(links to episodes at the bottom)

For those who do not know, drag is a gender-based art form. It’s about performing gender as an art and form of entertainment and play. Dress up for grown ups you might say. I specifically say drag performer or drag artist to not assign a gender identity to the performer. There are drag queens, which is the performance of femininity. For example, a cisman may be a drag queen. Meanwhile drag kings are performers of masculinity and may often be ciswomen. However, there are many different styles of drag – camp drag, genderfuck, alien drag, etc. – and anyone of any gender, Two Spirit people, nonbinary people, transpeople, transmen, transwomen, cismen, ciswomen, etc. can perform drag. With that said, “drag queen” or “drag performer” does not imply trans identity and is not a synonym for trans women. There is the concept of crossdressing, but there is the difference of performance, art and entertainment, as opposed to affirming gender identity. And for some, there can be a discovery of self transness with performing drag being the first time to allow for gender discovery and gender experimentation. But again not all drag performers are trans and not all trans people are drag performers. Trans women that performed as a source of livelihood due to social stigmas and marginalization were referred to as “showgirls.” But that word can be very heavy and derogatory depending on the context. Not all trans performers use this word. Referring to a trans person as a drag queen if they are not a drag performer is very offensive and degrading. One has to understand that in the North American context, standardized drag (not theoretic) and performing gender in an entertainment setting comes from extreme marginalization and an era of trans- and queerphobic laws that criminalized crossdressing and queer intimacy, and degraded trans folx in limiting them in the public’s view to cismen and ciswomen with mental illness. In many former indenture sites where our families have come from, this remains a reality as our people recover from colonialism, its traumas and symptoms, such as the colonial era laws still in place. And these realities remain something influencing attitudes in diaspora as well.

Across the world there are indegenous, rich and diverse traditions of gender-based performances and cross dressing for the affirmation of identity and going beyond the gender binary, but also, and perhaps separately at times, for entertainment. Mainstream drag in North America, like what we see on RuPaul’s Drag Race, is shaped significantly by House-Ballroom culture, which were originally spaces for trans and queer Black and Brown people starting in big cities along the east coast, stretching from Atlanta to New York. I believe there were even Balls in Toronto. From Ballroom we have “10s, 10s, 10s across the board,” “it’s serving,” vogueing, the houses, the categories for competition, etc. and so much more–it is what is portrayed through the legendary and crucial series Pose. Ballroom was shaped by African Americans, Black folx from the Caribbean and Latine people. In indenture diaspora, one example of gender performance is londa ka naach, a dance form that travelled with our ancestors from Bihar (and nearby). Londa ka naach is celebrated amongst Sarnami Hindostani people in Suriname and the Netherlands, but it something extinct in Guyana. It is a dance form involving someone assigned male at birth – who may be trans or may be queer – who dances presenting female for weddings and other ceremonies. Perhaps we can consider londa ka naach as a form of drag today. 

In diaspora, an array of indenture-descendant artists bring their own spin to the world of drag and other forms of gender-based performance like burlesque. Some may mould into the performance traditions in diaspora and others pay homage to rich traditions from soca music to Bollywood, our own version of lipsyncs and performance when you think of it. One influential artist is Priyanka, a Guyanese, Toronto-based drag artist; the winner of Canada’s Drag Race; and the first Indo-Caribbean and first contestant of South Asian ancestry to be part of the global franchise. Many Indo-indenture drag artists, like Fijian Sanjina and Guyanese Laila Gulabi, find themselves weaving their performances between racialized queer spaces like events run by the Caribbean Equality Project and South Asian ones like Toronto-based Rangeela and New York-based Yuva, making space for themselves, their artistry and other brown queer and trans folx who struggle to find space where their queerness and cultures do not conflict. Perhaps this is a common struggle of QTPOC. Despite the importance of racialized talent in Ballroom in the origins of mainstream drag, many trans and queer people of colour struggle with being perceived as too ethnic in queer spaces that are white-centric, and safe spaces to fully embody the multiple identities they hold are limited.

