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ABSTRACT
Africans and their descendants have occupied various social positions throughout Indian history, and the ancestral routes of contemporary Siddis can be very distinct. Siddi communities today live in diverse areas, speak different languages and practice various religions. Interestingly, despite all these differences, Siddi networks are in place, and are developing further on the regional and national levels. These networks, based on Siddis’ common identification with their African roots, are now extending beyond India’s borders, as relationships are being forged between Siddis and other people of African descent across the globe. These emerging connections provide Siddis with new ways of considering and renegotiating their social position in Indian and global societies. In this article, I explore the social implications of the attempts to unite ‘Afro-Indians’ as well as in the ongoing ‘Afro-global’ networking. Furthermore, I will consider how contemporary unification processes among Siddis echo pan-African movements.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Mahmood Kooria for his relevant and helpful comments. I thank the many Siddis whose daily lives I was able to share during my fieldwork, who trusted me and always showed a great deal of patience and goodwill. Thank you to Catherine Murray for her corrections and proofreading. I also thank my doctoral advisors, Fabienne Martin and Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, as well as the Centre for Social Anthropology at the University of Toulouse - Jean Jaurès, without whom this research could not have been done. I am also grateful to Beheroze Shroff and Pashington Obeng for the conversations about our respective research, for inspiring me, but also for their admirable involvement alongside Siddi communities.
I dedicate this article to Cajetan Siddi and Nazirsab Siddi, who have both worked their whole lives to help Siddi unification, and have passed away recently.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. The term has a wide range of spellings, which include: Sidi, Siddhi, Sidhi, and Sheedi. ‘Siddi’ is apparently derived from the Arabic sayyidi, ‘my lord’ (Baptiste, McLeod and Robins, “Introduction,” 13). However, Lodhi suggests another possible meaning, that of the ‘Arabic “saydi” with the emphatic/ŝ/consonant “saad” […] meaning “captive” or “prisoner of war”’ (“Linguistic Evidence of Bantu,” 302). There are a few more hypotheses about the origin of ‘Siddi’ (see Segal, Islam’s Black Slaves, 71 or Minda, An African Community, 125–127). According to Basu, ‘the sea journey from Africa to […] South Asia […] transformed displaced people from the hinterland of the Swahili coast into “Sidi,”’ as this name was given indiscriminately to African slaves and sailors (“Formation of Sidi Identity,” 161). Another designation, ‘Habshi,’ the Arabic for an Abyssinian or Ethiopian (Baptiste et al., “Introduction,” 13) is less used nowadays but remains an important title for some Indians of African descent. There are also people of African descent called Sheedis (Nizamani, Sheedi Community of Sindh) living in Pakistan, and in Sri Lanka, where they are called Kaffirs (Jayasuriya, “The African Diaspora,” 251).
2. Between 2014 and 2020, I spent 16 months of fieldwork, mainly in Gujarat (Bhuj, Jamnagar, Ratanpore near Baruch, Surat and Ahmedabad), Diu and Karnataka (I settled in a small Siddi village called Jataga Hosur and travelled around villages in the forest surrounding Halliyal and Yellapur where Siddis live). I also did some shorter exploratory fieldwork in Mumbai (2017, 2018 and 2020) and Hyderabad (2017, 2020).
3. Curtis, “Siddis and Habshis,” 86.
4. Kenoyer and Bhan, “Sidis Agate Bead Industry,” 44.
5. Robbins and McLeod, African Elites in India.
6. A very small minority of Indians of African origin also live in Goa and North Kerala.
7. Diu Island is located in the South of Gujarat and is a district of the union territory of Damam and Diu. Siddis of Diu have their own jamāt but they intermarry with other Siddis of Gujarat and Mumbai, and venerate the same African Sufi saints. Furthermore, many Siddis living in Diu and their forebears came from other parts of Gujarat. They are thus part of the larger ‘Siddi community’ of Gujarat.
8. Basu, “Formation of Sidi Identity,” 169.
9. Shroff, “Sidis in Mumbai,” 306.
10. Obeng, Shaping Membership, Defining Nation, 79.
11. Personal communication with Prasni and Yunku Siddi, 17 February 2015.
12. Traditional dress worn by women in South Asian countries. A sāṛī is a piece of fabric several metres long, wrapped around a bodice.
13. Name anonymized.
14. Dalits: literally, oppressed, crushed. This name refers to and is meant to unite all oppressed people in India, including tribal people (Jaffrelot, L’Inde contemporaine, 876).
15. Dumont, Homo hierarchicus, 168–193; and Herrenschmidt, “L’inégalité graduée,” 4–5.
16. Béteille, “Caste in South Indian Village,” 276–277.
17. For instance, in 2016 and 2017, as I was attending non-Siddi Muslim weddings in Ahmedabad with some Siddi musicians performing there, some non-Siddi guests seemed offended that I was enquiring about Siddis. They showed off their ‘knowledge’ of Siddis’ history, highlighting their slave status in order to undermine them.
