African Diaspora in India

Manish Karmwar*
Introduction Africans came to India in different circumstances through the ages. They played a vital role in the Socio-political and Economic life of various dynasties. They came as sailors, traders, soldiers and sometimes, as slaves and were absorbed in the military and administrative services. Their involvement in the court-politics increased so much sometimes that they emerged as king-makers also. In the Janjira and Sachin kingdoms they rose from king-makers to Emperors. African Diaspora is a relatively new concept than the other forms of Diaspora. Diaspora was first applied to Africans outside Africa by Prof. George Shepperson of Edinburgh University, a pioneering scholar of African History. Intellectuals like W.E.B. DuBois, Avtar Brah, Robin Cohen, Colin Palmer, Joseph Harris, and Eric Williams recognized the social, political and historical ramifications of uncovering new meanings of Diaspora. All of these intellectuals of the twentieth century linked the black experience around the world using a Diasporic framework. In order to understand the terrain of African Diaspora research and analysis we must first decide whether it is a concept, a framework or paradigm, or an ideology. This paper sets out to highlight African Diaspora as a framework for understanding socio-economic and political condition of a population that has been dispersed in different parts of India. The objective of this paper is to look at the ways in which Africans came in India and settled in different regions of the country, to explore the African participation in economic, social and political system in India and to investigate their acceptance and
*

The author is an Assistant Professor at Shyam Lal College, University of Delhi, Delhi.

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assimilation to Indian culture. The fields which are more focused are Diaspora, in a broader sense, African migration with the special reference to Indian Ocean trade, the two African kingdoms, Janjira and Sachin, Socio-economic condition of Siddis and their role and place in Indian society. Writings of Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, Periplus, and Cosmos also indicate the ancient trade relation between Indian Sub-Continent and east African coast. There are traces of African's role in socio-political and military life during the period of Delhi sultanate, Nizamshahi, Adilshahi, Qutabshahi, Imadshahi, Mughal India and also in Hyderabad till India's independence. The study covers the areas where African dispersal is more prominent like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Daman and Diu, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. The paper is divided into three major parts. The first part deals with conceptualization of Diaspora and African Diaspora in India. The second part discusses about their trade connections and assimilation in India. The third part focuses on African kingdoms in India and their regional presence in the country. Conceptualizing Diaspora The nature and composition of the African Diaspora have undergone significant changes over time from the forced migration to the voluntary emigration of free, skilled Africans in search of economic opportunities from a Diaspora with little contact with the point of origin (Africa) to one that maintains active contact with the mother continent. There are numerous evidences of the fact that from ancient times, migrating African traders, soldiers, slaves, and diplomats have established communities in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Naturally, they brought their cultures with them, cultures that blended with the cultures of their new homes. The term African Diaspora in its more modern usage emerged clearly in the 1950s and sixties. It served in the scholarly debates both as a political term, with which to emphasize unifying experiences of African people dispersed by the slave trade, and also as an analytical term that enabled scholars to talk about black communities across national boundaries. Much of this scholarship examined the dispersal of people of African descent, their role in the transformation and creation of new cultures, institutions, and ideas outside Africa. Recently the American Historical Association devoted the theme for their annual meeting to presentations of Diasporas and migration. Colin Palmer led a panel on the African Diaspora framework and wrote about his theories in the AHA newsletter. He noted how the African Diaspora concept had been around since the 1800s, but its current conceptualizations came about as a result of the independence movements in

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Africa. He warns that there is no single African Diasporic community, or consciousness, because there are five major streams of the African Diaspora movement. Those streams in summary form are listed (i) 100,000 years ago when people moved out of Africa, (ii) 3000 BCE when Africans moved to other parts of Africa, (iii) A trading Diaspora of Europeans and Arabs trading with Africa, (iv) The fifteenth century forward Atlantic trade in African slaves, and, (v) After slavery's demise resettlement of people of African descent all throughout the world. To address the competing definitions of the African Diaspora, and to investigate when and how an African Diaspora identity was created. The work of Ronald Segal cannot be overlooked. He points to slavery as the historical process that created the first instance of an African Diaspora identity. What he outlines in his monograph Five Centuries of the Black Experience outside Africa are the various ways that the eleven-million individuals forged a Diaspora identity. While conceptualizing Diaspora, it has been pointed out that the nature of Diaspora can be one with little contact with the point of origin (Africa) to one that maintains active contact with the mother continent. In context of India it is the first which fits. Africans in India are migrants who settled here and completely accepted the culture and assimilated in it. Thus they have little contact or no contact with their homeland but they came in the Diasporic framework. Geographical Area There are evidences of African's role in socio-political and military life during the period of Delhi sultanate, Nizamshahi, Adilshahi, Qutabshahi, Imadshahi, Mughal India and Hyderabad. African dispersal in India covers several states/provinces namely, Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Daman and Diu, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. In Gujarat, they are found in the districts of Surat, Ahmedabad, Amerili, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Rajkot, and Bhavnagar, Broach/Bharuch near Ratanpur and the former kingdom of Kutch/Katchch. They are normally settled in areas of their own but in Ahmedabad, Broach and Kutch they live in mixed areas as they do in parts of Andhra Pradesh. In Karnataka, they are concentrated around Yellapur, Haliyal, Ankola, Joida, Mundagod and Sirs Talukas of Uttara Kannada and in Khanapur of Belgaum and Kalagatgi of Dharwad district. Their language is a mixture of Sidi-Konkani and Siddi-Marathi. They also speak Kannada. In Maharashtra they are settled in Raigad district. In Uttar Pradesh they are situated in Jaunpur. Habishis : Rose to Power Several Africans played an important role in different Indian dynasties. The first

