawab’ was first conferredon the Rulers of Sachin by Emperor Shah Alam II in about 1797 on payment ofNazrana. The Nawab was entitled to a dynastic salute of nine guns.

Regional Presence of Africans in India

Till now we have focused on ‘African Diaspora in India’ in a broader perspective butit will be incomplete without doing the study of the regional presence of Africans inthe country. The present paragraph will specifically highlight this issue by conductingcase study of Delhi, Bengal and Hyderabad regions. It will categorically mentionabout their obediency, bravery, intelligence and clever tact to usurp the throne. It isearly in the thirteenth century that Indian history affords us a first glimpse of one ofthe Ethiopian slaves rising to some prominence in state affairs. At this period the


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kingdom of Delhi was ruled by Queen Raziya (1236-1240), the daughter of Iltutmish,a Turkish slave who had made himself the master of most of Northern India. TheQueen, who was threatened on her accession by the disruption of her father's empire,was said to have shown undue favour to one of the Habshi slaves, Jalal-ud-din-Yaqut, whom she elevated to the post of master of the royal stables, thus offendingher father's Turkish nobles who were organized in a close corporation. A century orso later in 1376-77 we find Shams Damaghari, governor of Gujarat, on one occasionpaying a tribute of four hundred slaves who are described as 'children of Hinduchiefs and Abyssinians'(Pankhurst 1961). Ibn Batuta makes several references to thepresence of Ethiopians in India, at the time of his travels in India of 1333-1342. Hestates that the governor of Alapur was an Abyssinian named Badar, a slave of theKing of Dholpur (Gibb 1963).

There is no doubt that in the following century Ethiopian were reaching India ingrowing numbers, particularly on the east coast in the Bengal area where they weredestined to play no mean role in the political sphere. In the second half of the fifteenthcentury it is recorded that Rukn-ud-din Barbak Shah, King of Bengal (1460-1481), beganto maintain large numbers of them for military purposes, raising some to high positions.He is said to have owned as many as eight thousand African slaves, some of whomrapidly gained authority in the realm (Haig 1928). When his grandson, Sikander II, wasdeposed in 1481 after a rule of only a few months, his successor, Jalal-ud-din Fath Shah,endeavoured to curb their power which had apparently become dangerous to themonarchy. But the angry Habshis, fearing his continued enmity, conspired against himunder the leadership of a eunuch who, in 1486, had him murdered and usurped thethrone of Bengal under the style of Barbak Shah, Sultan Shahzada (Majumdar 1946).Theother Africans who involve in the political sphere of Bengal were Jalal-ul-din, IndilKhan, Nasir-ud-din Mohmoud Shah II, Habesh Khan and Ala-ud-din Shah.

The creation of Hyderabad as an independent state by Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jahmarked the break-up of the Mughal Empire during the first half of the eighteenthcentury. Subsequently, the Nizam was forced to enter into a subsidiary alliance withthe British in 1798 and 1800. The turning point in Hyderabad's history came duringthe thirty years of Prime Ministership of Salar Jung I (1853-1883).

During the ziladari of the Raja of Wanaparthy, which was part of the Nizam'sdominions, the first batches of Africans were bought. Raja Rameshwar Rao I ofWanaparthy was interested in building up a disciplined armed force under his command.He imported Siddis from Somalia and Abyssinia and organized them into two regimentsone of Siddi soldiers known as the 'African Bodyguard' and another regiment of Siddi



cavalry known as the 'Wanaparthy Lancers'. On account of skirmishes and conflictsbetween the Raja's troops and the Nizam's, the British Residency intervened and arrangeda tripartite treaty by which the Raja presented his African Bodyguard and 'WanaparthyLancers' to the Nizam while he was appointed the Inspector General of the Nizam's fieldforces. The Nizam also agreed to respect the Raja's autonomy.

Rameshwar Rao III, the last ruler of Wanaparthy, was sent for his riding lessonsto the African cavalry at Lakdi-ka-pul. He not only learnt riding there under thesupervision of Siddi horsemen but was also regaled with stories of how their ancestorswere brought to India and formed the infantry and cavalry, personal troops of theRaja of Wanaparthy and how they were presented to the Nizam when the Raja died.Many of the Siddi call themselves ‘Bin-Bahiree’ or Son of Bahiree, Bahiree being atitle of the Rajas of Wanaparthy.

There was continuing contact between Somalia and Abyssinia on the one handand Hyderabad on the other. The Siddis were brought to work in the armed forces inthe Deccan from the time of the Bahmani Sultans. This continued under the Qutbshahi kings of golkonda and the Asaf Jahi rulers of Hyderabad. There is a bazaar inHyderabad named after one of the Siddi commanders, Siddi Ambar. It is called SiddiAmbar Bazar and is still known by the same name (Rao 1932).

The Siddis were trustworthy, quickly earned the confidence of the Nizam and hiscourt, and were appointed as his bodyguard. Brigadier Afsar Ali Baig, served as thecommandant of the non-Indian State forces and was also commander of the Nizam'sforces. African Bodyguards were also under his command. These Siddis used toflank the throne of the Nizam. These Abyssinians were good soldiers also. TheSiddis, he said, were honest and upright.

There are several cases of Siddi rising to a high position. During the latter partof the nineteenth century the Nizam started selecting young Arab and Siddi boysas Khanazahs (protégés). They received their education at the Nizam's court. OneSiddi, who became a Khanazah, was Nasir bin Muftah, who served for thirty yearsin the guard. He became a lineman, moved up to watchman, ultimately becamesuperintendent of the Nizam's entire household, a post he held till the guard wasdisbanded after police action in 1948. In this last capacity, one of his duty was tosupervise the Nizam's kitchen, which reportedly fed over 20,000 persons daily-family concubines, servants and nobles and their families. After having saved theNizam from an attempted assassination in 1947, Muftah became the Nizam's closestconfidant. In the 1960s, his wealth was considerable. He owned several rental propertiesand a poultry farm with 20,000 chickens. His son Hussain, also a former khanazah,


88 / MANISH KARMWAR

owns property in Hyderabad also (Harris 1971).

The African Diaspora concept subsumes a triadic relationship; Africa as homeland,Africans and their descendants, and the adopted residence/home abroad. Thisrelationship is built on many years of voluntary and involuntary dispersions withprimary and secondary migrations as well. In addition, this Diaspora has the followingcharacteristics: Collective memories and myths about Africa as the homeland or placeof origin, a common socio-economic condition, a transnational network, a sustainedresistance to the African presence abroad and an affirmation of their human rights. Allof these factors characterise the dispersed communities of African descent outsideAfrica.

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