Tracing roots for Indian Diaspora now easier

New Delhi, Jan 4: For the Indian Diaspora, whose forefathers left the country in the early flush of migration as indentured labourers under the colonial rule, tracing the roots of their ancestry is now going to be much easier and the chances brighter.

Coinciding with the January 7-9 Prabasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) conference, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) is organising a five-day mega event, beginning tomorrow, during which kiosks will be set up for the visiting Diaspora representatives to record all the details about their ancestors, which will serve as the basis for locating them.

Under the project, touted as ''Ancestral Search Programme'', People of Indian Origin (PIOs), who are to attend the programme, will be given forms, seeking information about their ancestors, which will then be used to track down their ancestral town or village.

''The information provided by them, such as the names of their ancestors, the date when they left their motherland and the countries they went, can serve as a data bank. We will collate these details and match with documents like ship registers and immigration records. This will help us locate the place of origin of the people who were forced to work as indentured labourers in alien lands by the colonial rulers,Ò' says Mr. Suresh Pillai, coordinator of the event.

Mr Pillai says ship registers can be a source of vital information, including the names of villages they belonged to. ''Even if we are unable to track down their families here, they can be supplied with a lot of information about the place they originally belong to.Ò' IGNCA member-Secretary K K Chakravarty says there are also many missing links in the cultural ancestry of the Indian Diaspora and the visiting delegates may be interested to make on the spot contributions in the form of paintings, musical instruments, sartorial designs and dramatics.

''We will put up kiosks for this. It is ultimately going to be a sort of knowledge management, but will go a long way in creating a coherent cultural narrative of the diasporic community,Ò' he says, making a strong case for synthesising what he terms ''the diaspora of ideas''.

Titled ''Origins: Creative Tracks of Indian Diaspora,'' the five-day event will include exhibitions, performances, lecture-demonstrations, film shows and seminars to assess the influence of Indian belief systems, cultural and institutional practices on the mores and customs of adopted lands.

For tracking cultural ancestry, the IGNCA proposes to create a Diaspora Cultural Resource Centre, a major objective of which is to bring out a cultural and narrative atlas of the links between mainland and Diasporic India through visual and tactile exhibits. ''One needs a different atlas in view of multi-cultural fabric of the Indian Diaspora. We also plan to bring out a dictionary and a glossary dealing with the Diaspora,'' says Mr Chakravarty, who is also hopeful of the government setting up a Diaspora University.

IGNCA, an autonomous body under the Culture Ministry, can build up modules for such a University, he says, adding that it has already prepared 25 such modules on different dimensions of culture such as Vedic recitation traditions, Ramlila, Ajanta and Carnatic music.

The programme has been conceived as part of the ongoing efforts of IGNCA to recognise, document, disseminate and promote the larger cultural ethos of the Indian Diaspora. The programme looks at the movement of people, evolution of their resource management, sustenance and self-governance strategies and proposes to record their literary, linguistic and artistic achievements from an ethno-anthropological and historical perspective.

Another objective is to make a travelling exhibition, to be critiqued and completed as it travels, and to build a Diaspora Cultural Network for educating the succeeding generations.

According to Mr Chakravarty, intra-diaspora dialogue is as important as inter-Indian diaspora dialogue. ''Every diaspora has its own cultural and economic perspectives and we can promote better economic interactions among them through a cohesive understanding of their commercial and cultural patterns''.

An exhibition of images, artefacts and installations will be mounted during the programme showcasing the migration of Indians as indentured labour and their struggles for retaining their cultural values in a foreign land.

''It is a futuristic project and we are trying to retrieve the diaspora of ideas in East Asia, South East Asia, Central Asia. We are determined to make a beginning in this regard,'' he says.

As part of the events, the artistic expressions and achievements of the Indian Diaspora will also be highlighted.

Other highlight of the programme will be an ''Oral History Archive''. It will record stories related to victories, failures and travails of Indian families and communities abroad.

This audio-visual archive will trace the evolution of their social, cultural and political thought in literature, cinema, art, music, philosophy, religion and rituals generated in new contexts.

It will also store images and information about the tangible and intangible heritage, garnered and nurtured by the Indian Diaspora in the world.

There will also be a film festival presenting a selection of feature and documentary films from the Diaspora, including presentations by the gypsies from Balkans who trace their ancestry to India.

Further, there will be illustrated lectures on ''Indians in West Indies Cricket'', to be chaired by Kapil Dev, and "Hindus'' in Surinam and the Netherlands'' by the Diaspora members.

''Ultimately, we want to create an archive for depositing of material. If it turns into a travelling exhibition both inside the country and outside, it will become an actionable instrument for synthesising the cultural traditions of India,'' says the IGNCA member-secretary.

UNI