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Habshi, of whom there is historical record, was probably Jamal al-Din Yaqut, royal courtier in the kingdom of Delhi. Habshis were also reported in the interior of northern India. Ibn Battuta recalls that at Alapur, the Governor was the Abyssinian Badr. Some of the Africans who rose to positions of considerable importance were: Malik Kafur, Malik Ambar, Malik Sarwar, Mubarak Shah, Ibrahim Shah, Malik Andil, Malik Sandal, Yaqut Dabuli Habshi, Ikhlas Khan, Dilawar Khan, Khavass Khan, Ulugh Khan. Their role in the History of India is significant. The Africans, who arrived in Hyderabad, Deccan, apart from playing their traditional role as bonded guards and servants, were recruited as the Nizam's private bodyguard. The Siddi Risala (African Regiment) was retained until 1948. Historical Records There have been both free and forced migration of Africans to India, but slavery has been the mechanism by which most were displaced to a land far away from their homeland (Jayasuriya 2004). Forced migration of Africans to India increased in the sixth century when the Arabs became the masters of the Indian Ocean and expanded their trade in Asia. Significant numbers of slaves entered northern India after the expansion of Islam at the end of the 10th century. In the 13th century, slaves seem to have been obtainable through slave markets. Enslaved Abyssinians were soldiers, concubines, and eunuchs in Muslim India. Africans had a high profile in the Indian political arena from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries in various parts .of India. Africans also wielded power in east India. The ruler of Bengal, Sultan Rukn al-Din Barbak Shah (1460-1481), had 8,000 African slaves, some of whom he elevated to the higher ranks. Barbak Shah's grandson, Sikander II, was deposed in 1481 after ruling only a few months. His successor Jalalud-din Fath Shah (1481-1486), attempted to control the power of the Habshis. In 1486, however, under the leadership of the chief eunuch, Sultan Shahzada, the Habshis conspired, murdered Fath Shah, and gained the throne of Bengal (Pankhurst 2003). The Siddis controlled the island of Janjira for almost 300 years. Janjira was important as a base for commerce with the interior of India. The Sidis were the unchallenged masters of the Konkan coast from 1601 until 1870, when they formally submitted to the British. Nowhere in south Asia did African become more prominent than in the Deccan, or peninsular India. This region, the present states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, was conquered by the Muslim sultans of Delhi in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. In 1347, it broke away became the independent Bahmani Sultanate, which a century and half later broke up into the sultanates of Ahmednagar,

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Berar, Bidar, Bijapur and Golconda. The importance of Africans in the Deccan is indicated by their appearance in many kinds of paintings. Some of the best-known elite African slaves in the Deccan were Malik Kafur, Malik Ambar, Malik Sandal, Yaqut Dabuli Habshi and Ikhlas Khan. Another African Dilawar Khan served as minister of revenue under sultan Mohamud Shah, the last Bahmani to exercise any authority (1482-1518). He is also said to have dismissed almost six thousand soldiers who followed the Shia Sect of Islam, replacing them with Africans of the Sunni persuasion. Another prominent African figure was Khavass Khan Habshi of Bijapur who became wazir of the sultanate till his overthrow in 1675. The most famous Habshi in Indian history is Malik Ambar, who defeated the Mughal army, became the wazir, and ruled the western deccan from Aurangabad, from 1600 to 1626 (Harris 1971). He is renowned for his public works like mosques, palaces, schools, tombs, water systems and for his military and administrative achievements. Although for many years Ethiopians had fought in the service of Afaqi or Deccani enthrone a prince and rule the country as regent. During this period of Commanders, a new phase opened in 1600 when Malik Ambar became the first African to Habshi ascendancy, thousands of Ethiopian warriors fought in Nizam shahi service, both as freedmen and as slaves of other Habshis. The status of Habshi slaves in Deccan society was not, however, fixed or permanent (Eaton 2005). The pointed shoes, waistband, purse, sash, turban and to be, the stunning portrait of Malik Ambar himself projects the image of a powerful African perfectly assimilated to the contemporary Afro-Indian vision of courtly authority. In the Sixteenth century, African slaves were also brought to India by the Europeans, who established themselves at various coastal entrepots. The Portuguese, who exercising political and economic control over parts of the west coast of India, particularly the Konkan coast transported slaves from East Africa to India from about 1530 until about 1740. Sayf-al-Mulk Miftah, the governor of Daman during the Portuguese occupation in 1530, was a Habshi chief whose force included 4,000 Habshis. In the 1730s, Indian Gujarati merchants on Mozambique Island owned a small number of slaves and shipped a few slaves to the Portuguese enclaves of Diu and Daman (Machado 2004). From 1724, the Nizam of Hyderabad who had African slave-soldiers also brought to the fore their musical talents by asking them also to entertain him with their traditional singing and dancing: The descendants of these African military men African Cavalry Guards. In 1811, the British colonial government in India enacted the Abolition Act, which prohibited the importation of African slaves. This, however, did not end slavery in India. In 1837, the British government pledged

