Indo-Trinidadians and Carnival: Assimilation, Adaptation, and Resistance

The streets are packed with glistening bodies bedecked in gauzy, flowing costumes and shimmering paint. Ears and wrists jingle, while bellies and noses sparkle with ornate jewelry. Groups of people are color-coordinated in bright red, iridescent green, gaudy gold, seductive pink, or loud purple dress. Flags and streamers of each color decorate the sky and the sounds of the steel pan drum fill the air. It’s Carnival Tuesday in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago.

Alongside the familiar sights and sounds, this Carnival features women in dazzling saris and men in traditional Indian dhotis. Rickshaws grace the streets, propping up massive models of elephant heads adorned with glitter and jewels. When the results finally come in for masquerade (‘mas’) band of the year, this India-inspired band reigns supreme.

The triumph of the mas band "India: The Story of Boyie" left Trinidad stunned. Since
independence, African cultural forms have dominated Trinidadian culture and Carnival. In one of the country’s major newspapers, The Daily Express, bandleader Brian MacFarlane commented on the band’s victory. “It [the mas band] was the first ever portrayal of an entirely East Indian large band. [T]here were many skeptics around me who thought that we were destroying any chance of success with this presentation. There were many people who thought that it would offend, and was disrespectful,” he said. In a letter to the editor to The Daily Express, an Indo-Trinidadian woman expressed her gratitude and support to the band. “Thank you, Brian, for making me feel that I can participate in all aspects of our culture, especially Carnival, without being degraded or ridiculed.”

The story above is part of a broader narrative common to ethnically mixed countries, where groups typically clash over whose culture will define “national” culture. When Trinidad gained its independence in 1956, the population was roughly split between the descendants of African slaves and Indian indentured servants, each with their own cultural forms, religious establishments (Indo-Trinidadians: Hindu or Muslim, Afro-Trinidadians: Christian), economic industries (Indo-Trinidadians: sugarcane production, Afro-Trinidadians: oil production), regional strongholds (Indo-Trinidadians: rural South, Afro-Trinidadians: urban North), and political parties. Eric Williams, head of the largely black People’s National Movement (PNM), ascended to Prime Minister at independence, and poured resources into making Carnival and other Afro-Trinidadian cultural forms (such as the steelpan drum and calypso music) central to Trinidad’s new national identity. It worked. People worldwide routinely associate Trinidad with these art forms. Meanwhile, the only time Indo-Trinidadians and their cultural traditions were included in the public arena was for mockery and denigration by calypso singers.

For their part, Indo-Trinidadians did not attempt to assimilate into the new national culture, but opted to burrow deeper into Indian culture which had long given their lives meaning.* As indentured servants, Hindu or Muslim rituals, stories, and texts were among the few things that gave the Indian community dignity and purpose while suffering on sugar plantations thousands of miles away from their homeland. Even at the time of independence in the 1950s – more than 100 years after their arrival and 30 years after the abolition of indentured servitude – half of the Indo-Trinidadian population remained illiterate and largely confined to the sugar fields. Lacking an intelligentsia and locked out of the gates of government, the Indo-Trinidadian community could not immediately alter its state of political, economic, and cultural marginalization. With an emphasis on education, though, Indo-Trinidadians practically ran up the economic ladder, gaining parity with Afro-Trinidadians in business and professional fields after a mere 30 years.

Upward mobility has caused old divisions in geography and economic industry to whither away. In addition, inroads have been made politically; in 1996 and 2000, the Indo-Trinidadian dominated United National Congress (UNC) won nationwide elections. (The 2000 government, however, dissolved after a battle over leadership, pushing the Afro-Trinidadian PNM into power again). The dissolution of these various divisions has triggered new forms of Indo-Trinidadian adaptation and resistance in the realm of culture. During this year’s Carnival season, I have observed three forms of response to national culture: assimilation into national culture, establishment of parallel cultural forms, and reversal of cultural roles.

Assimilation into Dominant Culture
Assimilation refers to Indo-Trinidadians participating in national/Afro-Trinidadian cultural forms. The opening example of the India-themed masquerade band is one such example (though, notably, the band was led by a white man and appeared mostly comprised of Afro-Trinidadians). Indo-Trinidadians regularly attend Carnival fetes (parties) where they sing along to the latest soca (a musical form mixing elements of calypso, reggae, and hip-hop) hits with ease, though there are few, if any, Indo-Trinidadian soca artists. Small numbers of Indo-Trinidadians also participate in steelbands. On the whole, though, Carnival and mainstream culture remains dominantly Afro-Trinidadian.