Tufts University professor Kareem Khubchandani (any pronoun), also known by their stage name Lahore Vagistan, documents the labour of drag and navigating queer Indian nightlife in their latest book Ishtyle, written from the perspective of the in-group. Commenting on the performances of desi drag artists at Jai Ho!, a Bollywood-themed, queer Chicago-based party, Khubchandani writes the performers “[unsettle] any stable orientation to Asianness in those gay spaces, revealing brown bodies and desi performances as hybdrid and unfixed, poking holes in the ‘not-American’ borders” (147). 

With Indo-indenture performers of gender navigating between Indo-indenture diaspora and culture and South Asian and white-centric performance spaces and nightlife, there is an immediate return to and confrontation of the question “What does South Asian” mean? What does “desi” mean? Not all Indo-indenture descendants identify or locate their brownness in South Asia, India or the word “desi”, despite carrying remnants of the subcontinent through, not only their bloodlines, but also gestures, dance, wardrobe, music, makeup and more. The way drag offers play and experimentation of gender for many, it also offers the same play and experimentation with cultural identity and brownness to those descending from indenture. A drag performer carrying the childhood nostalgia of Bollywood dance and lipsync to a nightclub stage 20-40+ years later confronts these questions of identity in their craft, the audience they’re performing for, and how they are perceived. In some ways, they may embody exactly what Professor Khubhandani writes on desi drag artists, but, in other ways, they may even create and play with an increased unsettling and orientation to Asianness with greater hybridity, fusions and creolization occurring within their indenture heritage and identity. They “[poke] holes” in “‘not-American’ borders” and perceptions of their non-Americanness, that is to say their non-Canadianness and non-Usonianness.  But they also “[poke] holes” in the borders of South Asianness/Indianness/Brownness in relation to indenture and the new hybrid cultures they carry. What does this mean for Indo-indenture descendants? For non-indenture South Asians? And for various other out-groups?

In this episode, we chat with Tifa Wine, Mx. Quest, Bijuriya and Sundari the Indian Goddess, four indenture-descendant drag artists in tkranto (Toronto), tiohtià:ke – mooniyang (Montréal) and various Munsee Lenape land comprising New York City on drag, performing gender, being Trinidadian and Guyanese and the complex questions of identity. 

Work Cited

Khubchandani, Kareem. Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife. University of Michigan Press, 2020.

Tifa Wine

Ryan Persadie/Tifa Wine is an artist, educator, performer, and researcher based in Toronto, Canada. His aesthetic and scholarly work interrogates the relationships and the entanglements between queer Indo-Caribbean diasporas, Caribbean feminisms, Afro-Asian intimacies, legacies of indenture, performance, embodiment, and popular culture. His writing can be found in the Stabroek News, A Colour Deep, Gay City News, and MUSICultures. He also works with and organizes with multiple community groups including the Caribbean Equality Project, and Queeribbean Toronto.


Outside of academia, he also works as a drag artist where he goes by the stage name of Tifa Wine. In this capacity, he uses embodied archives of song, dance, comedy, gesture, make-up, story-telling and fashion to pursue calls of decolonial and feminist pedagogy. He has performed across the GTA and internationally and works across mediums of live performance, video, and photography.

Mx. Quest

Miranda EJ. Warner is a genderqueer, mixed-race, Indo-Guyanese activist and artist of many disciplines. They are the driving force behind queer clown collective #ClownsKillEmpires, as well as a member of Les Femmes Fatales Women of Colour Burlesque. A regular fixture in drag (as Sydney Quest) and burlesque (as Imogen Quest) scenes worldwide, they have spent the pandemic taking #ClownsKillEmpires online, to showcase the most ridiculous QTBIPOC digital art they can find.

Bijuriya

Bijuriya is a drag queen living in Montreal/Tiohtiake, Canada. She’s half Indo-Caribbean and half-Québécoise. On-stage Bjiuriya is a dazzling thunderbolt of energy and quirkiness. Bijuriya is inspired by her South Asian culture and appreciated for her proud, festive and humorous outlook on Bollywood and all things Desi! With a background as a musician and interdisciplinary artist, she is currently creating a theatrical solo show to be premiered at Montréal Arts Interculturels in March 2022.

