Breaking the Afro-Indian Silence by V. M. de Malar vmingoa at gmail.com
It began last night with startlingly unique sounds, with song and ecstatic dance and inexpressibly moving ancient rituals. Strong voices rang out with praise and passion, singers rose to whirl about in delirious abandon as emotions rose to fever pitch, as the Sidi Goma group, the Mystic Musicians and Dancers of the Black Sufi Saint, Gori Pir, lit up the grounds of the International Centre on the Dona Paula plateau at the opening of the conference for study of The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA). It's going to be an enriching feast for the next ten days. Along with lectures and fascinating discussions, there's a Festival of African and Afro-Diasporic Cinema from the 15th through the 19th, and an intriguing Festival of Song, Music, Dance and Drama, also starting on the 15th, including another chance to see the Sidi Goma group (at 8:00 PM on January 16th). All the conference events, including concerts and movies, are free of charge and open to the Goan public, as space permits. TADIA is an historic event, the first serious collective attempt to examine and analyze the African diaspora in Asia which has very deep and ancient roots, and a misunderstood but very real cultural significance. The trans- Atlantic African dispersal is endlessly studied, but the much older relationship between India and Africa is still barely understood, let alone properly contextualized. Taboos and racism have kept the lid on study of this intercultural exchange for far too long, it's time to put all that behind us, to understand and fully embrace this much-ignored aspect of our shared heritage. Here in Goa, we've had contact with Africa for at least a thousand years. Our territory was a primary distribution center for African slaves, had whole battalions of African troops stationed on our soil even right up to 1961, and we obviously have significant African admixture in our perpetually murky gene pool. Yet we still know almost nothing about this aspect of our collective experience. Last night served as a ray of light into this societal darkness, drums accompanying the thrilling Indo-African performance broke an uncomfortable silence that has held for generations. Of course, Goa is only one place that's associated with the African diaspora in India. We're talking about a very diffused populace that scattered across the subcontinent, which has been here, in parts, probably for millennia. The slave trade is central, most came as chattel and part of the Arab (and later, European) trade with India. But there have been prized African soldiers and generals at Indian courts across many centuries, and even aristocratic African rulers of Indian principalities (such as the Siddi nawabs of Janjira). Our little patch of the Konkan coast has always been an entrepot, an entry point for traders who sought to gain access to the wealthy Deccan. And the Arabs who came here for centuries before the Portuguese conquest undoubtedly brought Africans with them. But it is clearly the colonial period that has had the most impact with regard to diaspora, as Panjim became the locus of an international slave market which dispersed these African unfortunates throughout the European colonies further East, and particularly to Ceylon. The Siddis of Karnataka, who still speak a kind of Konkani, are another by-product of this time; they're descended from escapees who made it across the border. >From this period, we see evidence of tremendous cultural syncretism. The classic Goan chicken cafreal is clearly an import, using African marination techniques and bearing the "kaffir" name, but one can also detect a foreign slave's hand and tastes in the signature sorpotel. Well-to-do Goan families of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries always kept African slaves, as did the Portuguese hierarchy and clergy, the entire cultural (and genetic) impact of all these Africans in Goa is yet to be studied properly. The genial Belgian-turned-Brazilian-turned-Panjimite convenor of TADIA, Jean- Pierre Angenot, has spent two years (of what was once retirement) preparing for this wonderfully conceived, stimulatingly multidisciplinary and unique, Africanist jamboree on the Dona Paula plateau. It's another signal that we're slowly heading in the right directions as a destination, as a culture, as a thinking society. So, a hearty Goan welcome to TADIA and to all the Siddis of India. (ENDS) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ABOUT THE AUTHOR: VM is an early Goanetter, who put his money where his mouth is and returned to do something in Goa in late 2004, while in his thirties. The above article appeared in the January 10, 2006 edition of The Herald, Goa. GOANET READER WELCOMES contributions from its readers, by way of essays, reviews, features and think-pieces. 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