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to abolish slavery in the empire, and this was officially accomplished in British India in 1838. In the wake of the major uprising against the British throughout India in 1857, a Siddi named Bastian led a group of rebels, including both Sidis and Kanarese (indigenous Indians in Karnataka), around Supa in Uttara Kannada (north Karnataka), where they wreaked havoc until 1859 through a campaign of looting and burning along the border with Goa (Shirodkar 1998). Trade Connections Indo-African trade relations are one of the very important segments among others to understand African settlements in different parts of Indian sub-continent. The evidence of African trade in India dates back many centuries. Archaeological sites trace the earliest relation between these countries and provide evidences to support their trade related bond. Archaeological excavations at the site of Rojdi in Gujarat have revealed the presence of domesticated grains that had their origin in Africa. These include finger millet dating around 2500-2300 BC (Weber 1998). There are ancient sites in South Asia which have yielded evidence for the prehistoric production of Jowar of African origin (Chauhan 1995). According to Cyril A. Hromnik, India had seaworthy ships and it must have left a deep mark on all the coasts of the ocean that bears its name i.e. the Indian Ocean. The works of early writers make it amply clear that Indian ships sailed regularly to the coast of East Africa at the time. The range of items such as Indian 'Bhang', Coconut scrapers, Beads, Cotton, Metalwork, Architecture, different currencies in the east and even South Africa covered the period between 3000 to 200 B.C. Indian gold mining on and around the south Zambezi plateau might have started as early as the end of the Second millennium B.C. in the opinion of Hromnik, the arrow heads, the first tools made in Africa, had Indian origin (Hromnik 1981). Indian commerce with the Horn of Africa was, as the Periplus suggests, of great antiquity, it owed much of its importance to the fact that the African coast lay on the trade route from India to Egypt and the Roman Empire. By the first century B.C. this trade had become so lucrative that it was carried out by large numbers of merchants and navigators from both east and west. Strabo remarked that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels sailed in his time from the Egyptian Red Sea ports of Myos Hormus, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise (Meineke 2007). Pliny, too, underlined the importance of India's trade with the west. Writing about a century later he declares that in no year did India absorb less than fifty million sersteces of the Roman Empire's wealth, and that it sent back merchandise which sold at 'a hundred
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times its prime cost'. Over a millennium and a half later James Bruce pointed to the significance of the trade winds which from early times had so greatly facilitated trading connections between India and the Red Sea. The Periplus has little to say about the exports of Adulis and sums them up briefly as ivory, tortoiseshell and rhinoceroshorn. Pliny, on the other hand, relates that the port traded in a large quantity of ivory, rhinoceros-horns, hippopotamus-hides, apes and slaves. All these ports along the coast of the Horn of Africa were of international fame and were visited by vessels which either sailed there expressly or else exchanged their cargoes there while journeying along the neighbouring coast. Trading ships came both from Egypt whence they set forth every year in July, and from the ports between Ariaca and Barygaza on the north-west coast of the Indian sub-continent. These vessels brought the products of their own lands, such as wheat, rice, clarified butter, seasame oil, cotton cloth, girdles, and sugar, which the Periplus terms 'honey from the reed called sacchari. The exports of these lands to the south of present-day Ethiopia included a little palm-oil and a great quantity of ivory, though inferior to that of Adulis, rhinoceros horn and tortoise-shell, which, the Periplus says, was second only to that of India (Pankhurst 1961). During the third to fifth centuries A.D., the trade between East Africa and South Asia seems to have ceased as no ceramics from there have yet been discovered at Ras Hafun, an evidence of Safavid Persian hold over western Indian trade. But the connection with the Gulf did continue. The force migration of Negroes from the African sub-continent into India went up only in the sixth century A.D. when the Arabs expanded their trade with India. Ample sources are available to substantiate this contention. As early as 636 A.D., an expedition had been dispatched from the Persian Gulf to pillage the flourishing port of Thana on the western coast of India, in the vicinity of Bombay. Thirty years later, the Arabs again touched this port. After the coming of Islam on the world scene and consequent upon the conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the seventh century, the Arab merchants tried to control the Oceanic commerce of the Konkan ports (Chauhan 1995). The Persians and the Persian Gulf may also have begun to play an important role as an intermediary between East Africa and India. The collapse of the Roman Empire had deprived East Africa of its major ivory market at a time when India was still largely self-sufficient. But already by the beginning of the sixth century Indian demand for ivory for the manufacture of bridal ornaments seems to have begun to outstrip local supply. That demand was securely based on the regular ritual destruction of these ornaments upon the termination of the Hindu marriage by the death of either of the