Sundari the Indian Goddess

Under the stage names Sundari the Indian Goddess and International Dancer Zaman, Mohamed Afzal Amin, a native of Guyana, has over 15 years of award-winning experiences as a performer. Both as Zaman and as Sundari, Amin draws on his training in Bollywood, chutney, and multiple Caribbean and classical Indian dance styles to promote Indo-Caribbean arts and culture and the multiple, intersectional identities of LGBTQ+ Caribbean immigrants in the diaspora. Zaman is one of the founding members and the lead choreographer of the Taranng Dance Troupe (Waves of the  Future), a group of diversely trained dancers amplifying visibility and unity within the Caribbean performing arts community in the New York metropolitan tri-state area. And, as an LGBTQ+ rights activist and artist, he has pioneered several historic initiatives leading to queer and drag-centric performance pieces in faith-based institutions and at religious and cultural parades and festivals under both of his ionic personalities. In 2021, Amin bridged the skills, expertise and wisdom of his performer personalities into Zamandari, a consultancy, mentorship and community engagement platform to support new and up and coming Caribbean artists and connect the public with training, volunteer, and community support opportunities.

Episode 10a

Episode 10b

Episode 10c

This special three-part episode brings together five diasporic writers with indenture origins from two hemispheres, from Eastern Africa’s Mauritius to the Caribbean’s Guyana, Trinidad, and Suriname, to talk about identity, language, these artists’ craft of words, and to read some of their work.

Kama La Mackerel (they/them) – @kamalamackerel, Karimah Rahman (she/her) – @karimah__kr, Rajiv Mohabir (he/him) – @rajivmohabir, Siela Ardjosemito-Jethoe (she/her), and Ryan Persadie (he/him) – @tifa.wine graced us with their presence and magic! Give the episode 9 series a listen to hear about how these writers locate themselves and their identities with words and hear their artistry, ranging from poetry and spoken word to short stories and article excerpts.

Working across several time zones and a difference of 6 hours came with some challenges, but we made it happen! However, the universe did not allow everyone to stay the entire recording session. Either way, a HUGE thank you to these 5 writers for joining us!

Episode 09a

Episode 09a starts off the series with introductions and discussions of identity with the five writers of the round table.

Episode 09b

Episode 09b is where the magic happens. Come listen to Kama La Mackerel, Karimah Rahman, Rajiv Mohabir, Siela Ardjosemito-Jethoe, and Ryan Persadie share their writing!

Readings include:

Rajiv Mohabir’s “Coolie Oddity” from his book Cutlish, “Belonging Nowhere but Unapologetically Me: Muslim Indo-Caribbean and More” by Karimah Rahman in Blooming Through Adversity: A Collection of Short Stories, Kama La Mackerel’s “Your Body is the Ocean”fromtheir book ZOM-FAM by Kama La Mackerel, and excerpts of spoken word pieces by Siela Ardjosemito-Jethoe and forthcoming articles by Ryan Persadie.

Episode 09c

Episode 09c is a post-reading conversation, diving deeper into the questions of identity, language, writing and words.

Kama La Mackerel (they/them) – @kamalamackerel

In episode 09b, Kama reads from “Your Body is the Ocean” in their poetry book ZOM-FAM.

Kama La Mackerel is an award-winning Mauritian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, educator, writer, curator and literary translator who works within and across performance, photography, installations, textiles, digital art and literature. Kama’s work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality, hybridity, cosmopolitanism, ancestral healing and self- and collective-empowerment. They believe that aesthetic practices have the power to build resilience and act as resistance to the status quo, thereby enacting an anticolonial praxis through cultural production.

They are the author ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press) which was named a CBC Best Poetry Book, a Globe and Mail Best Debut, and was a finalist for the QWF Concordia University First Book Award and the Writers’ Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize. World Literature Today called ZOM-FAM “a milestone in Mauritian literature.” 

Kama has exhibited, performed and lectured internationally and has published in English, French and Mauritian Kreol. In 2021, Kama was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Joseph S. Stauffer Prize for emerging and mid-career artists in Visual Arts. In Fall 2021, they premiered their new multimedia exhibition Queering the Is/land Body as part of MOMENTA, Biennale de l’image, and their new performance Le Morne: Sekinn ekrir pann efase was presented at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts as part of Af-flux: Biennale Transnationale Noire.

lamackerel.net // @KamaLaMackerel

Karimah Rahman (she/her) – @karimah__kr

In episode 09b, Karimah reads from “Belonging Nowhere but Unapologetically Me: Muslim Indo-Caribbean and More” in Blooming Through Adversity: A Collection of Short Stories curated by Tiffany Manbodh.

