CONTENTs
CONTENTs
CONTENTs
Return to
the Water
Which brings us to the question, who are the Siddis of India? The fact that we have to propose this question is in itself troublesome and telling. Though I was born in the Southern tip of India, which is populated with the most pigmented Indians, I only learned of the Siddis recently.
The Siddis are an African-Indian community that have been embedded in India for centuries upon centuries. They are descendants of the Bantu peoples of East Africa who were brought to India as early as the 7th century by various colonizers—the Arabs, Portuguese and British. Though they have contributed considerably to India’s history, they remain outliers—socially, culturally, economically, politically. Lamentably.
The Siddis—India’s in-Siddi-ious secret.
My Kenyan friend who studied Law in India described his experience meeting a Siddi gentleman, who he describes as appearing phenotypically African but seemingly Indian in every other sense, he shared how difficult it was to hear this Siddi gentleman share a bit about his life, including the fact that he had to sit separately and use separate utensils and dishware at this workplace to avoid “contaminating” upper caste Indians with his supposed “lower-casteness.” Like my Kenyan friend he had been subject to racial slurs and anti-black violence. While my friend graduated and returned to Kenya to become a prolific Human Rights lawyer, this Siddi gentleman had nowhere to escape to, for the only home he was accustomed to, was the one that was hostile. His haven, like for many from his community, was found in the humid yet hospitable jungles of India where he was no longer the spat-upon stranger, where he was no longer the obscured Other. Where he was unequivocally and inexplicably at home.
Though my friend only met this man once, that one encounter still haunts him. He doesn’t know what became of this young man. He’s not overly optimistic. His hope and our hope however, lies in the concerted centering and recentering of stories like these since storytelling possesses a power like none other. Stories have the potential to transform lives.