Between Africa and India: thinking comparatively across the western Indian Ocean
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W O R K I N G
papers No. 5, 2011
Between Africa and India: thinking comparatively
across the western Indian Ocean
Kai Kresse, ZMO, Edward Simpson, SOAS
Abstract »coasts« but also »borders« and »rims« more ge-
Scholarship on the Indian Ocean is generally com- nerally. This ambiguity corresponds to processes
parative in its approach. In this paper, we draw of inclusion and exclusion, integration and sepa-
from our research experiences on the Swahili and ration, as two kinds of responses to social connec-
Gujarati coasts in order to discuss some of the tions. Indeed, port towns are connecting platforms
epistemological consequences of comparison for for related but different social worlds across the
the ways in which East Africa and Western India sea. The ways then in which the similarities and
have been understood. We critically examine the differences between related social phenomena,
frames and terms of comparison in the work of the material culture and experience are perceived
historian Thomas Metcalf and the anthropologists and conceptualized by people in their respective
A.H.J. Prins, Helene Basu and David F. Pocock. We life worlds on both ends of these connections is
suggest that the personal journeys of scholars, as something that we discuss in more detail below
well as the sources they use, have profoundly in- under the banner of the term »equivalence«.2
fluenced the ways in which they have been able to Equivalence, as a way of seeing the familiar in
write and problematize their own material. the strange, or the same in the other, presents a
number of ethnographic and methodological chal-
lenges to Indian Ocean studies and comparative
Introduction research more generally (not least, as we shall see,
because the processes described apply to resear-
This paper critically compares and contrasts some chers as well as to the subjects of research). At
of the ways the Indian Ocean has been framed in the same time, considering seriously the produc-
academic writing.1 The Indian Ocean is a maritime tion of phenomena and perceptions of equivalence
zone, meaning that human life in the port towns provides a useful conceptual approach to address
and littorals is largely sea-oriented, conditioned these challenges. Equivalence occurs at various
by being positioned adjacent to a watery mass. levels of sensual experience and rationalization.
This includes bridging and filtering functions in Impressions of unity and diversity, and of same-
relation to the social worlds from beyond the sea. ness and difference, across the ocean have to be
The Swahili coast, for example, received its name contextualized and interrogated at ethnographic
from the Arabic »sawahil« (sing. sahil) denoting and historiographic levels with their specific ma-
terials and narratives as well as at the level of wi-
der anthropological and historical exposition. Co-
1 Acknowledgements: Previous versions of this text were
gnitive and imaginative worlds, we suggest, exist
presented at the conference ‘Connecting Histories across
the Indian Ocean: Religion, Politics and Popular Culture’ in in dialogue with the travels and travails of humans
Goa, in November 2009, and at the workshop ‘Trading cultu- through the material world: as the sailor makes a
res across the Indian Ocean’ at ZMO in Berlin, in July 2011. voyage, the voyage, so to speak, makes the sailor.
We thank the participants and especially the organisers of
both events (Preben Kaarsholm, Isabel Hofmeyr, Pamila
Gupta, and Rochelle Pinto; Sebastian Prange and Prem Pod- 2 This is an idea we have taken from the work of the histo-
dar) for stimulating comments and discussions. rian K.N. Chaudhuri (including, 1995, 2006).
Kirchweg 33, D-14129 Berlin
© ZMO 2011 Telefon: 030-80307-0
Fax: 030-80307-210
Internet: www.zmo.de
E-Mail: zmo@rz.hu-berlin.deThe structures of individual movement and perso- a German social anthropologist who has worked nal knowledge are necessarily intertwined. in Gujarat since the 1980s with low-status Sunni While the Indian Ocean is a maritime zone, all Muslims or Siddis, who are popularly thought of too often theorization of it looks from far above, as »African«. She has more recently turned to re- the theorist seeing – god-like, but far from omnis- search in Zanzibar to explore the traces of culture cient – over the waters and lands of the region. that have passed between the two coasts. The final Without dismissing the value of high theory, we author we consider is David Pocock (1928–2007), wish instead to look at the region at the human le- a British social anthropologist who conducted re- vel – ethnographically – a level at which the senses, search in East Africa and later in Gujarat with caste affections and other kinds of concrete transactions Hindus in the 1950s. shape people’s worlds in terms of meaning and The contrasting work of these four scholars structure. This exercise is an initial contribution highlights some of the successes as well as the to what we hope will be a longer project on the me- pitfalls and problems of thinking comparatively chanisms of comparison and heurism across the from shore to shore. Also, we have decided to pick western Indian Ocean, based on our respective telling examples close to our own respective re- research experiences (e.g. Simpson 2006; Kresse gions of expertise, so that our discussion, while 2007) and building on previous joint reflections focussing on general implications, may shed light (Simpson and Kresse 2007). This paper, in a sense, on one particular if broadly conceived sample of a is an ethnographic study – not of our established trans-oceanic axis that is constituted by social mo- field sites (in Kenya and India, the Swahili and Gu- vement but also, as shown in our particular case jarat coasts respectively) – but rather of the work here, by research and scholarship observing and of four scholars of the Indian Ocean who have following such movement. worked in different ways on the axis between East We should also not forget to point out a related Africa and India. Their materials allow us to re- axis of comparative relevance to the cases we are flect on the role of the researcher in generating discussing here, namely the trans-oceanic com- knowledge and frames of reason. Researchers munity constituted by Hadrami networks in the too, we suggest, become Indian Ocean travellers Indian Ocean, running between the Hadramaut of sorts, because how they conduct their research and East Africa (in a south-western direction) and often implicitly determines what and how they can the Hadramaut and South East Asia (in the eas- see, and thus what they ultimately can (and cannot) tern direction). Historians have researched these observe. in depth (for instance, Anne