Karimah is the founder of The Muslim Indo-Caribbean Collective (MICC @muslimindocaribbeancollective) and The Muslim Indentureship Studies Center (MISC- @muslimindenturestudiescenter). She is currently pursuing her PhD in Policy Studies focused on the intersectional marginalization, lack of representation and Anti-Muslim Racism towards Muslim Indo-Caribbeans (and marginalization of Indo-Caribbeans) in policy (India’s Diaspora Policy and Ontario’s South Asian Heritage Act, 2001) as well as Indo-Caribbean, Indentured Diasporic, Indian and South Asian spaces. 

She has coined a few terms:

• The South Asian/Indian “Authenticity/Purity” Hierarchy Theory
• The Indian(Indentured/Indo-Caribbean)“Authenticity/Purity” Hierarchy Theory
• Mainland South Asian/Indian Supremacy
• Mainland South Asian/Indian Privilege
• Hindu Indian/Indenture/Indo-Caribbean Supremacy
• Hindu Indian/Indenture/Indo-Caribbean Privilege to unpack this

along with popularizing the term Muslim Indo-Caribbean and coining the terms:

• Muslim Indo-Caribbean Heritage Day
• Muslim Indo-Caribbean Studies
• Muslim Indentureship Studies, 
• (Radical) Muslim Indo-Caribbean Feminism
• (Radical) Muslim Indentured Diasporic Feminism. 

Karimah looks at the legacy of Muslim Indo-Caribbean resistance to colonization, journey of learning/unlearning, intergenerational trauma (rooted in Indentureship, colonization, white supremacy, Hindu supremacy, Hindutva ideology, Brahmin supremacy etc.) and decolonizing (including Decolonizing Mental Health). Karimah is a published author with work ranging from academic to spoken words, she gave talks, interviews and workshops on the topics mentioned earlier. She is currently working on a documentary movie and upcoming book on Being Muslim Indo-Caribbean made by Muslim Indo-Caribbeans for Muslim Indo-Caribbeans.

Rajiv Mohabir (he/him) – @rajivmohabir

In episode 09b, Rajiv reads from “Coolie Oddity” in his recent publication Cutlish.

Selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the 2014 Intro Prize in Poetry by Four Way Books for his book entitled The Taxidermistʻs Cut(Spring 2016), Rajiv Mohabir’s first collection is a finalist for the 2017 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry. He received fellowships from Voices of Our Nationʻs Artist foundation, Kundiman, The Home School (where he was the Kundiman Fellow), and the American Institute of Indian Studies language program. His second manuscript The Cowherd’s Son won the 2015 Kundiman Prize (Tupelo Press in May 2017). 2021 saw the release of Mohabir’s poetry collection Cutlish (Four Way Books, 2021). He was also awarded the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets, and a 2015 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his translation of Lalbihari Sharma’s I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (Kaya Press 2019), published originally in 1916. 

In 2019 Rajiv Mohabir also received the New Immigrant Writing Award from Restless Books for his memoir Antiman, selected by Terry Hong, Héctor Tobar, and Ilan Stavans ( Restless Books, 2021).

With Kazim Ali, Mohabir edited the Global Anglophone Indian foilio for POETRY Magazine in 2019. His poem “Ancestor” was chosen by Philip Metres for the 2015 AWP Intro Journal Award. His poems also received the 2015 Editor’s Choice Award from Bamboo Ridge Journal and the 2014 Academy of American Poet’s Prize for the University of Hawai‘i. His poem “Dove” appears in Best American Poetry 2015. Other poems and translations appear in journals such as Quarterly West, Guernica, The Collagist, The Journal, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, small axe, The Asian American Literary Review, Great River Review, andPANK. He has received several Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations.

Winner of the inaugural chapbook prize by Ghostbird Press for Acoustic Trauma, he is the author of three other multilingual chapbooks: Thunder in the Courtyard: Kajari Poems, A Veil You’ll Cast Aside, na mash me bone, and na bad-eye me. In 2021 he collaborated with Aotearoa based poet Rushi Vyas to write Between Us, Not Half a Saint.