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partners (Sheriff 2001). Gervase Mathew has suggested that eighth and twelfth century, under Cholas of South India must have developed flourishing trade with East Africa. With the advent of thirteenth century when Muslim influence was experienced by not only East Africa but by west Asia, this branch of trade came up with new vigour. Bulk of the Indian Ocean trading system passed into Muslim hands and all its participants acquired a new solidarity. Survivor of emporia (Adulis, Ocelis) adopted Islam and before A.D. 1000 new settlements were founded that were either Muslim from the beginning or subsequently became so. The Muslim invasion and expansion in India was already brisk in thirteenth century which attracted Muslim traders from Yamen and Persian Gulf linking India directly with East Africa. Besides there were direct trade contacts between India and East Africa in this period. Indian merchants took up residence and exercised a profound influence. Conversely merchants from the East African coast are known to have frequented western coast of India and East at the beginning of the Sixteenth century (Ali 1960). The Siddis of Gujarat trace the roots of their saint and community progenitor, Gori Pir, who is usually described as an Abyssinian who came to Gujarat to trade in the fourteenth century and whose arrival is associated with the extension of trade in locally mined agate to Africa. This dating accords well with evidence that by the end of the twelfth century there were resident traders and slaves being traded from both Abyssinian and Zanzibar at Tiz, an important ports of the Makran in what is today Iran, and that in 1451 Sultan Mahmud Khilji (1436-1469), founder of the Khilji dynasty of Malwa, is reported to have visited Gori Pir's dargah (Catlin 2004). It is obvious from the archaeological evidence that from middle of thirteenth century until the coming of the Portuguese at the end of fifteenth century the East African coast enjoyed a period of quite remarkable prosperity based on overseas trade (Oliver 1972). Edrisis, Al-masudi, Ibn-i-Batuta and Marco Polo, though silent on trade exchange, speak in length of Arab and East African contacts on the other. It is evident that during the early medieval period, India's trade with East Africa survived on the Arab and Chinese demand. Edrisis has shown greater demand for East African iron ore in India. Ivory had always been imported in the same way (Davidson 1961). Al-Baruni mentions, the prosperity of the ports of Somnath on the north coast of India was based on the African trade (Posnansky 1966). Gold was another staple import of India. Large quantity of gold must have gone to India from the ports of East Africa. Sofala is referred to by Al-Masudi as a land of gold and in tenth century the gold mint of Oman began striking coins of gold from Sofala. Therefore, it is probable that the merchants of Oman might have exported gold of Sofala to India (Davidson 1961). Ibn-i-Batuta also refers to the slave trade and their role in Delhi Sultanats.
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Rukh -Ud-din Barbak, king of the old muslim kingdom of Bengal (1459-74) had 8000 African slaves, Delhi Sultanate, provincial kingdom of Bahamanid, Jaunpur and Janjira also witness a significant role of African slaves in their dominions (Toussaint 1966). Mughal emperor, Aurangazeb, employed an African admiral in Bombay; Nizam of Hyderabad had an African guard during the same period (Mahalingam 1955). But slave trading nonetheless remained subsidiary. The trade still remained based on barter system, where Indian merchants came to play a vital role as stockiest and middleman in the following century. This period established a definite pattern to this branch of trade, called medieval trade pattern, in which East African natural products attract India's finished goods, cloth, tools, implements and food articles. During the course of the sixteenth century the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean and its littoral. Portugal was determined to eliminate Muslim merchants, especially Arabs, in the Indian Ocean system. During the seventeenth century A.D. the increasing vulnerability of the Portuguese in Asia and the steady attrition of their maritime empire in the face of English, Dutch, and Umani Arab competition made them all the more responsive to protest and pressure from Gujarati merchants upon whose commercial activities they came increasingly to rely. At the same time as Portugal was consolidating its hold over Diu. The products of Gujarat clearly continued to dominate the trade of East Africa during the seventeenth century, and most of the products of East Africa were consumed by Gujarat. In 1630, Jean Mocquet noted that bertangil, a cotton cloth dyed blue or dark purple, was the proper trading cloth for the East African market. This seems to have been a specific kind of plain white calico, which was taken, bleached to Agra and Ahmedabad, near the source of indigo, to be dyed blue, black, or red. For the decades after 1630 A.D. Tavernier notes that "these kinds of cotton cloth, which cost from 2 to 12 rupees the piece, are exported to the coast of Malindi, and they constitute the principal trade done by the Governor of Mozambique, about which he was unusually well informed. Most of these cloths were probably obtained by the correspondents of vania merchants in Diu and Goa who operated in the main towns of Mughal Gujarat. But there also was a certain amount to direct trade in Portuguese vessels with Cambay, and perhaps other Mughal ports, for the Mozambique market. In 1600, it was probably no more than about four percent of the total exports trade of western India. East Africa's share of this trade was probably not much different at the end of the seventeenth century. But, if the trade of East Africa was peripheral to that of Gujarat as a whole, it was absolutely central to that of Diu. At mid-century, however, the colonial economy of Mozambique was completely