Bang 2003; Ulrike Therefore, our focus is less on the formal theore- Freitag 2003; Freitag and Clarence-Smith 1997; tical devices that have been used to impose order Abu-shoek and Ibrahim 2009) and recently also on an unruly space than on the ways the movement the anthropologist Engseng Ho (2006). Social in- and experience of researchers themselves, as well tegration and engagement of Hadrami diasporas as those of the subjects of their research (who are within the host communities elsewhere, through often also their ›informants‹), have implicitly given Alawiyya Sufi rituals and Islamic education, shape and form to academic writing. Our primary through trade and through intermarriage with focus is not on those commonly known for their local women, were an important characteristic forthright statements about the Indian Ocean, of these networks. Yet it seems all this happened but on those whose work has compelled them to with a view to a commonly assumed prerogative of address, in other ways, questions of authenticity, the »homeland« in the Hadramaut, to which social scale and power in the region. We regard this as links are sustained and a return expected, even if a call for a proper treatment of research as an only temporary (e.g. as pilgrims). In his interpre- epistemological practice in the multiple sites of tation of this relationship, Ho emphasizes that the the Indian Ocean. In this, the paper is a practical Hadrami Alawiyya model rhetorically insists on contribution to the literature on methodology. a hierarchical relation between Tarim in the Ha- Our first traveller is Adriaan Hendrik Johan dramaut as »ancestral source« and any other re- Prins (1921-2000), a Dutch anthropologist who gion to which connections have been established. conducted fieldwork on the Kenyan port town of This contrasts with our conceptual interest here in Lamu and the wider Swahili coast from the late circling around the idea of »equivalence« between 1950s onward, with a special focus on seafaring. connected littorals across the ocean. In the Had- His writing drew strongly on Robert Redfield’s rami case, according to Ho, things that return or differentiation between great and little traditions, are given in exchange from somewhere else »are then very much in fashion in the South Asian schol- not equivalents« but inferior (2006: 93), and »reci- arship of the period. Second in line is the American procity is not possible« (2006: 94). This argument historian of the British Raj, Thomas Metcalf. He applies to incoming people, too, who are qualified has written on the imperial connections of Britain either as »descendants« and »inferiors« (insiders in the Indian Ocean in the late nineteenth and ear- to the networks) or as »aliens or guests« (2006: ly twentieth centuries. Our third is Helene Basu, 94). Ho´s work represents an alternative model of ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 2
trans-oceanic connectivity to one ordered around While this may be unfalsifiable in the abstract, it is
»equivalence« that we are trying to explore here. not a tenable theoretical position for a social scien-
We are looking at social groups like the Siddis (fol- tist investigating particular phenomena or a parti-
lowing Basu) or Hindu castes (looked at on both cular region. For a variety of pragmatic reasons,
coasts, following Pocock), or the Bhadalas, a group researchers have to draw rhetorical or heuristic
of seafarers originally from today’s Gujarat who boundaries around their material and organize
can be found in contemporary Mombasa and other their personal time. However, despite criticism of
East African parts. the ways such historical narratives glossed over
the details of regional trade and polity (see for ex-
The theoretical ocean ample Arasaratnam 1990), the paradigm of unity
Fernand Braudel (1972) is commonly attributed and diversity has remained popular for looking
with having introduced the idea that the unity of onto the waters of the Ocean.
a cultural and geographical area can also be defi- Scholars specializing in regional studies are
ned by the movements of people across the water often faced with the same problems as the macro-
at its centre rather than by the lands around its historians we have briefly discussed: where does
periphery. In his writing, the sea is a place of hu- maritime society stop and land society start? And,
man activity defined by journeys and exchanges as it is nearly always concluded that land and sea
and specifically the cultures of the merchants, form distinct types of sociality (see for example
sailors, traders, pilgrims, migrants and other tra- Braudel 1972: 187), what is the relationship bet-
vellers crossing it. K.N. Chaudhuri (1999) later ween the two forms? »Maritime culture«, an idea
adopted this approach to suggest that the Indi- elaborated by A.H.J. Prins (1965) in the monograph
an Ocean region included land networks; the sea Sailing from Lamu – on which we comment further
unites people and places through recognizable below and which has also been a source for concep-
systems of exchange, but distance and cultural tual reflection by others (Reinwald 2002: 13-14) –
differences continue to create significant divide. refers to a particular set of relationships given by
According to him, diverse aspects and features trade, shipping and fishing between people and
like travel, movements of population, climate, pe- the sea that distinguish them from landlubbers. In
riods of colonisation, proficiency in sea travel and his analysis, Lamu becomes a »little world« for-
religion (especially Islam) give unity in the Indian med by maritime rhythms and the movement of its
Ocean. Diversity, in contrast, becomes apparent people on ships. He asserted that such culture is
in social systems and cultural traditions such as »open« rather than »closed« and is continuously
food, clothing, housing and religion (for instance, influenced by the voyages and interactions of its
Islam). Indeed, the case of Islam illustrates the dy- members (1965: 57). Drawing from Redfield’s no-
namic tensions between social unity and diversity, tions of »great« and »little« traditions, Prins went
for instance, when the expansion of the religious further to argue that Lamu »represents the local
sphere reorders patterns of regional political af- ›little civilization‹ corresponding with the ›great
filiation, or when competing factions promulgate civilization‹ of Arabia and Persia« (ibid.). He also
different interpretations of it in public, thus em- saw Lamu as a »little« culture in relation to East
phasizing social tensions among Muslims. Nile Africa’s »great« trading settlements of Mombasa
Green (2011) has aptly captured this in his recent and Zanzibar, both of which were much more af-
work on the »religious economy« of the western fected by Western culture than Lamu itself was.