Siela Ardjosemito-Jethoe (she/her)

Siela Ardjosemito-Jethoe is an anthropologist and sociologist. She has spent the past 20 years working in the field of diversity inclusion, with equity as its foundation. She started within welfare and social work and later on switched to higher education and the public sector at the level of national and local government. On June 1st, 2021, she started as the Diversity and Inclusion officer at the University of The Arts- The Hague. She also runs her own company Connecting the Dot’s unlimited where she provides training, coaching and advice and she works as a wordartist. She contributed to several publications such as Superdivers! (2013), Onbeschreven Erfgoed (2017) and Diversiteit in de Samenleving (2017 and 2020), she is editor-in-chief of the latter. Furthermore, she writes a monthly column about diversity and inclusion at the Sarnamihuis and is a columnist for Cultuurpers. With her husband and children she created the podcast Diversity in Check and she is jointly responsible for the podcast ‘Zeg maar gewoon wit.’  She is a supervisory board member for Mauritshuis, chairperson for Lloyds Company and board member of Het Haags Theaterhuis.

Ryan Persadie (he/him) – @tifa.wine

In episode 09b, Ryan reads an excerpt of a forthcoming article.

Ryan Persadie/Tifa Wine is an artist, educator, performer, and researcher based in Toronto, Canada. His aesthetic and scholarly work interrogates the relationships and the entanglements between queer Indo-Caribbean diasporas, Caribbean feminisms, Afro-Asian intimacies, legacies of indenture, performance, embodiment, and popular culture. His writing can be found in the Stabroek News, A Colour Deep, Gay City News, and MUSICultures. He also works with and organizes with multiple community groups including the Caribbean Equality Project, and Queeribbean Toronto.
 

Outside of academia, he also works as a drag artist where he goes by the stage name of Tifa Wine. In this capacity, he uses embodied archives of song, dance, comedy, gesture, make-up, story-telling and fashion to pursue calls of decolonial and feminist pedagogy. He has performed across the GTA and internationally and works across mediums of live performance, video, and photography.

Many of those indentured from South Asia did not all carry writing traditions with them to the new countries they would come to call home; however, they always had oral traditions of storytelling and song. The only text I know of written by someone indentured was published in 1916 and translated into English in 2019 as I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara by Rajiv Mohabir. The songbook originally written by Lalbihari Sharma is a treasure, a collection of Braj Bhasha and Bhojpuri lyrics recounting the conditions of indenture in British Guiana. 

Descendants of indenture have taken to pen and paper to tell our story. Who are we? Where did we come from? What happened to them, our ancestors? In diaspora, we never learn the answers to these questions in schools. Many of our classmates cannot even find our homelands on the maps lining the classroom walls. 

There is a rich plethora of indenture-descendant-written texts circulating virtual and physical collections. Authors have contributed in an array of styles from academic writing to creative, building postcolonial literature for the world to find our stories and truths on the map. 

The late Nobel-prize-winning author Toni Morrison said at a speech in 1981: “if there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Young and old, beginners and experienced, indenture descendants are writing the stories we want to read, and the truths we’ve been missing. In this exciting episode, I hoste an indenture descendant’s writers round table with five guests from four different diasporas. Kama La Mckerel (they/them), Karimah Rahman (she/her), Rajiv Mohabir (he/him), Siela Ardjosemito-Jethoe (she/her), and Ryan Persadie (he/him) graced us with their presence and magic! Give this episode a listen to hear about how these writers locate themselves and their identities with words and hear their artistry.

Associated Press. “Toni Morrison’s most notable quotes about life, race and storytelling” USA TODAY, 7 Aug 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2019/08/07/toni-morrison-nobel-prize-winning-writer-most-notable-quotes/1941628001/.

by Alex Bacchus (they/them)

 

In this episode, we chat with Fazle, Pravini and Siela, three Indo-Surinamese or Hindostanen, about their experiences growing up and living in the Netherlands, at the heart of empire.