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dominated by the ivory trade to Gujarat, and this was exclusively in the hands of the company of Mazanes and a handful of vanias and Muslims from the much less important Portuguese port of Daman in Gujarat, as well as Goa. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the trade of Gujarat with Portuguese East Africa, including both Mozambique and the Swahili coast, was almost entirely mediated through the agency of the Indian merchants of Diu (Alpers 1976:24). During the 1750s and 1760s, slaves continued to be used extensively on Mozambique Island, chiefly as dock labourers serving vessels from Diu and Daman, and as porters, carrying goods cleared at customs to nearby warehouses and subsequently to markets in the interior. Slaves could be cheap enough for even 'poor' Indians to purchase, but the average number owned by Indian residents of Mozambique Island was two or three, although a few possessed ten or more slaves (Campbell 2004). From 1795 to 1801, Indian connections with Quelimane slackened due to the danger of attack in the Mozambique Channel by French corsairs, although those like Laxmichand Motichand and Shobhachand Sowchand who could afford the risk managed to continue trading for slaves. From 1800 to 1810 an estimated 20,800 slaves were shipped from Quelimane, mostly to Mozambique Island which over the same period exported 50,000 slaves ( Liesegang 1983). However, slave imports into Diu by Indian merchants dipped in this decade to approximately 220, possibly due to a reduced number of voyages to Quelimane. The difference between the Diu and Daman slave-trades reflects different commercial structures (Campbell 2004). Anti-slave-trade measures from the mid-1820s increasingly impacted on Indian commerce with Mozambique, notably on Gujaratis whose cloth trade was inextricably linked to the slave-trade from the interior of Mozambique. In 1829, Diu stated despondently: The trade with the capital of Mozambique is the only way open to make this island prosper but the news of the ending of the slave trade has meant that most of the goods exported last year have not been successfully traded; as a result, the return has been very small, and has discouraged the trade of the merchants (Campbell 2004). Socio-Economic Condition of Siddis The major Siddi populations in India are found in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Besides being names Siddis, other than themselves also refer to the African descendants as Habshi, Shamal, Badsha, Kafir, African and Negro in various languages such as Marathi, Kannada, Konkani, Gujarati, Telugu and Urdu. This section deals about the socio-economic condition of siddis in India in general and Siddis of Gujarat, Karnataka and Hyderabad in particular. This focuses
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on the assimilation process of Africans in different stages. The Siddis are one of the most interesting Scheduled Tribes (some parts) in India, being the only ethnic group among the population of mainland of India which possesses well-defined and uncontroversial Negroid features. But it is only in Gujarat that the Siddis are included in the list of Scheduled Tribes. Even in Gujarat they are treated as a Scheduled Tribe only in Rajkot Division. It is a matter of great social significance that notwithstanding the fact that so many outstanding personalities have arisen from among the Siddis. The image of the community that prevails among their neighbours is that of a group of people, who are in a condition of near anomie. There are also some aristocratic families of Siddi origin, like the Jafarabad house. But they do not appear to have any social relations with the ordinary Siddis of Gujarat. Though the Siddis are mostly Muslim, religion does not appear to be the main plank for their group identity. According to 1961 Census, which provides data in respect of the Siddis of Rajkot Division only there are 23 Hindus out of a total of 3,645. The rest are Muslims. Earlier Census reports indicated that in other areas there are some Siddis who practice Christianity. Though there are no well recognized sub tribes, Reginald Edward Enthoven mentions that the Muslim Siddis have two divisionsVilaities, the new comers, and Muwallads or countrymen. Siddis in the subdistricts of Haliyal, Mundgod, Yellapur, and Sirsi venerate a Muslim saint, Abd al-Qadir Jilani (also known as Mahbub Subhani), who is considered to be the founder of the Qadiri Sufi order (Obeng 2003). Settlements The Siddis have permanent dwellings but the structures of the same cannot be said to be pucca. Locally available stone and mud are the main building materials. The houses do not have separate compounds or surrounding walls. These are built on 2 ft. or 2 ft. high plinths. Such high plinths are necessary as protection against the flood waters of the rivers Saraswati and Karkari, which when in spate, submerge the road, streets and lanes. The floors are mostly kutcha and plastered with mud. The roofs are generally very low and the interiors of the houses are dark. The doors are like flaps and prepared out of kerosene tin sheets very small in size. The door frames are very low. One has to bend forward in order to enter the house. The doors are generally prepared from wood of Jambuda tree. An average house is a single room tenement. The same room is used for cooking, eating, sleeping and storing household materials. There is no separate bathroom. Generally they take bath in open space near their house or in the nearby rivers.

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Similarly, there are no latrines. No separate cattle sheds are provided. The cattle are tethered inside the house, as in the forest area there is a constant danger from lions, cheetahs and leopards. As the twilight approaches, all the grazing cattle are herded together and bounded inside the house. The houses of Siddis living in larger towns are sometime slightly better and in some cases built of bricks and mortar. Mural designs of animals, such as a dog and a horse and birds like sparrows and parrots and other floral designs are drawn on the wall bordering the door frame; the bases of the pillars are coloured with floral designs (Census of Siddis 1998). Economic Structure Africans have contributed to the Indian economy through their expertise and talents in several spheres and at various levels of the economy. The Siddis have made rather poor progress in the field of education. As mentioned, the Siddis were mostly brought to India as slaves and were made to serve as domestic servants and soldiers. Later on, some of the Siddis rose to prominent positions and a few founded their separate kingdoms such as those of Sachin and Janjira. It is said that the rulers of former Janjira State were the descendants of the Siddi slaves and soldiers accompanying the Arab invaders and tradesmen after the eighth century onwards. Some of the former rulers of the States still retain a few Siddis as attendants, night watchmen and chowkidars, etc (Ali 1996). In the rural areas they have taken up agriculture for quite some time. However, most of them do not have sufficiently large holdings and very few among them are prosperous agriculturists. Most of them cultivate or earn enough for their maintenance and livelihood from agriculture and other subsidiary work. The Siddis who reside around the forest area in Junagadh district resort to forest labour. They also collect forest products, such as firewood, honey, gum, herbs of different varieties and fruits like jambu, karmads, etc. and sell vegetables and fruits. In urban areas, the Siddis have taken up jobs such as those of fitters, mechanics, factory workers, watchmen and truck drivers. It reported that they have also been working as fitters and mechanics in the ships or dock-yards in Bombay and other coastal cities or towns (Russel 1916). As labourers they are also engaged in construction work or as coolies in port areas while others pull hand-carts in market places and some of them drive trucks. The cultivation, agricultural labour, mining, quarrying, hunting and fishing and household industry are considered to constitute the traditional sector of the national economy. It is found that almost half (49.34 per cent) of the Siddi working force is engaged in the traditional sector and the remaining half is engaged in the non-traditional sector. In the traditional sector, a special mention is to be made of the persons engaged