18. See note 13 above.
19. In Diu, all of the Siddis are Muslim.
20. Talala is a taluka of the district of Gir Somnath and may be the part of Gujarat where the greatest number of Siddis live.
21. See note 13 above.
22. Caste of fishermen.
23. Personal communications with Juma Siddi, 10 April 2016 and 22 July 2017.
24. Basu et al., “Daff Music of Yemeni-Habshi,” 288.
25. Personal communications with grandsons of the African Guards of the Nizam of Hyderabad, 20 April 2017.
26. Curtis, “Siddis and Habshis,” 90.
27. Shroff, “Sidis in Mumbai,” 317.
28. McLeod, “The Nawabs of Sachin,” 219–233.
29. Pathan is another Muslim community.
30. Personal communication with Sidi Mohammad Reza Khan, Nawab of Sachin, 13 October 2018.
31. Jamadar or Jemadar may have two meanings: 1. a native junior officer belonging to a locally raised regiment serving as mercenaries in India, esp with the British Army (until 1947) 2. an officer in the Indian police (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/jemadar. Accessed 20 April 2015). Jamadar is in fact the name given in Bhuj to all Siddis by non-Siddi people. However, it is only used as a patronym by one family. Liyakat Jamadar, who was president of the Bhuj Siddi community for 15 years, told me this name is a reference to his grandfather, a Siddi who occupied the position of Band Master in the Indian army. (Personal communication with Liyakat Jamadar, 2 August 2017).
32. According to all the accounts I collected during my fieldwork, belonging to the Siddi group follows the patrilineal pattern. However, I did note a few rare examples of matrilineal Siddis, for instance in cases where the children’s Siddi mother was the widow of a non-Siddi father, or was the second wife of a non-Siddi man. In both cases, the children generally grow up in the Siddi community, is identified as Siddi, and marries within that community. In the case of non-Siddi children being adopted by a Siddi family, the children generally marry within the Siddi community, though their internal and external identification with the group is not always straightforward, given their different phenotype.
33. Personal communication, 14 March 2016.
34. Personal communication with Wasim Jamadar, 15 March 2014.
35. Personal communications with Rafik Vajugada Siddi, 10 March 2016 and 31 July 2017.
36. Personal communication with Yunus Siddi, 3 April 2014.
37. Other terms are also used by Siddis in both states, such as ‘Siddi jamat’ (Islamic community or assembly), ‘Siddi samāj’ (society), ‘Siddi community’ or ‘Siddi log’ (people).
38. Personal communication with Manvel Siddi, 4 June 2016.
39. In his book, La condition noire, Pap Ndiaye uses this expression to describe a social situation which is not that of a class, a caste or a community, but rather that of a minority which shares the social experience of being considered as black.
40. Obeng, “Religion and Empire,” 106–107.
41. Gilroy, The Black Atlantic, 190.
42. Meier, “Per/forming African Identities,” 96.
43. ‘Sister’ or ‘Brother’ are also used in India to refer to close relationships. Thus, most Siddis would say that Bava Gor, Bava Habash and Mai Mishra were ‘real’ brothers and sister and some others would say that they were very close but not from the same family.
44. Basu, “Formation of Sidi Identity,” 165.
45. Basu, “Slave, Soldier, Trader, Faqir,” 236.
46. Different narrators I met in Bhuj, Jamnagar, Diu and Ratanpore (Baruch) gave different versions of the Bava Gor story.
47. Personal communications with Siddis from Bhuj (8 March 2016), Jamnagar (24 February 2016), Diu (March 27 and 28, 2014; 16 July 2017) and Ratanpore (April 6 and 12, 2017; 8 March 2020). According to one Siddi from Bhuj, the name ‘Siddi’ comes from ‘Sayadi,’ in reference to Sudan. Two Siddis from Ratanpore told me that ‘Siddi’ came from ‘Sayidia’, the name of the village, in Sudan, where Bava Gor was born. Interestingly, Basu made the relevant comment that ‘each name [of the three African saint] points to a region in northeast Africa: “Mishra” is the Arabic for Egypt, “Habash” for Ethiopia, and Nobi/Nubi (the original name of Bava Gor) for the Nile region in Sudan. This regions used to be important suppliers of slaves long before the slave trade extended further south along the Swahili coast in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.’ (Basu, ‘Gendered Ocean Site’, 232). However, there is no archive that helps us to certify where exactly Bava Gor came from.
48. Although Bava Gor’s story partly explains Siddis’ presence in India, certain Siddi families I spoke with knew how their African ancestors had arrived in India, and some also knew when and what region they came from. Although the myth of Bava Gor gives a positive justification to Siddis’ presence in India, Siddis are aware that they do not all have the same origins, the same histories, or the same ancestors.