 Fazle (they/he/she/dem) – @fazle_shairmahomed

Fazle Shairmahomed creates decolonizing rituals, performance art, and dance. Their work is rooted in ancestral work and intersectional activism. Through the urgency of community building their work creates spaces in which different communities are invited to nurture conversations around colonialism and the ways in which it has impacted our histories and the ways in which it exists today. The multi-sensorial approach in their work also challenges the ways in which we perceive the world around us through themes such as death, rebirth, ancestry, belonging, colonial histories, and healing. Since 2013 he is also one of the members of CLOUD danslab, an artist run dance studio which supports research and practice of dance, movement, and performance art in the Hague.The physcial work and research of Fazle is deeply rooted in ways of approaching the state of trance, through archaic movements and ritual practices mostly inspired and informed by Muslim/Sufi traditions of Gnawa, Zar, the whirling Dervish; Japanese Butoh, Surinamese Winti culture, Hindu rituals, Caribbean Bubbling, Muslim funeral practices, Vogueing, and the Club.

Pravini (she/her/hers) – @pravinimusic

Pravini Baboeram is an artist and activist, creating art to contribute to social change. As an independent artist she has set up her own label Pravini Productions, that has produced 5 albums, 6 singles and 5 international tours. She is co-founder of action committee Holi is not a Houseparty, a campaign against cultural appropriation of the Hindu spring festival Holi, and initiator of the Anti-racism Voting Guide. In addition, she led the campaign Tetary Must Rise, a crowdfunding campaign for the replacement of the statue of colonizer Barnet Lyon by the Hindustani warrior of resistance Janey Tetary. Pravini also set up Indian History Month to celebrate stories and contributions of people from the Indian diaspora. In 2019 she released her new album and documentary “The Uprising”, a film about the anti-racism movement in Europe.

Siela (she/her/hers) 

Siela Ardjosemito-Jethoe is an anthropologist and sociologist. She has spent the past 20 years working in the field of diversity inclusion, with equity as its foundation. She started within welfare and social work and later on switched to higher education and the public sector at the level of national and local government. On June 1st, 2021, she started as the Diversity and Inclusion officer at the University of The Arts- The Hague. She also runs her own company Connecting the Dot’s unlimited where she provides training, coaching and advice and she works as a wordartist. She contributed to several publications such as Superdivers! (2013), Onbeschreven Erfgoed (2017) and Diversiteit in de Samenleving (2017 and 2020), she is editor-in-chief of the latter. Furthermore, she writes a monthly column about diversity and inclusion at the Sarnamihuis and is a columnist for Cultuurpers. With her husband and children she created the podcast Diversity in Check and she is jointly responsible for the podcast ‘Zeg maar gewoon wit.’  She is a supervisory board member for Mauritshuis, chairperson for Lloyds Company and board member of Het Haags Theaterhuis.

  

The Indo-Surinamese or as they refer to themselves in Dutch: Hindostani (adjective), Hindostaan (singular noun), Hindostanen (plural noun), and Hindostaans (genitive), are the descendants of South Asian indenture in Suriname, a former Dutch colony and the sole Dutch-speaking country in South America. The first Hindostanen arrived in Nieuw Amsterdam (today Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital) aboard the Lalla Rookh, which departed Calcutta in 1873 with 410 indentured bodies (Venkatesh). The Caribbean nation of Suriname is also home to two groups of slave descendants—the moors and creoles—as well as Javanese descending from indenture. Of course, there are others, including mixed-race and Indigenous people. Suriname’s 8^th census revealed Hindostanen represent 27.4% of the population at 148,443 persons, the largest ethnic group of the country of 541,638 (Algemeen Bureau voor de Statistiek [General Bureau of Statistics], “Etniciteit, Nationaliteit en Godsdienst [Ethnicity, Nationality and Religion],”Tabel H1: Bevolking Naar Etniciteit 2004 en 2012 [Table H1: Population By Ethnicity 2004 and 2012 ] 23).  

The most well-known diaspora of Surinamese is naturally in the Netherlands; however, there are some smaller ones around the world, such those living amongst Guyanese and Trinidadians in New York City’s Little Guyana in the borough of Queens. The first main generation of Surinamese arrived in the Netherlands between Suriname’s independence in 1975 and 1980, with 40,000 arriving in the first year. Dutch legislation allowed Surinamese to maintain Dutch nationality if they migrated within the first five years, an incentive perhaps behind the second peak in migration between 1979 and 1980. In 2015, second generation Surinamese, those born in the heart of empire in the Netherlands, represented roughly half of all Surinamese in the Kingdom with the total of all Surinamese comprising 2.1% of the population. First-generation immigrants represented over 179,000 people and their second-generation children tallied in at just under 170,000 (Centraal Bureau van Statistiek [Central Bureau of Statistics]).