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in mining, quarrying, fishing, forestry, etc. They are truck and taxi drivers as well as rickshaw and handcart pullers. Social Fabric The Siddis trace their descent along the male line. They are patronymic and patrilocal. It is very rarely that the married sons continue to live with their parents. The nuclear type of family among the Siddis does not give much scope for a large household. Usually 5 to 6 persons live in a household. Among the household articles, wooden cot is a common article in a Siddi house. Siddis regard barrenness as the result of the wrath of the God. When a woman does not beget a child for quite some time after marriage, the chief deity, Nagarch Pir, is appeased and a vow is taken. It is their implicit faith that the Pir's blessings will fulfill their wishes. However, calamities during and after delivery, like still-birth, abortion, miscarriage, infant death, etc., are considered to be the will of God and not necessarily his wrath and they have developed a more philosophical attitude towards such misfortunes. A new mother is given advice about child care by her elderly female relatives. On the 6th day after the birth of the child, the chhatthi ceremony is performed. When the child is bathed and clad in new clothes. When the child is five to seven years old the Siddis sometimes perform akiko which is accompanied by certain religious rites. On this occasion, the child's head is shaved and fatiha is done. Also, two goats are sacrificed, if the child is a male and one goat is sacrificed if the child is a female. The Siddis do not perform any puberty rite for either sex. They, however, practice Circumcision for the males, in keeping with the practice among the other Muslim communities. This ceremony is known as Sunnat sadi. It is said by Siddis that nikah of a boy cannot be performed unless he has been circumcised. The Siddi informants, however, Confirms the existence of adultery or extra-marital relations in their community. They say that if they come to know that any Siddi woman has given birth to child bearing non-Siddi features, they will stifle the child to death. As mentioned earlier, the Siddis are divided into a number of clans; they do not marry within the same clan. Cross-cousin marriage is however, in vogue among them. Marriage usually takes place as a result of negotiations between the parents of the boy and the girl. Nowadays, the consent of the girl and the boy is obtained before closing the negotiation. The Siddis permit their widows to remarry. It is, however, neither, compulsory nor customary for a widow to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband. However, they have no objection if she so desires. In case of widow remarriage there are no elaborate rituals. It is a simple affair and is practically confined to the reading of the nikah by the kazi.

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Among the Siddis, followers of three religions, namely, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity are found. Most of them, however, are adherents to Islam. In Maharashtra and Karnataka, Hindu, Muslim as well as Christian Siddis are found. The Hindu Siddis are also referred to as Maharashtra Siddis. In Gujarat, however, the Siddis are mostly Muslims. They are Sunnis of the Hanafi School. It is interesting that faith in Oliyas and Pirs is very widespread among them. Their chief object of worship is Baba Ghor and 'Abyssinian' saint whose tomb stands on a hill near Ratanpur village of the former Rajpila State. The Siddis have also strong beliefs in ghosts, evil spirits and sorcerers. If any person is affected by an evil spirit, he is taken to the dargah of Negarchi Pir.The Siddis are considered to be a people of a happy-go-lucky disposition. They do not care for the tomorrow. During leisure hours, Siddi men can be seen flocking around teashops, taking tea or smoking bidis and gossiping (Census of Siddis 1998). Cultural Assimilation Since the early medieval era, Africans who came with Persians, Turks, and Arabs have contributed to the socio-cultural landscape of India. In particular, the Siddis have carried their musical traditions with them. Today Siddi Goma groups perform in India and abroad. They play sacred music and dance as wandering fakirs, singing to the Siddi saint, Bava Gor. They perform dhamal, which they call goma, a word that has its etymon in the Swahili word ngoma, which means drum. The most significant African retention is the malunga, a braced musical bow, which is found in many African communities. Siddi servants performed ngoma dances with drums, rattles, and shells on birthdays and weddings in the noble courts (Basu 1993). Siddis wearing animal skins and headgear of peacock feathers or other bird feathers, and with painted bodies, perform a sacred traditional dance to the rhythm of the dhamal (small drum), madido (big drum), mugarman (footed drum), Mai Mishra (coconut rattle), nafir (conch trumpet), malunga and other musical instruments. Bava Gor's urs (the death of a Muslim saint) is celebrated over several days and is an occasion for playing dhamal music and dancing. Music seems to be the main African cultural retention in the Hyderabad Siddis, who excel in music. They have drum bands that play African drums and are hired to play music and dance in African ways on special occasions such as weddings. They had learned songs that are sung in a Bantu language in Tanzania during spirit possession rituals to effect healing. African retentions also remain in Swahili words in the lyrics of the songs of the Siddis and in the names of the musical instruments of the Siddis. Siddis in Karnataka play the gumat, a type of drum that is also used by Indian musicians in Goa and the Goan Diaspora who play Goan Catholic folk songs,

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which indicates culture crossings. The popular folk songs of the Siddis- Balo, Leva, Bandugia-are replete with pride for the community and religious fervor (Chauhan 1995). In India permanent settlements of African descendants have been established at least since the early sixteenth century onwards. Several of these settlements exist today in various pockets in the country, though not necessarily in the same places where they historically were formed. One of these settlements is located in the hilly district of Uttara kannada (Catlin 2004). In the hilly areas of Uttara Kannada, located in the Western Ghats, there are approximately 12,000 Siddis. They adhere to three world religion. 45 per cent are Roman Catholics, 30 per cent are Sunni Muslims and 25 per cent are Hindus. The Siddis also believe in various kinds of spirits inhabiting in the natural environment and they practice ancestor worship/veneration. Some scholars believe that Siddis belong to a common ethnic stock (Lobo 1984). The Siddis of Karnataka are found in the Ghat area of Uttara Kannada, Dharwar and Belgaum districts. In Uttara Kannada district they are concentrated in Ankola, Mundgod, Sirsi, Supa, Haliyal and Yellapur talukas. In Dharwar and Belgaum they are found in one taluka each Khalghatgi and Khanpapur respectively. The majority of these Siddis were said to have come from Goa where they were imported from East Africa, mainly Mozambique, by the Portuguese as slaves. Most of the Siddis are settled in the rural and forest areas of Uttara Kannda. The settlement locations are of two types: on slopes and on plateaus. On the slopes they live in homesteads, that is, each nuclear family has its own houses and agricultural plot, and remains separate from others. An average village in the plateau is constituted of two to six dozen houses. The village itself is cut by a few meters wide mud road and entrance door faces the mud road (Catlin 2004). Among the Siddi families in Karnataka there are Catholics, Hindus and Muslims. In Haliyal there are only Muslims and Christians, and in the Ghat areas of Yellapur and Ankola only Hindus. Owing to the division of the Siddi people into three religious groups a distinct Siddi self-identity has not developed. Palakshappa notes that the Siddi assimilation is two-fold; first, to the total Hindu culture of the region, and secondly, to the social structure of various religions. The Siddi identity lies in the Hiriyaru belief for their conceptions are uniquely Siddi, even if the symbols representing the Hiriyaru are adopted from their respective religions. A stranger to the area would not be in a position to distinguish the Siddis from other groups except through their racial characteristics. The Siddis do not suffer from any sort of prejudice, either racial or cultural. Moreover, there are no pressures to change;