Indian Ocean. Green employs the paradigm of a In terms of analysis, Lamu is thus given a double
marketplace to represent the internal and yet far- cultural focus reflecting two »great civilizations«
reaching trans-oceanic dynamics around the ne- (Islamic and Western) that are, as he says, »mir-
gotiation and transformation of competing forms rored in one glass« (ibid.); it is in relation to these
of Islam »on offer« to the faithful in and through that Lamu’s own features are measured, its little
the colonial cosmopolis of Bombay. In Chaudhuri’s maritime world being connected and influenced at
view, in any case, the diversity evident in the whole different levels and several sides.
is itself evidence of a unity of sorts. This is be- Many historians have found it productive to
cause the diversities are of particular kinds and consider the Indian Ocean a unified space with a
therefore the whole should be thought of as being history distinguishable from that of other spaces.
a particular type as well. Kenneth McPherson (1993) defined the Indian Oce-
Chaudhuri emphasized trade as the unifying an as a »world« that was identifiable by its distinct
mechanism of the region, perhaps to the neglect patterns of trade; however, through the analysis of
of other social aspects of life. Echoing the world »cultural diffusion and interaction« (1993: 3), he
systems approach of Wallerstein, the conclusion was able to conclude that the Indian Ocean was not
that diversity is evidence of unity is ultimately not a homogenous cultural area in any straightforward
very helpful, for taking this idea to its logical con- sense. He regarded any commonality between re-
clusion would be to suggest that everything is con- gions as determined by trade and the exchanges
nected to everything else in much the same way. (material or otherwise) that it entailed. Michael
ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 3Pearson (1985) has also suggested that the Ocean ring (music, the call to prayer and language use,
is not a region shaped or unified by a diffuse un- for instance) – as Andrew Eisenberg (2009) has re-
derstanding of commonality or structure. This is cently shown in a fascinating study of Mombasa’s
because littoral people often tend to follow multip- postcolonial soundscape. Experiences of familiari-
le frameworks of identification, cultivating a strong ty and difference, feeling »at home« or »strange«
sense of belonging both to their countries and to when elsewhere, are created in this way. Equi-
wider patterns of social membership, such the Mus- valence might also be found in patterns of local
lim world. Several frames of social belonging and architecture and the shaping of social spaces in
cohesion apply to littoral people at the same time ways that may be seen as typical for a region. Here
– more so than to landlocked people, the argument we are thinking of daily street-side meeting points
goes. Pearson also says it is hard to overestimate for men of the neighbourhood, where news, gossip
the importance of cultural brokers, who mediate and political opinions are exchanged among peers.
meaning between different littoral communities Such gatherings exist on both sides of the ocean;
within historical processes of communication and they are called otlas in Gujarati and barazas in
mutual understanding (Pearson 2010). Swahili, where topics range from jokes to matters
With emphasis on a process-oriented historical of personal concern and political debate. Equiva-
approach, the concept of »seascape« has been in- lence might also occur in religious ritual – as in the
troduced and pushed, as it »accounts for different variety of terms and forms of Islamic prayer that
– converging and conflicting – ways of relating to David Parkin and others (2000) have discussed.
and representing this historical, social and cultu- Or it might occur in the immediate resonance of
ral space«, the Indian Ocean (Reinwald 2002: 18). seemingly familiar designs and motifs, iconogra-
Here, the idea is to focus on processes and move- phies and shapes, people’s gestures, postures and
ments of different kinds as well as on a multiplicity bodily movements (e.g. when walking in public as
of perspectives applicable to the ocean as the kind an identifiable member of a certain group) and so
of flexible space that it is or represents, a »space forth.
on the move« (ibid.). This approach draws inspira- Our assumption here is that just as people who
tion from Prins’ conception of »maritime culture« are moving between distant ports and littorals may
(as we described above and will discuss further »recognise« or »identify« a particular object or ha-
below), but critically distances itself from any as- bit from home in the layout or a façade of a faraway
sumption of normative homogeneity and ahistori- town or in the ways people carry themselves, at
cal character. This goes along with our own dis- another level they may also see the shape and fea-
cussion of historical and dynamic trans-oceanic tures of their home society in the societies of the
social axes of movement and connectivity across places they visit – and in the process contribute to
Indian Ocean littorals. the elaboration of that culture. As anthropologists
however, we are not simply interested in types of
The ethnographic ocean physical and material equivalences, such as whe-
This is not the first time we have written together; ther doors look similar in India and Africa because
previously, we have struggled to understand the carpenters of Indian descent manufacture doors in
influence of historical processes on our ethnogra- Africa. We are also interested in the less tangible
phy (Simpson and Kresse 2007). We have now be- equivalences of social form, such as the structu-
come interested in exploring ethnographically the res and relational patterns of religion, caste, eth-
traces of Gujarat in Mombasa and of the Swahili nicity and language. It is already well known, for
coast in India, as we will move in future joint re- instance, that what appears as »Indian« in East
search to outline one of the many »elsewheres« to Africa may not find a simple equivalence in India,
be found in both of our field sites. In the longer as what appears »Indian« may have emerged in
term, we are interested in identifying similarities Africa as an Indian response to conditions in Afri-
and continuities between the two places, in order ca. Indeed, there is evidence in the literature (see
to understand the transformation of beliefs and Pocock 1957a, 1957b for example) showing, quite
practices as they have made journeys along with unsurprisingly in fact, that »Indians« in Africa are
people across the western Indian Ocean and be- sometimes quite different from Indians in India,
come part of a wider world of circulation and cul- their transformation being at least in part a direct
ture in their acquired contexts. response to the conservative or authoritarian com-
The notion of »equivalence«, we think, provides pulsions of community leaders in India.