Calypso remains the bastion of Afro-Trinidadians. It’s a musical form where artists engage in social commentary or narrative, oftentimes about politics and taboo subjects. Indo-Trinidadians have frequently been the target of calypsos. For example, lyrics have glorified the kidnapping of Indians as a novel form of “economic development.” Cro Cro, one of the most notorious anti-Indo-Trinidadian Calypso artists, earned first place in the 1996 Calypso Monarch competition at Carnival for his lyrics against the new Indo-Trinidadian led government. Among other things, his calypso [baselessly] charged the Indo-Trinidadian prime minister with being a rapist and asked black men how they could condone the election of someone who would now target their daughters.

Although few Indo-Trinidadian artists have attempted to (or wanted to) assimilate into the calypso scene there are some notable exceptions. Jagdeo Phagoo, for example, placed highly in a competition for his calypso on Trinidadian unity. The greatest stir this calypso season, however, was caused by “Bodyguard” (Roger Mohammed) with his calypso “Ungrateful Pastor” aimed at Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s alleged disregard for the country’s poor (ex. “Ah went to the book store ah nearly cry / Mih children school books I can’t even buy.”) and Manning’s image as a born-again Christian (“If the church calling you / Pastor just say so / Take up your Bible and then leave the Whitehall and go”). Bodyguard won several Calypso competitions with the piece and most expected him to compete in the Calypso Monarch Finals during the week of Carnival. However, he initially failed to make it even to the semifinals, though he placed much higher than some of the 48 semifinalists in previous competitions. Bodyguard took the matter to court, and when one competitor dropped out, he was offered to replace him. At the performance, he won the crowd over but failed to convince the judges as he was not among the 14 competitors or two reserves selected for the finals. Many observers that suspected political victimization played a role in Bodyguard’s judging. Perhaps most disappointing, in my mind, was that the final featured a terrible calypso by “Singing Sandra.” She alleged that people do not need to go to Sudan to see genocide since Indian doctors were committing genocide in Trinidad against black women by tying their tubes (? – let’s just say “Singing Sandra” probably didn’t get an “A” in her college logic class). Apparently, it’s more offensive to criticize an Afro-Trinidadian prime minister’s economic policy than to level charges of genocide against Indo-Trinidadian doctors. Anyway, the success of the East India-themed mas band and the strong Indo-Trinidadian support for Bodyguard’s calypso during Carnival 2007 reveals a small, but increasing, trend toward greater assimilation with Afro-Trinidadian cultural forms.

Establishment of Parallel Cultural Forms
Indo-Trinidadians have also established a set of modified Indian cultural forms that parallel Afro-Trinidadian ones. For example, “fetes” (large parties) abound during Carnival and are sponsored by a wide range of organizations including the Water Authority and the People’s National Movement (PNM) political party (who’s voting base is dominantly Afro-Trinidadian). Soca music and pan drumming are dominant features at many fetes with traditionally Indian cultural forms rarely seen. This year, for the first time, the United National Congress (UNC) political party (the PNM’s rival, who’s voter base is dominantly Indo-Trinidadian) held its own fete. This “one dollar fete” [named for its extremely low entrance fee] included Indian forms as much as African ones.

“Chutney” music stands as another parallel cultural form. Chutney fuses Indian folk traditions, Hindu devotional songs, and Bollywood film music with Caribbean calypso, soca, and rap. Since it emerged on the local music scene in the late 1980s, chutney has enjoyed great success across Trinidad. During Carnival I attended a couple of chutney events, including the 2007 Soca Chutney Monarch Competition held at Skinner Park in San Fernando, Trinidad. Indo-Trinidadians comprised the vast majority of those attending. There were a surprising number of families and middle-aged people in the bleachers, though raucous, bandana-waving college students dominated the lawn in front of the stage. Making it closer to soca than calypso, the chutney artists mostly sang narrations about lighter topics of life like partying, drinking rum, and dating. The performances were impressive not just for the singing, but also the elaborate stage design and massive dance troupes that accompanied each singer. The dance troupes featured Indo-Trinidadian women in flashy dress that borrowed from Indian clothing but, like the chutney lyrics, also pushed against the culture’s traditional conservatism.

