Diasporic returns to the city: Anglo-Indian and Jewish visits to Calcutta

Abstract

Whilst the city is a central focus of research on diasporic resettlement, little research has explored the city as a site of diasporic return. This paper explores return visits to Calcutta by members of the Anglo-Indian and Jewish communities who have migrated to London, Toronto and Israel since 1947. In doing so, the paper contributes to broader debates about return visits and migrations as well as the connections between cities, communities and diasporas. Unlike research that focuses on the nation and/or ‘homeland’, the paper explores the city as a destination for diasporic return. In contrast to work that concentrates on particular ethnic groups that become minorities after migration and expect to feel an ethnic ‘affiliation’ on their return, the paper studies two communities that were minorities before migration. Drawing on interviews with Anglo-Indian and Jewish Calcuttans, the paper argues that decisions to return – and not to return – are shaped by ideas about the city as home more than the nation as homeland. Moreover, returns to the city are also, in different and sometimes contested ways, returns to the community and are experienced and understood in terms of wider narratives of urban and community continuity and change.

Keywords:

• Diaspora
• city
• return
• community
• identity
• Calcutta

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ajaya Sahoo, who edited this paper, and two reviewers for their very helpful comments. The research was funded by The Leverhulme Trust as part of the wider project on ‘Diaspora Cities: imagining Calcutta in London, Toronto and Jerusalem’. We would like to thank Shompa Lahiri for her work on this project too, and also the audience at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) for their very helpful questions and comments on the paper.

Notes

Although Calcutta was renamed Kolkata in 2001, we use the previous name in this paper as most interviewees migrated before 2001 and this is how almost all of them referred to the city.

This paper is part of a broader project funded by The Leverhulme Trust on ‘Diaspora Cities: Imagining Calcutta in London, Toronto and Jerusalem’. This project studies the Anglo-Indian, Brahmo, Chinese and Jewish communities in Calcutta, their migration to London, Toronto and Israel since 1947, and the effects of migration for those who have remained in Calcutta.

The Calcutta reunion included a boat cruise to Diamond Harbour to the south of the city, a dance and a quiz focusing on particular Anglo-Indian words, such as the meanings of Calcutta's Ronson Lighter (a lit coir that hangs at paanshops to light cigarettes) and a Paratha Aloo (someone who attended Pratt Memorial School). Other events in the city have also attracted a large number of visiting Anglo-Indians as well as those who still live in the city, including a concert called ‘Down Memory Lane’ held in St Joseph's School in December 2007. Such events focus on the past and the nostalgic connection between the community and the city and increasingly form an important part of return visits. The Bangalore reunion in 1998 was the first Anglo-Indian international reunion to be held in India, and was timed to fall in the fiftieth anniversary year of Independence and described as a ‘homecoming’. But,

despite its celebration of return and its theme of ‘unity and integration’, demonstrations were held outside a five-star hotel by some Anglo-Indians resident in Bangalore who could not afford the registration fee. These demonstrations raised questions about who could celebrate a community identity, memory and homecoming, and posed a stark contrast between the poverty of many Anglo-Indians in India and the relative affluence of those who had migrated. (Blunt 2003, pp. 281–282).