one way of thinking through a comparative exer- At the same time, of course – and this is perhaps
cise, especially in relation to the politics of vision sometimes exaggerated – Indians are also part of
and patterns of resemblance. At one level, seeing networks of various kinds that span the ocean,
similarities on strange shores may remind the tra- keeping Indians in Africa connected to India and
veller of home and in the process create new visu- therefore in a constant dialogue with their own
al, emotional and psychological bonds. The same senses of cultural difference. Therefore, we wish
applies to aural connections and processes of hea- particularly to scrutinise the idea that networks
ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 4tend to homogenise culture or are based on ho- bivalence as a kind of leitmotif for understanding
mogenous conceptions of culture. Although we social behaviour. In concrete terms, he links this
have used concepts of continental, national and to a certain forbearance and tolerance on the part
regional cultures here as a way of introducing our of Lamu people – who are almost exclusively Mus-
problem, in terms of ethnography we are primarily lim – about co-citizens, neighbours, and kin. As an
interested in these processes at the level of caste, illustration, he mentions relatively open marriage
community, religious association, relations among rules and the possibility (and social acceptability)
communities and individuals’ self-positioning pro- of change in group affiliations. Prins also points to
cesses within them. In this paper however, we first openness toward strangers and alludes to a cer-
of all seek to explore the ways other researchers tain sense of urban social egalitarianism when he
have travelled in and across the western Indian says that strangers »have always been accepted
Ocean and how they have made connections bet- into society on an equal footing, provided they em-
ween things they have seen in their writing. We braced Islam« (1965: 269). Here, Prins invokes the
now turn to this subject. example of Mombasa’s (related) history, in which
the so-called »nine tribes«, as part of the core ur-
A.H.J Prins: »maritime culture« – an analytic ban groups, are commonly presented as the »ori-
link? ginal« founding citizens of the town, while they
As we have indicated above, the Dutch anthropo- were actually constituted by fugitive groups from
logist A.H.J. Prins provides some stimulating ideas the northern Swahili coast looking for shelter and
about »maritime culture« that are useful when a new home in Mombasa in the 17th century.3
thinking about an analytic link across the ocean. The reference to Mombasa links our report on
In his monograph Sailing from Lamu (1965), sea- Prins’ »maritime culture« to our task of reflecting
related activities like sailing, shipbuilding, and upon a specific trans-oceanic axis that we seek to
fishing in a social context centrally characterise engage with further in jointly conducted empiri-
people and social life in Lamu town, the main port cal research. Adaptivity, openness, tolerance and
of Lamu Island in an archipelago of islands just off the integration of strangers into the urban com-
the Northern Kenyan coast. This is similar to how munity are features that certainly resonate with
Simpson (2006) describes the port of Mandvi on our ethnographic experiences in Mombasa and
the Gujarat coast. In his ethnography of the spe- Kutch (Mandvi) respectively. Yet all of this hap-
cific and characteristic sea-related activities, con- pens along particular lines and following certain
cerns and performances around which social life broadly understood rules. It does not mean that in-
revolves in the port town of Lamu on the northern tolerance, prejudice, ethnocentrism and a certain
Swahili coast, Prins qualifies (and partly quanti- (sometimes vocal) unease vis-à-vis »outsiders« was
fies by means of statistics) »maritimity« in rela- altogether lacking from the scene – and indeed the
tion to the frequency of expression and the level ethnographic and historical literature confirms
of importance of such activities within a society the presence of both these aspects, too. But it
(Prins 1965: 4). Based on his approach, a specific seems important that influential insiders can use
coastal urban context within a wider network of the overarching system flexibly to push their case,
related ports, and with a range of (established or in either direction. It provided pathways, loopho-
potential) social contacts and reference points to les and justifications to make (or declare) someone
social »elsewheres« in the (far or near) distance an »insider« in whom one had an interest – and
where these activities matter too, characterises a thus to increase one’s number of affiliates, associ-
particular »maritime culture«. ates and dependants within the given framework.
In Prins’ concluding reflections, this is qualified Even though distinct and exclusive ideologies
for Lamu by carving out two series of loosely as- of urban social hierarchy existed on the Swahili
sociated analytic terms that express typical »clus- coast (though Prins does not really go into this)
ters of properties« that he regards as underpinning and were pronounced from time to time, Prins’
»maritimity« in the example of Lamu. According to main point seems to be that social practice largely
Prins, these relate to basic characteristics of Lamu tended to facilitate rather than obstruct integra-
social life, prominently among them »discontinui- tion, not least out of the citizens’ own pragmatic
ty« (abruptness, intermittency), »swagger« (vivaci- self-interest.
ty, exaggeration or »fundamental joyfulness«), and Now, if a bottom line of Prins’ approach to ma-
»ambivalence« (1965: 272–4). Prins also attests a ritime culture and ethos is that »ambivalence«
certain lack of clear-cut and valid norms and stan- and (in response) »adaptivity« are the two ma-
dards in everyday life and speaks of a »somewhat jor and related key terms for conceiving socie-
informal social structure« – particularly in com- ty here, what have we gained? We seem to have
parison to Arab communities across the ocean. At arrived at a kind of conceptual grounding of how
the base of what he calls a »maritime ethos«, he
sees »adaptivity« to dynamic and constantly chan-
ging circumstances within a scenario of social am- 3 See Berg 1971; for a summary, see Kresse 2007: 45-50.
ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 5the »open« character of maritime towns is consti- of equivalence, too. With this in mind, we ask whe- tuted. Rephrased again in our own terms, it seems ther Prins’ qualification of »maritimity«, as a con- that the littoral exposure to a multiplicity of so- structively peaceful and mediating frame of mind, cial contacts leads to tensions and opportunities is a truism, a somewhat romanticised ideal; or is it (that is, »ambiguity«) that are then taken on and after all ethnographically sound and able to carry dealt with in flexible and pragmatic terms (reflec- us further conceptually? We will return to these ting »adaptivity«) specific to the situation and the questions in our conclusion. needs of the social actors involved. Based on his ethnographic experience, Prins seems convinced Thomas Metcalf: »Imperial connections« that the accommodating features of social flexi- across the Indian Ocean bility, practical adjustment and making do within In a recent historical account of the links between different scenarios of social tension characterise colonial India and East Africa, Thomas Metcalf paradigms of behaviour in Lamu and ultimately re- (2007) suggests that India was at the centre of present core features of »maritime culture« more the British Empire, in a more pronounced sense widely. According to him, maritime culture thus than scholarship has thus far acknowledged. The responds to situations of ambiguity and ambiva- existence of the Raj in India made possible and lence – common on littorals, as they are brought provided a continuous logistical base and support about by a wide variety of contacts and connec- for British conquest, control and governance in tions to social worlds from beyond the urban com- East Africa (and in other parts of Asia) – not least munity – by mediating strategies, such as bridging through the formation of Indian armies. Thus, from differences and integrating strangers. This is in the perspective of the British Empire, colonial In- contrast, as Prins implies, to more strictly inter- dia was the place from which people, ideas, goods preted and upheld norms (of Islam, for example) and institutions radiated outwards, particular- as to be found in other (Muslim) environments (for ly from Calcutta, Madras and, most interestingly instance those on the Arab peninsula) that oppo- for our purposes, Bombay. Metcalf suggests that se »mixing« (across ethnic, linguistic and gender an India-centred imperial web defined the Indi- lines) in social interaction more strictly than the an Ocean of the nineteenth century – the »British urbanites on the Swahili coast. While this seems lake«. India was not just a colony among others, convincing and conceptually appealing, especially but the centre of the Empire and a testing ground for our purposes, we nevertheless wonder whether for imperial techniques. Thus, for example, during the same conclusion might not have been arrived the nineteenth century, the experience, inspirati- at by intuition or simple assumption, without re- on and precedents of law and administration deve- course to empirically grounded conceptual work. It loped in India were exported almost wholesale to does, indeed, seem almost commonsensical to say East Africa. Perhaps the most poignant example of that port towns and their inhabitants anywhere in the influence of »Greater India« is that the gauge the world might appear more tolerant and open in on the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria was character than landlocked and less-connected so- selected to match Indian standards rather than cial environments because of the high degree of those in use in Sudan or South Africa. contact with outsiders that they have. Of course, Indians had commercial settlements But could not more contact with social other- along the coasts of eastern and southern Africa ness and the tensions that this may bring about long before the arrival of British imperialism. How- also (and just as well) lead to a greater sense of ever, during the nineteenth century the growth of aversion and antagonism towards strangers – the Indian commerce in East Africa coincided with opposite of openness and integration? And could the expansion of the Omani Empire, marked most it be that what Prins described as »openness« (in forcibly by the relocation of the Muscat sultanate a good sense) is sometimes actually general »in- from Oman to Zanzibar by Sultan Said in 1840, difference« (possibly in a bad sense)? Might the and the expansion of the British colonial interest regular comings and goings of different kinds of in the region. The merchants involved were mostly strangers lead to a greater and more profound from Kutch and Kathiawad (regions today encom- sense of civil indifference? In such circumstan- passed by the state of Gujarat), and they moved, ces, might not crude stereotypes be called upon often with great success, into trade, moneylending as a form of shorthand for pretending to under- and customs collection in the ports of East Africa. stand and thus categorise difference? It is striking These transient mercantile communities formed too that in Gujarat the maritime folk are forced the basis for subsequent and more permanent sett- together because they are not trusted; sometimes lements of Indians in Africa later on. their neighbours who remain largely on the land During the early decades of British colonialism, despise them. The seafarers are denigrated, at- Metcalf argues, East Africa became almost an ex- tributed low status and dressed in the clothes of tension of India itself, as the land was promoted bad habits. Such forms of learned indifference, with the slogan »an America for the Hindu«. In the stereotyping and structures of hostility are forms late nineteenth century, the colonial government ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 6
actively encouraged Indians to settle in East Af- Metcalf’s approach and his material are worth rica, convinced that their industriousness would considering. First, it is almost obvious that, if one enhance the conditions of the country and that reads the English-language records of imperial the climate would be suitable to their physiology. correspondence that radiated from Calcutta, Mad- According to colonial administrative logic, »the ras and Bombay, then the visible world is going to Indian« could be a teacher to »the African« and take the form of that correspondence. Other con- initiate a salutary process of supposed »racial im- nections, languages and materials are necessarily provement« within a clearly framed tripartite hie- written out, and the effect is to read the Empire as rarchy of races that would itself be transferred to it imagined and structured itself through writing, British colonial Africa. not as it actually was. Here, in a sense, the Empire These ways of thinking about the categorisati- made itself though writing, as the writing made on and ordering of India’s people also found ex- the Empire, but here Metcalf does not touch upon pression in the new colonies in Africa. As officials the important tangle of this relationship. struggling to understand what they saw in these Second, Chaudhuri and others have enraged the little-known environments, they drew on their ex- historians of Africa by writing history for Africa periences