Some are not pleased by this challenge to conventional norms. For example, Narsaloo Ramaya, an expert on Indian classical music and cultural identity, describes Chutney as “a wild frenzy of pelvic gyrations in which the people have thrown modesty and self-respect to the winds, with mass dancing of unrestrained vulgarity, a spectacle that can be fittingly described as cultural demolition.” Ramaya and groups like the Hindu Maha Sabha condemn the music as a corruption of sacred traditions that have sustained the Indian community since it arrived in Trinidad. Especially irking to the religious groups is the appropriation of Hindu elements within chutney. For instance, the dance troupes are named things like the “Shiv Shakti Dancers” – “Shiv” being a primary Hindu deity and “Shakti” a concept of female strength and power associated with Hindu goddesses.

In addition, chutney music has sparked controversy because of its antecedents in a pre-wedding Hindu ritual for Indian women called mathkor. At this celebration, the bride, and her female friends and family members engage in song and dance that employ the instrumentation associated with chutney: the dholak, the dhantal, and the harmonium. The song and dance is often overtly sexual in nature, theoretically introducing the female to her sexuality and regulating it within the confines of Hinduism. According to its critics, Chutney music has taken this private female religious ritual and perverted it into a risqué public spectacle.

I ultimately disagree with this sentiment. Chutney does not need to be minimized for mathkor, in all its purity, to be performed before weddings. Chutney is the product of individual imaginativeness, an innovative form of entertainment that is simply fun. Fun in the same way that Elvis Presley was to a previous generation and hip-hop is to young people today. It also represents the indigenous and ingenious product of countries like Trinidad and Guyana, where plural populations have fused desirable elements from different traditions to create a new and valuable whole.

Role Reversal
For Afro-Trinidadians, Carnival originated as a social ritual where traditional power relations and roles were reversed. Until emancipation from slavery, the role reversals were one-sided with male slaveowners parading in costumes mocking field slaves and their wives wearing costumes mocking house maids. After emancipation, Afro-Trinidadians made the ritual their own, donning costumes to mock and subvert the white aristocratic society. Afro-Trinidadians masqueraded as the voluptuous “Dame Lorraine” character to ridicule ruling class women; as colonial militias and military bands to jeer at the forces supposedly maintaining order; and as pirates and robbers to express their support for those threatening chaos. Calypso tents (where artists practice for Carnival performances) were erected as musicians heaped scorn onto the ruling regime in lyrical form.

Carnival continued in this vein for many, many years. But, with independence a century later, the original impetus for the festival was lost. The descendants of slaves were handed the government and the first prime minister, Eric Williams, etched their traditions in the national consciousness. In sum, the former slaves were now the masters of Trinidadian society and had no superiors to mock during Carnival. Carnival became a ritual for the sake of ritual. It invoked the past in elaborate masquerade bands (and traditional characters like “Dame Lorraine”) but lacked the same iconoclastic spirit of reversing conventional power relations and social roles.

In Trinidad, I discovered the spirit of old-time Afro-Trinidadian Carnival in perhaps the unlikeliest of places: the celebrations of a Hindu ritual, Holi (locally known as Phagwa). In India and in the Diaspora, Holi, much like Carnival, has long been considered a ritual of reversal. According to Religious Studies academic John Kelly, the ritual’s mythological roots lie in the story of Prahlad, “a virtuous devotee of Vishnu [a principal Hindu deity] whose devotion saved him from death and brought the destruction of an evil king, after which all played in the ashes of the dead king and demonstrated their equality.” It is also related, Kelly notes, to Krishna, a manifestation of Vishnu, who in his early days was known for destroying demons in a forest, dancing rowdily, and playing with local cowgirls (known as gopis). The mythology adds up to a day where “participants seek god through negation and reversal, through a shedding of human social statuses and relations.”

I experienced this shedding of conventional social roles first-hand in Trinidad, joining members of the University of West Indies Hindu Students Council for the festivities. Instead of playing in ashes (like Prahlad) to show the equality of devotees under Hinduism, we doused each other in bright red, orange, green, pink, and purple powders. We also sprayed each other with a mixture of water and the powder through pipe-like waterguns, known as pichakaarees. After we were done, we packed into the back of trucks and vans with the Hindu students singing Hindu hymns at the top of their lungs until we arrived at a Hindu elementary school. There, the second we stepped out of the vehicles, swarms of children threw powder and sprayed pichakaarees at us, and we, naturally, responded in kind. After a few more schools, we arrived at Diwali Nagar, a Hindu temple and concert ground where hundreds more were celebrating Phagwa. The spectacle of hundreds of Hindus – from all corners of Trinidad and all drenched in colored powder– descending upon the site in central Trinidad is certainly extraordinary for the diverse communities in Trinidad and can be viewed in itself as a way for Hindus to lay claim to the physical space of the nation.