49. A chilla is a memorial shrine or a local representation of the original tomb (dargāh) of a Sufi saint.
50. ‘Urs means “wedding” in Arabic. In India, it refers to the ceremony commemorating the death anniversary of a saint, that is to say, of the mystical union with his beloved God. […] The saint’s day is said to be a powerful occasion in which one can be cured of all kinds of affliction’ (van der Veer, “Playing or Praying,” 553).
51. Basu, “Redefining Boundaries,” 63.
52. Basu, “Gendered Indian Ocean Site,” 231.
53. Personal communication with Cajetan Siddi, 25 May 2017.
54. Prasad, In Search of Identity, 105.
55. Personal communications with Siddi leaders, 26 May 2017 and with the director of the Social Welfare Department of the district of Uttara Kannada in Karwar, 31 May 2017.
56. Personal communications with Siddis from Uttara Kannada, April 2014, April 2016, May 2017.
57. Camara, “Siddis of Uttara Kannada,” 113.
58. Obeng, Shaping Membership, Defining Nation, 118.
59. Dammām is the name of the drum as well as the dance and songs performed by Siddi men and women of all religions in Karnataka.
60. Personal communication, 18 May 2017.
61. I develop this point further in an article that is being published in Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia, edited by Marine Carrin (Editor-in-Chief), Michel Boivin, Gérard Toffin, Paul Hockings, Raphaël Rousseleau, Tanka Subba and Harald Lambs-Tyche (Section Editors).
62. For further information about the shrine’s history, and Siddis’ struggle for its administration, see Basu’s article, ‘Redefining Boundaries’, 61–85, which provides and in-depth analysis of it.
63. Personal communication with Yunus Siddi, 6 March 2020.
64. Surva is a village in the forest of Sasan Gir in Gujarat. This is where the headquarters of this Siddi group are located.
65. Personal communications (2018, 2020) with Husein Salam Sidi from Surat (secretary), Rafik Vajugada from Jamnagar (vice-president), and Hanifa Siddi from Talala, three of the founders of this group.
66. Shodhan, “The Sidi Badshah,” 35.
67. Obeng, Shaping Membership, Defining Nation, 127.
68. Drewal, “Aliens and Homelands,” 142–143.
69. This conference was intitled Sidis at the Millennium: History, Culture, and Development.
70. Catlin-Jairazbhoy and Alpers, “Introduction,” 3.
71. Van Kessel, “Conference Report,” 461.
72. Personal communications with Siddis who attended this conference, Mars and April 2014, February, March and April 2016, May and July 2017, October 2018, March 2020.
73. Personal communication with the couple, Gracy Dsouza Siddi and Nadim Siddi, 2 April 2017.
74. The Urs of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz.
75. Personal communications with Gujarati and Karnataka Siddis present in Bava Gor Urs, March 6 and 7, 2020.
76. Personal communication with Mohan Siddi, 6 March 2015.
77. After this organization was created, no further projects were developed, however, as the two founders no longer seem to be as close.
78. Personal communication with Mohammad Saboo Siddique, 19 April 2016 and 3 July 2017.
79. Obeng, “Siddi Street Theatre,” 15.
80. Meier, “Per/forming African Identities,” 93–94.
81. Catlin-Jairazbhoy, “A Sidi CD?,” 178–202.
82. Badshah is the name given to Siddis in many parts of Gujarat. For Siddis themselves, the name is positive as it means ‘king.’ For more detail, see Amrita Shodhan’s article, “The Sidi Badshah,” 38–40.
83. Personal communication, 30 September 2018.
84. NAPS, The National Association for Prevention of Starvation. https://www.napsoc.org. Accessed 20 July 2019.
85. https://www.ituc-africa.org/8TH-PAN-AFRICAN-CONGRESS-CALLS-FOR.html?lang=en. Accessed 18 September 2017.
86. https://www.gacuk.org.uk. Accessed 18 September 2017.
87. http://www.salifudagarti.org. Accessed 5 June 2017.
88. Personal communication with Haja Nana Salifu Dagarti, 16 May 2017.
89. Facebook video posted in October 2017.
90. Telephone communication with Nagaraj Siddi, 18 August 2017.
91. Boukari-Yabara, Africa Unite, 47–58; and Sherwood, Origins of Pan-Africanism, 75–96.
92. Reference to the title of Prita Sandy Meier’s article, “Per/forming African Identities,” 86.
93. https://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/index.shtml. Accessed 15 August 2019.
94. https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/racism/wgafricandescent/pages/fellowshipprogramme.aspx. Accessed 15 August 2019.
95. Ramnath Siddi, WhatsApp message to author, 15 August 2019.
96. Meier, “Per/forming African Identities,” 96.
97. Drewal, “Aliens and Homelands,” 142.
98. As described, for example, in the special issue on “Afro-Latin Americans” in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America 17, no. 2 (Winter 2018).
99. de la Fuente, “The Rise of Afro-Latin America,” 3.
100. Meier, “Per/forming African Identities,” 97.
101. In reference to Gilfroy’s book, The Black Atlantic.