of learning to see in India as well as on through the lives and works of colonials and Indi- administrative precedents in the more abstract ans without recourse to Africans – and the same sense. It has been well documented on both sides charge could be levelled at Metcalf’s work: Afri- of the Indian Ocean how colonial policies shaped cans are largely invisible, other than as slaves and new realities of local societies as »castes«, and as manifestations of European colonial prejudices. »tribes« were reified and the hierarchical rela- Africa too appears largely without consequence in tions between people were codified in new ways the formation of the techniques of those who ruled (for India see Dirks 2001; for Africa see Vail 1989, it. By looking at Africa from Bombay, we also miss Lentz 1995). However, the classification of people movements along the coast of Africa and interac- was determined not just by the census and gazet- tions among Africans. India and its inhabitants are teer approach to dividing and cataloguing populati- also homogenised, as differences among Indians ons, for the imperial project also inscribed a racial in terms of caste, religion and politics are glossed hierarchy in the Indian Ocean in which the Indian over; significant differences within India – differen- was »in the middle« with Europeans »above« and ces in law and administrative structure between Africans »below« (this was visible in British East the presidencies for example – are collapsed into a Africa as much as later in apartheid South Africa). homogenising narrative of colonial India as one. In As an integral part of the colonial expansion, Met- this sense, Metcalf’s book illustrates how an Asia- calf suggests, Indians came to imagine themsel- centred approach that addresses and rebalances ves as »imperial citizens« away from home, when a standard vision of Europe as a normative role travelling overseas, as they also came face to face model or measure may itself lose sight not only of with an emerging sense of their »nationality« in other (here African) agents involved, but also over- various ways. simplify and conflate aspects of Indian history. While there are clearly historical antecedents If however, as we have suggested, we treat to the conceptualisation of racial hierarchy in the Metcalf’s work as representing a sample of the Indian Ocean, the experience of race and identity knowledge practices of Empire, then we can also in the colonial era led into pre- and post-colonial see that, at least as far as India was concerned, nationalist movements and relations between Indi- Africans in Africa were in fact regarded as largely an and African subjects in the Indian Ocean arena: irrelevant, noncitizens, people without rights and crudely put, Indians in Africa became pariahs to duties. Colonial epistemology created a hierarchy the Africans, and as pariahs looked down upon the of races and citizens and the Indians shared in this Africans surrounding them. In a sense, new forms wisdom. of racial society were formed in the Indian Ocean Celebratory Gujarati literature from the ear- that had very particular consequences. National ly twentieth century on the Indian colonisation or continental identity became suffused with es- of East Africa describes the pioneers as masters sentialised notions of identity, and Indians remain and kings of the land, and Africans are generally Indians in East Africa despite centuries of settle- painted in tones equally as derisive as in colonial ment. discourses (see Sampat 1940 as a representative In some ways, it is tempting to apply Metcalf’s instance). argument about the creation of the Indian Ocean From Metcalf, then, we take the idea that no- region through the colonial categories of India to tions of race and caste in the colonial Indian Oce- the academic writing on the colonial Indian Ocean, an may have had Indian precedents; but when such where the most hegemonic of sources have been modes of categorisation came into play elsewhere, those of British Imperialism and the artefacts of in East Africa for example, they also encountered that enterprise continue to be used to represent other modes of identity articulation. Although ad- history. However, a number of limitations to both ministrative practice from India may have survived ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 7
more or less intact in the offices of Empire, on the Their self-understanding and ritual practice in the
ground other regimes of distinction continued to contemporary setting, as well as their low but ack-
operate and produced new forms of identity and nowledged status in South Asian society within a
inter-ethnic modes of classification. recognised social niche understood in terms of
»caste«, all relate back to this narrative. As Basu
Helene Basu: narratives of mission and origin explains, the narrative, as well as the performa-
creating »home« as »other« tive processes of Siddi self-representation and so-
The German anthropologist Helene Basu speaks cial engagement (as fakirs, jesters, and guardians
about the challenge of a certain »methodological of shrines), picks up on »ambivalence« as a main
dilemma« for anthropologists working in the In- feature of historical background and social expe-
dian Ocean region, caused by the trans-regional rience. Through processes of »inversion«, various
nature of the object and range of inquiry (2007: aspects and facets of ambivalence are then trans-
291). Discussing drumming and praying as ritual formed into positive identity markers, resulting in
healing and religious mediation practices within the close association or identification with heroes,
the Siddi community across time and space in re- saints and healers.
lation to African healing cults, Basu expresses re- In this section, we recount Basu’s general cha-
gret that the disciplinary and conceptual toolbox racterisation of the Siddis and summarise her main
that researchers have at their disposal to conduct arguments about the role that narrative memory
analysis is often limited to clear-cut »regional« pa- and ritual practice play for their self-positioning in
radigms, such as »South Asia« and »East Africa«. society, or their social niche in the contemporary
This is not helpful for the process of understan- South Asian world in which they are embedded –
ding what is going on or how things are related. In even if under conditions of ambivalence and some-
fact, it often obstructs researchers from coming times perception as socially »other« potentially
to grips with complex social realities. Clear-cut associated with »elsewhere«. The presentation, lo-
»regionally« defined boxes of analysis are inap- cation and justification of the Siddi self within the
propriate because the local people to be represen- strongly hierarchical framework of South Asian so-
ted in the ethnography often draw on (potentially ciety is to be understood within this framework of
faraway) conceptions and histories outside and rules, idioms and terminologies. How Siddis make
beyond those kinds of boxes – as Basu shows the reference to »Africa«, whether explicitly or impli-
Siddis do. citly, is not a given, nor can any lines of argument
Helene Basu is one of a few contemporary an- be anticipated without close attention to ethnogra-
thropologists with long-term fieldwork and re- phic detail itself.