The Dutch word “Hindostaan” they call themselves is different from the word “Hindoestaan.” Spellings with “oe” of “Hindoe” in Dutch refer to “Hindu,” and, of course, Hindostanen are religiously and spiritually diverse like many other South Asian indenture descendants. And the word “Hindostani” should not be confused with its false cognate in South Asian languages. In Hindi, Urdu and other Indo-Aryan languages of the region, “hindustani” refers to South Asia and India as an adjective. It has even been adapted into English in reference to classical music and cinema of the subcontinent. However, to the Surinamese, the Dutch word “Hindostani” is a marker of their indenture-descendant identity and Caribbean culture, separate from recent migrants from India and South Asia, who are referred to in Dutch as “Indiërs” and the respective Dutch words for their nationalities and relevant identity markers. Compared to other former indenture sites in the Caribbean, Suriname is unique because of its retention of ethnic languages, which in the case of most other former sites of indenture essentially died out. Apart from Dutch and the English-based creole Sranan Togo, one can hear Sarnami, Javanese, languages of West African origin and indigenous languages. The 2012 census revealed Sarnami to be the third most spoken language in the country  (Algemeen Bureau voor de Statistiek [General Bureau of Statistics],  “Huishoudens, Woonverblijven en Gezinnen [Households, Residences and Families],” Tabel 2: Aantal Huishoudens Naar Meest Gesproken Taal en Tweede Gesproken Taal [Table 2: Number of Households by Most Spoken Language and Second Spoken Language ]” 53). Sarnami is also known as Sarnami Hindustani and a dialect of Caribbean Hindustani. It is a unique South Asian language born in the Caribbean from Bhojpuri, Awadhi and other regional languages of what would today be Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, from where many people were originally taken. It is the language of bhaitak gana and related to the old Trinidadian and Guyanese chutney lyrics. Sarnami, along with its living ancestors in Asia, is threatened by the prestige of hegemonial languages: Dutch, English and standardized Hindi-Urdu. Compared to former indenture sites of the region where ethnic languages are now mostly extinct, Sarnami was able to thrive because of the lack of Dutch structured education in Suriname and Dutch encouragement to teach the Sarnami. In the last seventy years, new literature and music have kept the language alive (Venkatesh).

To grow our understandings of indenture diasporas, we explore the Hindostani identity in discussion with Pravini, Fazle and Siela, three Surinamese born in the Netherlands.

Work Cited

Algemeen Bureau voor de Statistiek [General Bureau of Statistics]. “Etniciteit, Nationaliteit en Godsdienst [Ethnicity, Nationality and Religion],” Tabel H1: Bevolking Naar Etniciteit 2004 en 2012 [Table H1: Population By Ethnicity 2004 and 2012 ]. RESULTATEN Achtste (8^e) Volks – en Woningtelling in SURINAME [RESULTS Eighth (8th) Population and Housing Census in SURINAME], vol. I: Demografische en Sociale karakteristieken en Migratie [Demographic and Social characteristics and Migration], 2013, p. 23.

—.“Huishoudens, Woonverblijven en Gezinnen [Households, Residences and Families],” Tabel 2: Aantal Huishoudens Naar Meest Gesproken Taal en Tweede Gesproken Taal [Table 2: Number of Households by Most Spoken Language and Second Spoken Language ]. RESULTATEN Achtste (8^e) Volks – en Woningtelling in SURINAME [RESULTS Eighth (8th) Population and Housing Census in SURINAME], vol. III: Huishoudens, Woonverblijven, Gezinnen, Milieu en Criminaliteit [Households, Residences, Families, Environment and Crime], 2014, p. 53.

Centraal Bureau van Statistiek [Central Bureau of Statistics]. “Half of the Surinamese Dutch Population Is Second Generation.” Statistics Netherlands, 24 Nov. 2015, https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2015/48/half-of-the-surinamese-dutch-population-is-second-generation.