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whatever changes have taken place is voluntary. He concludes, by saying In accepting the value of the local area the Siddis have kept before the dominant castes - Having Brahmins, Marathas - to initiate and evaluate their behaviour (Palakshappa 1976). African Kingdoms Two African kingdoms survived in India until the independence of India. These were JANJIRA in Maharastra and SACHIN, in Gujarat. Janjira came into prominence in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The fortified inland of Janjira where the Africans emerged as a political force is located between Kolaba and Ratnagiri in western Maharashtra. It is situated in Konkan which includes the areas between the Western Ghats and the Indian Ocean, from Daman on the north to that of Terekhol on the Goa frontier, on the South. The descendants of immigrant Abyssinians and Arabs still found there in large numbers further speak greatly about its historicity (Campbell 1883). In the sixteenth century, the Siddis were given control of the island fort of Janjira and for the next two centuries, they were the unchallenged masters of the Konkan coast. They maintained their independence until 1870, when they formally submitted to the British. Most Siddis in Janjira were relatives of the nawab (the head of state) of Janjira; they had inherited state grants and allowances. Most Siddis were landowners and state servants (Pinto 1992). In fact, the word Janjira is derived from the corrupted version of the word in Marathi of the Arabic 'Jazira' which means 'an island'. This terminology is quite misleading because now the entire area is called Janjira. What adds more to the confusion is that even the fortress of Danda-Rajpuri, six kms from Murud is also known today as Janjira. While Ptolemy called this place an island, Pliny identified it as a river and a port, and the author of Periplus simply as a place on the continent. Janjira also came to be called Habshan or Habsan meaning Abyssinian or African or Negro. Actually, the term Janjira has, during historical times, come to be known as the great maritime Department of Danda-Rajpuri in the middle of which lies the fortified rocky island of Janjira. (Campbell 1883). By the nineteenth century the great days of Siddi naval power in the Indian Ocean had passed. In 1818, the British annexed the kingdom of the Peshwa, which gave them possession of almost all of Maharashtra. Janjira remained independent for some years, but in 1834 the British declared it to be subject to their paramountcy. It was thereafter one of the Indian Princely States, whose kings ruled their territories in subordination to British power. On 14 August 1947, Siddi Mohammad Khan III signed the Instrument of Accession to India; the accession was accepted on 16 August 1947, and paramountcy

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over Janjira passed from the British to the new India (Ali 1996). The Sachin State was a second class state in the Bombay Presidency . Sachin, the capital of the State was about ten miles south of Surat in the province of Gujarat. The state contained Twenty-one villages scattered through the Chorasi and Jalalpur Talukas (Sub divisions of Surat). The villages were much more scattered, some being surrounded by the British territory and others by the portions of the Baroda State. The Nawabs of Sachin were Abyssinians by descent they made their first full appearance in India sometime during the latter half of the 15th century as merchants or freebooters. Anyhow they soon settled down and became masters of Janjira which they have retained. During the fifteenth century under the name of the Siddis of Danda Rajpuri and Janjira in the Konkan they were known first as the Bijapur (1489-1686) and afterwards as the Mughal admirals. Under Bijapur their fleet guarded commerce and carried pilgrims to Mecca. In 1660 they received a yearly grant of Rs.30,000/- from Surat revenues and they became Aurangzebs admirals. In the eighteenth century, on the decline of the Mughal power, the Janjira Siddis plundered the ships of all the nations except the English whose friendship they cultivated. By the treaty of 1733 the English and the Siddis pledged themselves to be perpetual friends. In 1791 Janjira was exchanged for a place of land near Surat known as the Sachin State. The Maratha Peshwa promised Balu Miyan that in return for all his rights to the throne of Janjira, he would grant him territory that yielded the same revenue as the Habshi kingdom Janjira was then in the hands of Balu Miyan's brother-in-law Siddi Jauhar, and the Peshwa safeguarded himself by undertaking to give Balu Miyan immediate possession of only a small portion of the promised lands, with the rest to follow once Janjira had been conquered. As the Peshwa was never able to take Janjira, Balu Miyan's new kingdom remained very small (Robbins 2006). The title of Nawab was first conferred on the Rulers of Sachin by Emperor Shah Alam II in about 1797 on payment of Nazrana. The Nawab was entitled to a dynastic salute of nine guns. Regional Presence of Africans in India Till now we have focused on African Diaspora in India in a broader perspective but it will be incomplete without doing the study of the regional presence of Africans in the country. The present paragraph will specifically highlight this issue by conducting case study of Delhi, Bengal and Hyderabad regions. It will categorically mention about their obediency, bravery, intelligence and clever tact to usurp the throne. It is early in the thirteenth century that Indian history affords us a first glimpse of one of the Ethiopian slaves rising to some prominence in state affairs. At this period the
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kingdom of Delhi was ruled by Queen Raziya (1236-1240), the daughter of Iltutmish, a Turkish slave who had made himself the master of most of Northern India. The Queen, who was threatened on her accession by the disruption of her father's empire, was said to have shown undue favour to one of the Habshi slaves, Jalal-ud-dinYaqut, whom she elevated to the post of master of the royal stables, thus offending her father's Turkish nobles who were organized in a close corporation. A century or so later in 1376-77 we find Shams Damaghari, governor of Gujarat, on one occasion paying a tribute of four hundred slaves who are described as 'children of Hindu chiefs and Abyssinians'(Pankhurst 1961). Ibn Batuta makes several references to the presence of Ethiopians in India, at the time of his travels in India of 1333-1342. He states that the governor of Alapur was an Abyssinian named Badar, a slave of the King of Dholpur (Gibb 1963). There is no doubt that in the following century Ethiopian were reaching India in growing numbers, particularly on the east coast in the Bengal area where they were destined to play no mean role in the political sphere. In the second half of the fifteenth century it is recorded that Rukn-ud-din Barbak Shah, King of Bengal (1460-1481), began to maintain large numbers of them for military purposes, raising some to high positions. He is said to have owned as many as eight thousand African slaves, some of whom rapidly gained authority in the realm (Haig 1928). When his grandson, Sikander II, was deposed in 1481 after a rule of only a few months, his successor, Jalal-ud-din Fath Shah, endeavoured to curb their power which had apparently become dangerous to the monarchy. But the angry Habshis, fearing his continued enmity, conspired against him under the leadership of a eunuch who, in 1486, had him murdered and usurped the throne of Bengal under the style of Barbak Shah, Sultan Shahzada (Majumdar 1946).The other Africans who involve in the political sphere of Bengal were Jalal-ul-din, Indil Khan, Nasir-ud-din Mohmoud Shah II, Habesh Khan and Ala-ud-din Shah. The creation of Hyderabad as an independent state by Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah marked the break-up of the Mughal Empire during the first half of the eighteenth century. Subsequently, the Nizam was forced to enter into a subsidiary alliance with the British in 1798 and 1800. The turning point in Hyderabad's history came during the thirty years of Prime Ministership of Salar Jung I (1853-1883). During the ziladari of the Raja of Wanaparthy, which was part of the Nizam's dominions, the first batches of Africans were bought. Raja Rameshwar Rao I of Wanaparthy was interested in building up a disciplined armed force under his command. He imported Siddis from Somalia and Abyssinia and organized them into two regiments one of Siddi soldiers known as the 'African Bodyguard' and another regiment of Siddi

