We are all at least somewhat familiar with the phenomenon of Indian migration to Africa, mostly in the form of persons of Gujarati origin working their way to East Africa, but little has been publicized about the opposite, about Africans migrating to India. I wasn’t even sure something like this existed until I read an advertisement for a lecture, “African Elites in India,” which is being given this Saturday, June 10 at 2 PM at the Smithsonian’s Meyer Auditorium by Kenneth Robbins and John McLeod, editors of the book African Elites in India: Habshi Amarat. The book focuses on the story of sub-Saharan Africans who migrated, beginning around the 15th century, to India and subsequently gained positions of power and status on the sub-Continent. Who knew hyphenated identities went so far back?
“Known as Habshis, the Arabic word for Abyssinian or Ethiopian,” the duo’s book tells the story of a “little-known group of elite sub-Saharan African-Indian merchants, soldiers, nobles, statesmen, and rulers who attained prominence in India in the fifteenth to twentieth centuries but also on the Africans who served at the courts of Indian monarchs as servants, slaves, eunuchs, or concubines.”
It turns out the Africa-to-India phenomenon is not all that limited. In 1996, the Anthropological Survey of India reported sizeable communities of African ancestry in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Gujarat, and the metropolises of Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai (link). For those of you who count yourself among the South Asian history geek-squad like I do, this lecture sounds fascinating. If you need more information, or to RSVP, you can call 202 633 0444. A book signing will follow the lecture.
Perhaps this answers why Anna, and so many other desis are often mistaken for Ethiopian. Incidentally, the Freer Gallery is also screening a few Sri Lankan films this month. The remaining two are Flying with One Wing (2002), which is showing tomorrow, and Guerilla Marketing (2005) which is screening on Sunday.
@Kenyandesi No offence lady… all I meant was that I had almost missed the american when reading that page…
I was slightly uncomfortable with the authors assertion of a common heritage with so many indian cultures who from most of my reading have little do do with africa…
On a different note : A lot of accounts of the liberation of Goa speak of african slave soldiers who sided with the Indian forces after deserting the portuguese, wonder what happened to them…
She’s our very own Queen of Sheba!
Fantastic subject and post, Sajit, btw. I hope Rajiv and the others on this tip will share with us what they find out.
peace
will some of you quit telling us about how you get mistaken for someone spanish/italian/puerto rican/blah blah blah…
you post it as if youre proud of the fact that others cant recognize that youre from the subcontinent. are you embarrassed of looking south asian? is it just a roundabout way of telling us that youre light skinned? or is it a manifestation of your subconscious aversion to dark skin?
Hear Hear! 🙂 All the more apt because “Sheba” is a popular Mallu name.
is it just a roundabout way of telling us that youre light skinned?
duh. 🙂
no, race isn’t just a social construct. here, here and here.
Turd:
Maybe it’s to illustrate just how mixed we are, in that we often get mistaken for something else due to the fact that we are a diverse motley crew.
Maybe it’s to illustrate just how mixed we are, in that we often get mistaken for something else due to the fact that we are a diverse motley crew.
yes, browns are mixed, but it isn’t because we are mixed from whites, blacks and other asians. we are our own group. in a world where browns conquered the world white people would say they were depigmented indians.
Salsette #51 “………….A lot of accounts of the liberation of Goa………..
My hunch about the Goa connection is confirmed 🙂
Neale
Racism is a big issue in this World Cup! There have been a lot of race related incidents against “black” players playing in European leagues. They have been spat upon and mocked with monkey noises. The disturbing thing is that these incidents were not from the fans of the rival team camp…but from their own fans. Infact France’s top player Thierry Henry has been mocked a few times ..when he was representing the French national team!
Are you being sarcastic/kidding about the above?? Or you are serious. I know a lot of immigrants from Pakistan are in Norway, but “Paki” ??
I was kidding.
Re Comment #53
Woah. Take a chill pill. Some people actually wish they looked more South Asian. It’s a comparison and thus reflection of how diverse South Asians can look, also depending on where in the world they are (re)located.