Venkatesh, Karthik. “Sarnami: An Indian Language Born in South America, on the Verge of Becoming an Endangered Tongue-Living News , Firstpost.” Firstpost, 19 Jan. 2020, https://www.firstpost.com/living/sarnami-an-indian-language-born-in-south-america-on-the-verge-of-becoming-an-endangered-tongue-7913691.html.

One last posting for the theme of la francophonie and indenture. In episode 7b, I talk a little about my findings on Guadeloupe, beginning with the end of slavery and start of indenture to life on the island today. For the fall term in 2021, I completed an independent study of Guadeloupean Creole with the French Department of my uni. When you learn a language, you learn a new culture. In episode 7a on my study of creole, I spoke on how that new culture was so familiar to me as a Caribbean person. Something crucially new was learning how colonialism has undeniable impacts on everyday life in Guadeloupe, especially on racial dynamics of the tourism industry, and challenges of everyday Guadeloupeans. People commonly envision a Postcard Paradise of the Caribbean, but what is the real cost and other side of that image?

Episode 07a: Meditations on Learning Guadeloupean Creole, Creoles and the Caribbean is up! Continuing with the theme of la francophonie and indenture, I switch things up this episode and chat about my experience learning Guadeloupean Creole as a creole-speaker during the fall term. Guadeloupe continues to be an Overseas Department of France, and out of the francophone Caribbean, the island received the largest number of people indentured from South Asia. The francophone Caribbean was a region I didn’t know much about. However, through my study, I’ve come to learn how much we share as Caribbean people. Byen mèsi a prof chéri an-mwen!

Enjoy!

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I learned Guadeloupean Creole from French with the textbook Le Créole Sans Peine from Le Méthode Assimil.

Poullet, Hector et Telchid, Sylviane. Le Créole Sans Peine (Guadeloupéen). Assimil, 1990.

And here’s a dictionary:

Pinalie, Pierre. Dictionnaire élémentaire français-créole. L’Harmattan, 2009.

In episodes 6a and 6b with our guest Karimah Rahman, we explore the intersections of la francophonie and indenture by discussing growing up anglo and Muslim Indo-Caribbean in francophone Quebec, as well as life settling in other parts of Canada.

Karimah (she/her) is the founder of The Muslim Indo-Caribbean Collective (MICC @muslimindocaribbeancollective) and The Muslim Indentureship Studies Center (MISC- @muslimindenturestudiescenter). She is currently pursuing her PhD in Policy Studies focused on the intersectional marginalization, lack of representation and Anti-Muslim Racism towards Muslim Indo-Caribbeans (and marginalization of Indo-Caribbeans) in policy (India’s Diaspora Policy and Ontario’s South Asian Heritage Act, 2001) as well as Indo-Caribbean, Indentured Diasporic, Indian and South Asian spaces. 

She has coined a few terms:

• The South Asian/Indian “Authenticity/Purity” Hierarchy Theory
• The Indian(Indentured/Indo-Caribbean)“Authenticity/Purity” Hierarchy Theory
• Mainland South Asian/Indian Supremacy
• Mainland South Asian/Indian Privilege
• Hindu Indian/Indenture/Indo-Caribbean Supremacy
• Hindu Indian/Indenture/Indo-Caribbean Privilege to unpack this

along with popularizing the term Muslim Indo-Caribbean and coining the terms:

• Muslim Indo-Caribbean Heritage Day
• Muslim Indo-Caribbean Studies
• Muslim Indentureship Studies, 
• (Radical) Muslim Indo-Caribbean Feminism
• (Radical) Muslim Indentured Diasporic Feminism. 

Karimah looks at the legacy of Muslim Indo-Caribbean resistance to colonization, journey of learning/unlearning, intergenerational trauma (rooted in Indentureship, colonization, white supremacy, Hindu supremacy, Hindutva ideology, Brahmin supremacy etc.) and decolonizing (including Decolonizing Mental Health). Karimah is a published author with work ranging from academic to spoken words, she gave talks, interviews and workshops on the topics mentioned earlier. She is currently working on a documentary movie and upcoming book on Being Muslim Indo-Caribbean made by Muslim Indo-Caribbeans for Muslim Indo-Caribbeans.

Follow us on instagram:

@DiasporicChildrenofIndenture

Karimah – @karimah__kr

Muslim Indo-Caribbean Collective – @muslimindocaribbeancollective