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June 13, 2004
REVIEWS: Who are the Siddis?
“Our ancestors were bodyguards to the Maharajas, and tasted their food before they ate. We Siddis were sitting on a treasure-trove of agate in those days, but nowadays if we could only get ‘royalties’ for the agate being taken away by others... we would be grateful... We perform our sacred dances for others, but they treat us like tribals... Other communities have become involved in the administrations of the Gori Pir Shrine...”.
Thus the late respected Siddi elder, Siddi Kamar Badshah, addressed the galaxy of international scholars, learned local dignitaries and other Siddis at the recent conference, “Siddis at the millennium”, thereby putting the main problems of the Siddis of Gujarat into a nutshell. Several of the papers presented in this excellent volume owe their origin to this conference (arranged by the Maharani of Rajpipla in view of her family’s centuries-old jajmani connection with local Siddis), and both the editors, E.A. Alpers and Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy, who are professors at University of California (Los Angeles).
Alpers’ opening essay expresses something of the consensus among the book’s authors regarding Siddi origins, mentioning amongst many other things the archaeological evidence of considerable sea trade from the Harappa civilization of the Indus Valley to the Gulf and Mesopotamia, and the accompanying diaspora of African sailors (free or enslaved) around the Indian Ocean. Discounting the idea of Siddi slave labourers being brought en masse to India, he concedes, however, that with the advent of Islam in India in the 10th century, large numbers of military slaves arrived.
But who was Gori Pir, their Sufi saint and progenitor? Alpers found most Gujarat Siddis saying that he came in the 14th century from Abyssinia to Gujarat in connection with the local agate trade with Africa, this dating being consistent with the significant slave trade from both Abyssinia and Zanzibar at Tiz, a major Makran port. Others hold that he was ‘Lord Siddi Mubarak’, sent to Hindustan ‘to light the lamp of Islam’, though Alpers contends that the name Mubarak suggests slave status.
Meanwhile, Kenoya and Bhan record descriptions of Gori Pir as a wandering religious mendicant and bead trader who finally settled in Nadod (now called Rajpipla), recounting also the fascinating legend concerning one ‘Shaikh Gori Siddi’, reputedly sent from Makkah by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to investigate the brilliant light emanating from Makkan Devi’s lamp. However fanciful, they opine, “(this) associations of Gori Pir with the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) probably reflects a legitimization of (the Siddis’) Islamic heritage...”.
They find the agate bead industry going back to the 3rd millennium BC. Gori Pir, however, developed better techniques, greater productivity, and new styles and markets, the mining having been concentrated all along in the agate bearing gravels at the foot of Gori Pir Hill. Though Siddis have now been forced largely to abandon this work, many of their original 15th century styles are still made, and marketed worldwide for prayer beads and decoration.
But the dargah of Gori Pir in Gujarat, says Helen Basu, basing her statements on over two years’ fieldwork, frequented till the 1980s by the poor and marginalized from the Hindu, Adivasi, Muslim and even the Parsi communities, “... now provides an example of how... shrines and cults may be appropriated by (those) higher on the social scale... and thereby turned into (sites) for enacting communalism”.
The second half of the book devotes much space to the Siddis of Uttara Kannada, the Muslims among them appearing to have migrated principally from Janjira Island south of Mumbai, the Catholics and Hindus from Goa. Most took refuge in the rural and forest areas, though state restrictions may yet drive them out. Their plight, says C. Canara, “...shows the tense situations between Siddis and other Indians, a conflict based also on ‘race’”. But these Siddis have tried to help themselves, with the short-lived All Karnataka Siddi Development Association, followed by the Siddi Development Project. Then in June 2002, Siddis nationwide were finally granted Scheduled Tribe status, which in theory entitles them to educational and employment opportunities, plus political representation. Above all, it has enhanced their sense of common identity.
Perhaps the greatest boost to this ‘Siddiance zat’ has come from the Siddi cultural renaissance charted by the Jesuits of Mangalore, largely through the very prominent role given them in the Feast of the centenary of St Rita of Casica, in which their dances enriched the worship, honoured St Rita and earned recognition of African Indian life situations.
Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy then gives a remarkably fine description of Siddi dance forms, principally their dhamals, and their musical instruments, mentioning cultural events at home and abroad which have brought them pride and due recognition. However, she is concerned about the possible erosion of their “spiritual capital”, since recent media attention, invitations for all-India cultural tours, and increasing pilgrimage to the central Gori Pir shrine in Gujarat, for example, are causing some Siddis “...(to) question whether they are secularizing their sacred traditions ... (though) others hold that these ... are a natural extension of their former tours as fakirs”.
This revealing and valuable book is the product of conscientious and sympathetic research and lengthy fieldwork. But one is forced to regret that in spite of this, and even in this day of computer technology, many of the photographs presented are sadly lacking in terms of clarity, composition, subject matter and reproduction.
Siddis and Scholars: Essays on African Indians
Edited by Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy and Edward A. Alpers
Rainbow Publishers Ltd., A-19, Sector 56, Noida-201, 301, UP, India Available in Pakistan with Indus Publications, 25 Fareed Chambers, Abdullah Haroon Road, Karachi
Tel: 021-566-242 + 480-4129
ISBN: 81-86962-64-6
226pp.
Indian Rs475
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