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Indian diaspora, globalisation and multi culturalism: A cultural analysis

Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110 067

The paper focuses on Indian diaspora as a case study of globalisation and multiculturalism. It raises the question of a structural and historical distinction between the socio-cultural pluralism of societies like India and the ones overseas where Indian populations migrated and settled, and answers it in terms of dialectically related civilisations and settlement societies. A cultural analysis, using the comparative and theoretical approach of socio-cultural anthropology, leads to the positing of a 'field of forces' paradigm to orientate and position empirical instances of Indian diaspora globally. Three major issues affecting the overseas Indian communities are explored, namely, difference and translation, hybridity and creolisation, and policies of multiculturalism. The conclusion underscores factors such as the locationality of the analyst, the general pacifist orientation of diaspora communities and slippage between the imaginary and the imagined in relation to India that characterise Indian diaspora and influence its sociological study.

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