The lost Africans of India...

[John P.]

Monday, 27 November, 2000, 09:42 GMT
The lost Africans of India


By the World Today's Andrew Whitehead
Long before the first slave ships started supplying labour to the cotton plantations of the American south, and many centuries before the first Africans were brought ashore to the sugar estates of Brazil and the Caribbean, Africans were being sold as slave-soldiers for India's princely states.

Their descendants are the least visible part of the huge African diaspora.

But today in India, almost lost among the mosaic of different cultures and communities in that country, are tens of thousands of people of African descent.

They are known as Sidis.

Slavery

Although they came at first as slaves, they were so successful as fighters that they at times usurped power from the rulers they were supposed to be serving.


Yet they are now struggling at the margins of Indian society.

"The Sidis are descendants of African slaves, sailors and servants, and merchants who remained in India after arriving through the sea trade with East Africa and the Gulf," says Amy Catlin of the University of California, who is making a special study of Sidi culture.

"That was a process which began in the 12th century or before, and lasted until the late 19th century".

Lost touch

Some Sidis are keenly aware of their past, and a few remain in touch with relatives in Africa.


But in the western Indian state of Gujarat - where most Sidis live - the community has lost touch with its roots.

The village of Jambur, deep in the Gir forest, is one of two exclusively Sidi settlements.

It is miserably poor.

The headman explains that yes, everyone in Jambur is a Sidi.

Their forbears came from Africa.

But they have lost any knowledge of African languages, and don't know where exactly their ancestors came from or why they settled in India.

Music and dance

The only remnant they retain of their African lineage is their music and dance.


This is what Professor Catlin, an ethno-musicologist, hopes to use to fill in the story of the Sidis.

"In Gujarat, affinities with African music include certain musical instruments and their names", she says, "and also the performance of an African-derived musical genre called "goma".

In the nearby town of Junagadh, a smaller group of Sidis lives alongside the shrine of Bava Gor, an ancient Sufi Muslim holyman who was himself of African descent.

Their hold on their African past is a little more secure.

They say they know a few songs in an African language, but not their meaning.

And their dance is more obviously African.

But again, their music, song and dance are the only links with their African past.

Amy Catlin believes that the Sidis of western India came from coastal and inland villages in east Africa which were raided by slave traders.

But that's far from certain.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/so...ia/1035389.stm can see a few pictures also

[CreatorsCollege]

Peace!

There are almost 200,000,000 (200 million) 'East-indians' of African descent in India -the Dalats, who for the most-part form the foundation (the bottom) of India's Hindu "Caste-System'.

Tens of thousands my a*s. Here we go with the dis-information, and the majority of Africans in India DID NOT go there as "slaves," but the first to settle the sub-continent, known to kemetians as Net-Flm (I forgot the spelling) "COUSINS" OF THE kemetians and Ethiopians.

a couple of months ago I did a worksop on Business Plans and an Indian woman who was starting a business in Egypt and I began to talk about business names, I suggests the kemetian name for India, and she thought it was interesting. She is well-educated on the Historical connection of India to Africa and Africans.

Indians, IMO are the MOST colonized people on the planet, and their perverted mis-understanding of hindu-ism fuels their disdain for Africans and the Africans who remain in India who birthed their society and culture.

It is not that Africans in India are relegated to the bottom of the cast-system of social-order because they are "former-slaves," it is the perversion of the Aryan notion in Hindu that equeated "white' with Goodness and "black" with darkness, WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE, THE ARYANS ARE/WERE KNOWN AS AFRICAN PEOPLE!

So as India opens up and becomes more visible, they can use "slavery' as a convenient explanation for African presence there and deny the true foundation of their culture and society.

Devils.

[John P.]

Thanks for the for info this was the first time I heard of the Sidis and I'm glad you pointed out the mis-information for me. thanks i'ma do some more research on the Sedis and once again thank you...1...

[brother kool]

didnt the Aryians defeat the indigenous Dravidians DARK Africoid (got that word from van sertima ) people