search experience with a community that is fun- Basu’s thoroughly worked out ethnography pre-
damentally trans-oceanic, in terms of origin and sents a particularly well-grounded and well-con-
self-presentation: the so-called Siddis on the Gu- textualized case vis-à-vis the recent trend of light
jarat coast (Basu 1995, 1998, 2007, 2008). Situa- research to present versions of »Africa in India«
ted historically between East Africa and western and »Indians in Africa« and vice-versa (see for
India, group members clearly position their home example Jayasuriya and Angenot 2008; Hawley
within contemporary South Asia – in contrast to 2008). Basu cautions against a free and uncritical
many other diasporic groups. Their ancestors are use of »diaspora« as an analytic concept – as this
said to have migrated from eastern Africa to Gu- is often not appropriate for the way that migrant
jarat through different channels: as soldiers (from communities across the Indian Ocean live, how
old Ethiopia or Abyssinia) who participated in they see themselves and how they conduct their
the fourteenth-century Turkish-Ottoman military daily lives among others in littoral societies else-
conquests of Gujarat and Cambay via Persia;4 as where. Here, we characterise the main features of
slaves (from East and Central Africa) who came her account and think about what it can offer (in
to India through the trade market hub of Zanzi- terms of inspiration, possibilities and constraints)
bar during the nineteenth century; and also as for our project of thinking through »equivalence«
sailors or other travellers. According to Basu, sla- between African and Indian littorals, both ethno-
very does not feature in Siddi historical narratives graphically and theoretically.
and ritual commemorations of their origins. The The Siddis in Gujarat are socially organised
focus is squarely on a legendary rescue mission around the shrines of three Sufi saints of African
launched by three saintly ancestral figures, cast origin. These are one woman and two men who are
as siblings who represent African Muslims from said to have been siblings. The location of the dar-
different parts of the continent, who come to Guja- gah (shrine) of all three is mostly referred to by
rat to liberate their Muslim peers from evil forces the name of the eldest brother, Bava Gor (properly
in the shape of a demoness troubling the region. Siddi Mubarak Nobi), who has been known to lo-
cal historians as a holy Abyssinian man since at
least the sixteenth century (Basu 2008: 229). His
4 See e.g.Misra (1964: 13–14). younger brother is called Bava Habash and the
ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 8youngest sister Mai Mishra. According to Siddi Socially, the Siddi groups have arranged them-
legend, they came to Gujarat to rid the Gujarati selves as fakirs and other kinds of ritual healing
towns of the danger of a Hindu demoness threa- experts, shrine caretakers and mediators between
tening to kill their populations. Bava Gor, the el- common visitors and the pirs (saints), and so they
dest, led an army overland from Mecca while Bava see themselves following in the footsteps of their
Habash took dhows from near Abyssinia to sup- sacred ancestors. The pathway of this (African-
port his brother. Mai Mishra with her group came inspired) kind of Indian Sufism with its vivacious
by dhow as well. Notably, it was the young sister and ecstatic practices, however, as Basu makes
Mai Mishra who – as the female force needed to clear, is in marked contrast to most other forms
match the female threat – ultimately succeeded in of Sufism, e.g. those that highlight literacy, bodily
overcoming the demoness after the brothers were restraint and piety (often associated with higher
stuck in a critical standoff situation with her. social status).
The three legendary siblings represent Africa As this cannot be a comprehensive overview, let
as historical background and legendary homeland us turn to some of the instances of »inversion« that
to the Siddis: Bava Gor, also called Nobi, stands are at work here in the Siddi narrative of self-pre-
for the Nubian (wider Sudanic) heritage, Bava Ha- sentation and self-affirmation that picks up on (and
bash for Abyssinia (old Ethiopia) and Mai Mishra has to position itself vis-à-vis) the historical and
for Egypt (Misri). The Siddi community identifies social experience of »ambivalence« – both of which
them as the highest-ranking Sufi (Muslim) saints Basu discusses explicitly. The dark skin and frizzy
and at the same time also as their ultimate African hair by which Siddi are easily identified, and iden-
ancestral spirits (2008: 231). Thus we see a conver- tify themselves, within wider Gujarati society, are
gence of religious status, descent, ritual expertise taken by Siddis as indicators of blessings and ma-
and healing power indicated in the saintly African gical powers taken over from the saintly ancestors.
pirs. This is paralleled on a communal level, with This is in distinct contrast to Gujarati standards of
the descendants shaping a loosely endogamous beauty and the representation of sincerity, which
community within which the properties of karamat seems pejoratively biased against »black« people
(special powers) are believed to be passed on. In (the reasons for which we partially touched upon
particular, these powers are exercised through in the section on Thomas Metcalf).
spirit possession and related healing techniques Slavery, a historical fact and burden for the Sid-
enacted in ritual settings, including drumming di community, is absent from the legendary foun-
and invocational praying (dua) along the lines of the ding narrative as conveyed to us here. The whole
ngoma healing cults of Central and South-Eastern story, which is central to social identification as
Africa (see Janzen 1992). Basu goes as far as to say »Siddi«, appears as a narrative of heroism in which
that, through the Siddi groups, »African spiritua- the main characters from Africa are cast as Mus-
lity as embedded in ngoma cults of affliction has lim role models who become saints. Here, Islamic
been reconstructed by Indian Ocean travellers far idioms of decency, proper behaviour and morality
beyond the shores of Africa« (2007: 318). are integrated as well. Also, the historical experi-
At this point, however, we wonder how justifia- ence of slavery and the powerlessness of individu-
ble this assertion of a historical »reconstruction« als as objects who are acted upon, traded, owned
can be. Without dropping the important point that and determined by others, is inversely transfor-
Basu is making, perhaps this statement about med. The extremely strong and superseding ritual
trans-oceanic equivalence need not be cast in such power ascribed to the saints and, by association,
bold and presumptive terms – keeping in mind that to Siddi experts comes to them through possession
a historical reconstruction here seems as far out rituals and patterns carrying an »African« tinge.
