"Displacement has no replacement and this is the reality of diaspora"
The dictionary meaning of the term diaspora refers to a large group of people with similar heritage or homeland who have since moved out to all places of the world. The term is derived from an ancient Greek word which means " to scatter about". But the term has been particularly referred to the historical mass movements of involuntary nature like that of the expulsion of the Jews from Israel, the trading of Africans as slaves into North America, the displacement …show more content…
The term also refers to their descendents. The Indian Diaspora currently is composed of NRI's ( Non Residentel Indians ) and PIO's( Persons of Indian Origin who have acquired the citizenship of some other country). At present it numbers more than a million each in eleven countries, while as many as twenty- two countries have concentrations of at least a hundred thousand ethnic Indians. The origins of the Indian diaspora lie mainly in the subjugation of India by British empire. The Indians were taken over as indentured labor to far flung parts of the British empire like Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Surinam, Malaysia, South Africa, Srilanka, and other places of the world occupied mainly by the British Empire. During the colonial period Indians were traded as slaves by Portuguese, Dutch, French and English imperialists. The Indians were taken to various countries as indentured labourers to develop plantation economies, construct networks and to serve as soldiers in the military establishment of the colonizers. Large number of traders and professionals also accompanied these labourers and soldiers. The scholars and academics which came out from the universities of independent India migrated to western countries for advanced studies and research form the first set of Indian diaspora in modern period. The migration …show more content…
The first generation refers to those Indians which left the country during the colonial rule and the other set constitutes the Indians who moved out after India got independence. Another group may be added to these two groups which is called the modern diasporas . The national identity of the first generation may be changed politically, but they remain fastened to their original homeland culturally , linguistically and ethnically and the second generation finds it hard to adhere to the identity of the parental land. In contemporary modern era, immigration , exile and expatriation are related to home, identity , nostalgia, memory and isolation. These are mainly the recurrent themes in the diasporic writings of writers like V. S Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai and many other