Indo-Caribbean diaspora, foreign policy, and iterations of Hindu identity

ABSTRACT

This article examines the Indo-Caribbean diaspora's performance of vernacular representations of Hinduism and ethnic identity, as influenced by a global pan-Hindu agenda of India's current nationalist government. Using the case of Guyana, we consider dynamics between religion and South Asian politics by which agents disseminate pan-Hinduism, and how such avatars of Hindu performativity are affected by historical ethno-racial tensions. We contend that while the diaspora needs their ‘homeland’ to sustain their memories and heritage in their resettled state, the ‘homeland’ in turn can manipulate diasporic needs for migrant identity to advance its own foreign-policy agendas.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora
• foreign policy
• Hindutva
• Indo-Caribbean
• saffron politics
• transnationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Sabita Manian is Professor of International Relations and Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia. She has a PhD in Political Science from Tulane University. Her research interests include immigration and diaspora politics, foreign policy, right-wing extremism, gender and security, sex trafficking, and ethnography of Lucian-Indians.

Brad Bullock is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Randolph College in Virginia. He has a PhD in Sociology from Vanderbilt University. His research interests include diaspora studies, immigration, demography, social development in the Caribbean Basin, and sex tourism issues.

Notes

1 A version of this paper was delivered at the 25th European Conference on South Asian Studies in Paris, France in 2018. The authors would like to thank the University of Lynchburg and Randolph College respectively for supporting our research. We thank the reviewers for their insightful comments.

2 This article does not intend to mock the religiosity of Indo-Guyanese Hindu worshippers; our objective is to offer a critique of the discursive space of Hindu nationalism.

3 Interestingly, the University of Southern California's Center for Public Diplomacy served as the academic partner of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations that sponsored the ‘Conference on Soft Power’ in New Delhi that launched the Center for Soft Power in 2018. See http://uspublicdiplomacy.org/event/conference-indias-soft-power; http://www.centerforsoftpower.org/; and http://uspublicdiplomacy.org/story/indias-soft-power

4 Soft power differs from the concept of hard power, with the latter relying on the state's potential use of economic or military force to coerce other states to do what they would otherwise not do.

5 The relationship of the Sangh Parivar (and its transnational affiliates) with other US-based diaspora organisations, such as the Forum for Hindu Awakening, and the Hindu American Foundation, is examined in greater detail elsewhere – see Kurien (2017).

6 Leanings of Guyanese of mixed race vary widely, but they generally throw their support to the PNC or various smaller minority parties (See Manian 2006).

7 In Indo-Caribbean political discourse, Indian-ness is not so much constructed against the European colonial but rather against the Afro-Caribbean. It is unsurprising to note that projected distinctions between the ‘Christianized African Creole’ (signalling colonial success) and ‘Asiatic coolie’ (colonial failure) are a legacy of British colonial authorities – a classic divide and rule strategy.

8 Guyana Times, “The Indian Extinction Threat,” June 17, 2018. Accessed July 12, 2018. https://guyanatimesgy.com/indian-extinction-threat/

9 Christopher Jaffrelot (2007) describes a comparative situation with a resurgence of ethnic (or ethno-Hindu) nationalism in the 1870s and 1880s India, with Dayananda Saraswati's revivalist Arya Samaj movement that viewed British colonialism as a ‘threat to Hindu civilization’ whereby Dayanananda's ‘idea of reform was not to make India like the West, but to make its standards acceptably Western’ (9).

10 For instance, Indian abolitionists of the early twentieth century, including Gopal Krishna Gokhale and others in the forefront of the national freedom movement, were driven by territoriality to claim the Indo-Caribbeans. In contrast, many among the indentured in the Caribbean ‘advocated the reformation of the labour migration rather than its abolition altogether’ (See Lokaisingh-Meighoo 2001, 186).

11 See Indo Caribbean Diaspora News, April 2, 2018. Accessed June 6, 2019. URL: http://www.icdn.today/first-guyana-hanuman-jayanti-yatra-by-hindus-for-selfless-service-hss

12 See News India Times, February 1, 2019, “India Celebrates Pravasis, Modi Praises them as ‘Brand Ambassadors’” 50 (5): 7.

13 The HSS Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Hssgy/; and the GHDS Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Guyana-Hindu-Dharmic-Sabha-175973365839875/. For an example of the YouTube (2017) presence for the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha, see “President [Dr. Vindhya Persaud] of the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha Speaks on the Evolution of the Motorcade Tradition,” October 2017. Accessed November 7, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcczRxyllLg

14 OFMI “Indian Diplomats around the Globe Collaborate with RSS's International Wing,” Sikh24.com, November 24, 2018. Accessed July 12, 2018. https://www.sikh24.com/2018/11/14/exclusive-indian-diplomats-around-the-globe-collaborate-with-rsss-international-wing/

15 Swami Akshadananda, formerly Odaipaul Singh, who attended the secular humanist Rabindranath Tagore's Vishwabharati University, in Shantiniketan, India, was inspired by this institution as a model for his Guyanese school (according to a 2008 blogpost). The SVN is a far cry from the secular approach followed by its Indian counterpart. Accessed July 6, 2018. See http://poets-and-co.blogspot.com/2008/11/visiting-swami-aksharananda-and.html.

16 See RSS Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/RSSOrg/about/?ref=page_internal

17 See RSS Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/RSSOrg/about/?ref=page_internal

18 The Forum for Hindu Awakening is a non-profit organization in the USA, tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Tax ID: 26-3007850): “a charitable organisation devoted to awaken society to the unique spiritual science behind Hindu Dharma concepts and practices, to motivate people to live and preserve them and to facilitate the spiritual progress of humanity.” Accessed June 16, 2018. http://forumforhinduawakening.org/about-us

19 The BJP had formed the government from 1999 to 2004 after a coalition with regional parties. Following their 2004 defeat by the Congress-led coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, the Modi-BJP led National Democratic Alliance has headed Indian politics from 2014 onwards, especially following a resounding win in the recent 2019 elections.

20 The three other centres are: Centre for Security and Strategy, Centre for Study of Religion and Society, and Centre for Constitutional and Legal Studies.

21 Consider this interplay in India itself, and the anti-Muslim violence surrounding the Citizenship Act of 2019.

22 Chatterjee Miller and Sullivan de Estrada (2017) suggest that “Modi cannot always set aside the personal and domestic beliefs of Hindutva … [though] he is not entirely free to move away from … foreign policy positions of the past (29).”

23 Starbroek News, January 27, 2020, “ExxonMobil Ups Recoverable Resource to Eight Billion Barrels in Guyana.” Accessed January 30, 2020. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2020/01/27/news/guyana/exxonmobil-ups-recoverable-resource-to-eight-billion-barrels/