of reach as reliable information about the status of Along with performative aspects of drumming and
ngoma cults in Africa during the historical period dancing there is a particular point about gender
in question. It may be sufficient to speak of »family (and female empowerment) involved, as here it is
resemblances« that provide traces or indications markedly women who are possessed and active
of historical influences and commonalities. We as healers – in contrast to how possession is com-
find stimulating the points that Basu presents so monly found in South Asia. In India, the Siddis are
carefully throughout her work about structural in- perceived by others and themselves as jokers and
fluences and appropriations from an African past jesters within their social environment, represen-
upon South Asian social actors today, when thin- ting aspects of fun, enjoyment, wit and the playful
king about trans-oceanic »equivalence«: how are performance of sociality. These seem to be parti-
the (seemingly) »same« ritual and healing practi- cular features or social markers of Siddis, in stark
ces employed, justified, called and performed in a contrast (as mentioned above) to many other Sufis
social context in which the linguistic, cultural and who emphasise restraint, silence, bodily composu-
religious paradigms follow somewhat different cri- re and asceticism as forms of piety.
teria and have different histories? What comes across in Basu’s account is that Sid-
dis are, and should be seen as, Indians with a his-
ZMO Working Papers 5 · K. Kresse / E. Simpson · Between Africa and India · 2011 9tory from elsewhere (Africa) – yet casting them as spent time in Zanzibar and Dar-es-Salaam, but
»Africans« in India is unhelpful and makes only this is less well documented. Little of this re-
limited sense in the light of their own endeavours. search was published at the time; some appeared
It also neglects the long-term historical proces- later, framed by subsequent research conducted in
ses of social assimilation of incoming groups over Central Gujarat. As Pocock himself recalled, »My
(many) generations. As Basu says (and as we have field-work started in East Africa before I had had
seen here), »in Gujarat, Africans were assimilated experience of the fully articulated caste system. It
into the local society in terms of indigenous ca- was an initial and naive attempt to establish some
tegories of hierarchy, caste ( jamat) and religion sort of ranking as I supposed should exist that re-
(as Muslim fakirs)« (2007: 297). They found their vealed the variety and contradictory nature of the-
niche and developed their position within the exis- se characterizations [of caste hierarchy]« (1957a:
ting (and somewhat flexible) social system. In the 296, fn. 13).
same context, with a view to contemporary poli- It seems the experience of Indians in East Af-
tics, Basu highlights that Siddis in Gujarat today rica, however naive he thought it was, had conse-
are struggling for rights equal to those of people quences for the way Pocock saw India. This way
who are already recognised as »original inhabi- of seeing distinguished him from his contempora-
tants« (Adivasi). In terms of political recognition ries and left a somewhat irregular imprint on his
and their self-understanding as Indians in contem- work. Pocock assumed, and fieldwork confirmed
porary India, they seem to have little interest in to him, that the social organisation of Indians in
and no benefit from using explicit reference to »Af- East Africa had not simply accompanied migrants
rica« (2007: 298). unaltered across the Indian Ocean. Comparing
Bouglé’s model of the caste system, based on hi-
David Pocock: re-thinking caste in Gujarat erarchical organisation, hereditary specialisation
through an East African lens and reciprocal repulsion, with what he saw in East
David Pocock was a student of Evans-Pritchard, Africa, Pocock (1957a) concluded that the first two
the renowned Oxford anthropologist of eastern conditions were not fulfilled and therefore the-
Africa, in the 1950s. Pocock was best known for re was no caste to speak of in Africa: there were
his work in South Asia, and he remains noted to- »castes« but no »caste system«.
day largely because of his work with the French There was no hierarchical organisation because
anthropologist Louis Dumont and the journal they the main castes in East Africa, which he identified
founded in the 1950s, Contributions to Indian So- as Bhatias, Lohanas, Banias and Patidars, were
ciology.5 In the early 1970s, Pocock published two all part of different local hierarchies in »greater
influential monographs on Gujarat, Kanbi and Gujarat« (1957a: 291).6 Therefore, they could not
Patidar (1972) and Mind, body and wealth (1973). be ranked in relation to one another because the
These were firmly rooted in the language and pro- position of different castes in different hierarchies
vincial frames of Indian sociology, although, as was not interchangeable, being relative only to
we shall see their content was deeply influenced the particular Brahmin caste within that local hi-
by his previous work in Africa. In this section, we erarchy. Although all four castes were engaged in
look at the intellectual influences that shaped his trade in East Africa, Pocock did not see this as a
early conceptions of anthropology and the conse- form of Bouglé’s hereditary specialisation in »the
quence of these for his passage from East Africa most rigorous sense of the word« or as a »specia-
to India. Pocock’s treatment of the equivalences lization as a specialization is usually understood
and differences he saw between the continents is in the context of an Indian village« (1957a: 292),
intellectually stimulating because, although his and therefore he discounted it. If however, we take
first work was in Africa and this clearly influenced Pocock’s observations at face value, then contrary
the way he saw India, he subsequently looked back to the recent work of some economic historians (for
to Africa from India, holding Gujarat to represent example, Markovits 2000) one could argue that it
the authentic cultural yardstick against which so- was caste, rather than traditional systems of agra-
cial organisation among Indians in Africa could be rian or commercial inter-caste relationships that
measured. facilitated the movement of people from Gujarat to
Pocock’s early fieldwork was part of a research East Africa.
initiative sponsored by the British government in
the nervous post-war years. He conducted post-
6 Gujarat came into existence as a modern political entity in
doctoral research in East Africa in 1951, staying 1960. Pocock’s term »greater Gujarat« in 1957 refers to the
for at least four months in Chikundi in the Sou- Gujarati-speaking parts of western India. This was also the
thern Province of Tanganyika; he clearly also name given to the region by those campaigning for a sepa-
rate linguistic state »Gujarat« to be carved from the then
much larger Bombay State. In the campaign for a separate
Gujarat, »greater Gujarat« was also the term used to de-
5 What we think of as »social anthropology« is largely scribe all regions where Gujarati was spoken, and this often
thought of as »Indian sociology« in India. explicitly included East Africa (see also Simpson 2011).
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