There is nothing surprising Africans being present in India. Science as prove a long time ago that Africans were the original people in that region of the world.
African Presence in Early Asia – Written by Professor Ivan Van Sertima and Professor Runoko Rashidi.
Early African Exodus to Asia http://www.africanbynature.com/newsletters/exodusasia.html
African Migration to China http://www.africanbynature.com/newsletters/africanschina.html
Look! It’s Everything-From-Africa-Uncle!
shame on you anna. africa was originally a part of india before it broke away. it was called paan-gaya then. and to think a woman of your education would not know such a basic fact. what has the world come to these days?
I know! everything was part of our great Bharatavarsha then…. Pan-gaya pangea…. Vasudaiva Kutumbhukam…. where is mister saffron?
Hold up there, sport 🙂 Here’s an interesting piece on an account of interviews with various scientists and the ways they agreed and disagreed about how to treat race:
Race is a Social, Not Scientific Construct
OK, so if you have a group of Swedish people on one hand, and a group of Japanese people on the other, are you telling me they are NOT two different races? I agree that in terms of some genetic markers they may display as much intra-group variety as inter-group; and depending which markers you are talking about, Swedish person A may be more similar to Japanese person A than to Swedish person B; but phenotypically they seem to be two distinct races. And I’m pretty sure their phenotypic intra-group similarities DO point to shared ancestry, origins, etc. and a closer relationship to each other than with the other group.
There’s a difference between saying that the two groups of people have genetic differences with each other and the two groups of people are members of different “races” as understood in 21st century social parlance. I could replace “swedish” and “japanese” with “Bengali” and “Malayalee” above. The point is not that there aren’t populations with differences from other populations but that the way in which these populations have traditionally been categorized (i.e. over the last 300 years or so) has a lot to do with politics and, some argue, a lot less to do with an attempt to fairly categorize people of different groups, much less to justify why said categorization is necessary in the first place.
If you’re going to classify people in a certain way, you’re making a choice to group your observations in a particular way, and presumably for a particular purpose.
They actually show gradations of brown to fair on a frickin’ Pantone strip. Something that would never fly in the U.S. because of the history of color-struck.
Another thing that would never fly: an Aamir Khan coke ad where he pretends to be Japanese by having his eyes pulled back and slanted.
I’m gonna post a bunch of these TV ads at some point.
Nigerian drug dealers have been in the news a lot recently because of the Fardeen Khan and Rahul Mahajan drug scandals.
[while Lisa Bonet is singing “Baby I Love Your Way”] Rob Gordon: I used to hate this song. Barry, Dick: Yeah. Rob Gordon: Now I kinda like it. Barry, Dick: Yeah. [Link]
Has anyone of you given a thought to the fact that why its just Africa and India who have Lions native to them? Is it just a wierd coincidence??
Then why do doctors here in the US go with “South Asians are more prone to have high blood pressure and high cholesterol” … Personally I think its just because most South Asians have never done any physical work and have no concept of excersize (at least the FOBs).
FYI: South Asian health concerns, indexed against the rest: compilation of articles on how south asian health patterns deviate from the rest of the world, viz. lower death rates from cancer, insulin resistance. Interesting kajou chatter to impress Balwant from accounting.
it’s the ghee neonatal care
Lions originally had a much wider geographic distribution than they do today and were found in Europe and across the Middle East. The current African and Indian populations represent fragmented remains of that distribution. Cave Lions and American Lions are extinct species of Panthera leo (which is the same genus/species as today’s lion) that were found even in cold climates in Europe and North America.
love to.. thanks!
RC wrote:
I guess that you’re talking about the South Asians in US. Living in middle class India is a whole different experience. Cycling 8km each day to school..in summers is a lot of work for a sixth grader!
Sorry for the bold-face font in my last post.
That’s true yo. We were pracktizzing fo da spellin beez.
Of course!! I mean, all those FOBbish Desi indentured servants flung all across the globe so that the hardworking, energetic British could line their own pockets were just lazy mo fo’s. Honestly. South Asians simply do not have any concept of physical work, particularly those pedal ricksha walas.