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cavalry known as the 'Wanaparthy Lancers'. On account of skirmishes and conflicts between the Raja's troops and the Nizam's, the British Residency intervened and arranged a tripartite treaty by which the Raja presented his African Bodyguard and 'Wanaparthy Lancers' to the Nizam while he was appointed the Inspector General of the Nizam's field forces. The Nizam also agreed to respect the Raja's autonomy. Rameshwar Rao III, the last ruler of Wanaparthy, was sent for his riding lessons to the African cavalry at Lakdi-ka-pul. He not only learnt riding there under the supervision of Siddi horsemen but was also regaled with stories of how their ancestors were brought to India and formed the infantry and cavalry, personal troops of the Raja of Wanaparthy and how they were presented to the Nizam when the Raja died. Many of the Siddi call themselves Bin-Bahiree or Son of Bahiree, Bahiree being a title of the Rajas of Wanaparthy. There was continuing contact between Somalia and Abyssinia on the one hand and Hyderabad on the other. The Siddis were brought to work in the armed forces in the Deccan from the time of the Bahmani Sultans. This continued under the Qutb shahi kings of golkonda and the Asaf Jahi rulers of Hyderabad. There is a bazaar in Hyderabad named after one of the Siddi commanders, Siddi Ambar. It is called Siddi Ambar Bazar and is still known by the same name (Rao 1932). The Siddis were trustworthy, quickly earned the confidence of the Nizam and his court, and were appointed as his bodyguard. Brigadier Afsar Ali Baig, served as the commandant of the non-Indian State forces and was also commander of the Nizam's forces. African Bodyguards were also under his command. These Siddis used to flank the throne of the Nizam. These Abyssinians were good soldiers also. The Siddis, he said, were honest and upright. There are several cases of Siddi rising to a high position. During the latter part of the nineteenth century the Nizam started selecting young Arab and Siddi boys as Khanazahs (protgs). They received their education at the Nizam's court. One Siddi, who became a Khanazah, was Nasir bin Muftah, who served for thirty years in the guard. He became a lineman, moved up to watchman, ultimately became superintendent of the Nizam's entire household, a post he held till the guard was disbanded after police action in 1948. In this last capacity, one of his duty was to supervise the Nizam's kitchen, which reportedly fed over 20,000 persons dailyfamily concubines, servants and nobles and their families. After having saved the Nizam from an attempted assassination in 1947, Muftah became the Nizam's closest confidant. In the 1960s, his wealth was considerable. He owned several rental properties and a poultry farm with 20,000 chickens. His son Hussain, also a former khanazah,

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owns property in Hyderabad also (Harris 1971). The African Diaspora concept subsumes a triadic relationship; Africa as homeland, Africans and their descendants, and the adopted residence/home abroad. This relationship is built on many years of voluntary and involuntary dispersions with primary and secondary migrations as well. In addition, this Diaspora has the following characteristics: Collective memories and myths about Africa as the homeland or place of origin, a common socio-economic condition, a transnational network, a sustained resistance to the African presence abroad and an affirmation of their human rights. All of these factors characterise the dispersed communities of African descent outside Africa.
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