Aww… bichaaro…. 🙂
I believe you are talking about ‘Syndrome X’, which predisposes many South Asians to insulin resistance and hypercholesterolemia.
I agree with you brown_fob. I was talking about US population not those living in India. and CAD c’mon I clearly said that I was talking about middle class population. That is actually the basis of my argument and why I feel that it aint nothin to do with SA genetics (the high BP, high chol. thing). Because I dont know how many “rikshawalas” were taken into the sample.
Oops, sorry, RC. I misinterpreted your comment.
RE: #51
Salsette, I wasn’t offended…i was agreeing with you…
ANNA, would you mind telling us about the lecture?
I wasn’t able to make it because I was busy coughing up my lungs and other internal organs like last year 🙁
Duuuuuuuuuuuude, so was I. 😉 I keed. I stifled my coughing, but just barely. It was so worth it, but I recognize that I’m just 15 minutes from the Freer, while you’re in Bmore, no?
I’ll try to get a post up, summarizing my notes, today…
yes I’m still in bmore 🙁
and awwwww I share your pain. Literally 😛 I hope we both feel better soon.
Check out these video clips of racist/colorstruck Indian TV ads.
Don’t Ethiopian, Somolian, Eritrean and Indian populations share the commonality of haveing Persian and/or Arabic ancestry?
Yes they all have intermingled with each other…but it seems that it’s so taboo to say any one in the list is mixed with black. Even in the Western Hemisphere, where most (over 90%) of the African slaves landed in the Caribbean islands and Latin America, are so in denial of the black/African traits that many of the inhabitants posess.
To comment #64:
To be honest, Africa didn’t break away from India. India (and maybe Madagascar) broke away from Africa, thus slamming into Asia…which may explain the formation of the Himalayas.
yea what Huey said and even after that what matters is what the ppl did. the mid east n india along wit most of what ppl call africa today was mostly one empire. kush, khemet, india etc. all one ppl one nation. the ganges river is named after a ethiopian king. and you clearly see the resemblance between people from india in general and east africans. they people who say noo we have freckles etc are the exception not the norm. the greeks settles mostly in northwest punjab which know is northwest pakistan and afganistan which a big reason why pashtuns look whiter then other groups near them. I never been mistaken for anything but south asian lol. Some asian kids thought I was somalian tho lol. And couple thought I was guyanese which south asian but yea lol. Got Mistaken for somalian mainly cuz like most south asian ppl I got the curly hair and I grew it and it looked like a afro.
If you look stuff up most south asians are basically east africans who liked south asia and over time most of they genes adapted to where they live and now most of they genes are south asian genes which can be traced back to africa. http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/we/we17.htm
also jus to wrap stuff up for any people who think the british helped us. http://india_resource.tripod.com/colonial.html
it goes against common sense to think that a empire that has said that we wanna kill yall n make yall work for us n steal your stuff would want to help make the other country stronger and better.
This make me feelvless guilty about having sex with black dudes.
· Rexdale_Punjabi you are clearly not south asian or are very mistaken the ganges were definately not named after an ethopian king. this does not make any sense. how would ethopians, who have a better chance at conquering the arabian peninsula, conquer india which has a much bigger population. ethopians did not sail to india. they did not have the techonology. if they indeed had the techonology then why is it that the ethopians in the 12 century were taken by arabians as slave soldiers.
“Don’t Ethiopian, Somolian, Eritrean and Indian populations share the commonality of haveing Persian and/or Arabic ancestry?”
No. I am Somali with partial Ethiopian heritage. We are not mixed, I can assure you of that.
you Indians come from Ethiopians/Eritreans/Somalis!
Where do you think you came from?
Thousands of years ago there was a mass migration from East Africa to India.
The people of the Horn of Africa mixed with the Elamites(Who Are Tamils)
That’s why Indians & Ethiopians look so similar. The only real difference between Indians & Ethiopians is the hair. Indians have longer Straighter hair.