At Diwali Nagar, the spirit of reversal and negation found in the original Trinidadian Carnival and mythology of Holi assumed an even greater intensity as a concert began. For the musical competition, also known as Pichakaaree, artists use the traditional instrumentation of the Indo-Trinidadian community, namely the dholak (Indian hand drum) dhantal, and harmonium, mixed with modern instruments such as a synthesizer. The lyrics and sound can accurately be described as “Indian calypso” since the performers, in a true reversal from Trinidadian Carnival, belt out criticism against Afro-Trinidadian leaders and (occasionally) culture. Importantly, the political and social commentary is rooted in Hinduism with many allusions to gods and goddesses, theological concepts such as shakti and dharma, and ancient epics such as the Ramayana.** In an interview, spiritual leader Raviji of the Hindu-Trinidadian organization Kendra, which sponsors the event, explained why the competition is named after the pipe-like watergun used for spraying color during Phagwa. “Pichakaaree is about ingesting material from where it was located and now expressing it in the open by shooting it out at others in public. It leaves a signature and transforms the landscape, just like Indian people here by being brought transformed Trinidad’s landscape. It’s a metaphor for an Indian presence,” Raviji said.

At this year’s Pichakaaree, performers left their mark on a wide range of issues facing the country and the Indo-Trinidadian community. Among them:

• The exponential rise of kidnapping in recent years typically carried out by gangs targeting Indo-Trinidadians: “Like Rawan kidnap Sita, they gone and kidnap Vindra.” Note: Rawan is the demon in the epic of the Ramayana who kidnaps the protagonist, Ram’s, wife Sita. Vindra is a reference to a prominent Indo-Trinidadian businesswoman, Vindra Naipaul-Coleman, who was recently kidnapped.


• Environmental consequences of a proposed aluminum smelter plant: “Ma Dharti [Mother Earth] gone to Bhagavan Vishnu cryin’ / Aray! Smelter comin’ and smelter goin’ / In Amazon tree disappearin’, global warmin’ / Shiva abode [the Himalayas] meltin’, mahapralaya [final dissolution] comin’”


• The Afro-Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s political platform called “Vision 2020” to make Trinidad a developed country by 2020: “Now bend it on Born-again Preacherman / For a blind 20/20 vision.”


• The practice by the ruling government to give supporters housing in electoral districts where elections are competitive: “Just like Africans getting them houses / From the Housing Ministry / Voter padding rampant now.”
  Indo-Trinidadians who have joined the Afro-Trinidadian political party, the PNM: “Crack it on Indians in PNM Party / For betraying sweat and tears of we Jahajees”


• PM Manning becoming a regional power by giving assistance to other Caribbean countries: “Caribbeean ke swami, only giving charity / While people in yoh own country, begging for roti.”


• Consequences of a lewd popular culture: “Wineum jamum music on top / Aids spreadum nonstop / Value system gan down the drain / TV life take over.” Note: “Wineum jammum” is a reference to “wining” (a popular, provocative hip gyrating dance) and jamming (sexual relations).


• The political future of Indo-Trinidadian leader Basdeo Panday who is widely seen as corrupt: “With Bas, Indians politically dead / The man is a shraap on we collective head.” Calling for change in the upcoming elections: “Is nahi [not] equal place for a certain race / Who blood getting shed / Is written in red / … / When election call / Change the writing on the wall.”
  
  The winning Pichakaaree song came from the reigning champion, Jagdeo Phagoo, with his track “Rawan Ketchum Koorkutoo.” The song is a narrative from the perspective of the infamous demon Rawan and tells about how he joined forces with Eric Williams, Trinidad’s first Prime Minister, at independence to oppress Indo-Trinidadians but was fired by the current Prime Minister Patrick Manning because even Rawan wasn’t evil enough for him. The song is beautifully written and manages to weave a broad set of issues together without losing the narrative structure. The performance was striking as well with Phagoo dressed as Rawan and another character openly mocking the Afro-Trinidadian prime ministers.
  
  Like Calypso, Pichakaaree has a captivating sound with smart and cutting lyrics that sometimes crosses the line into the absurd (such as Phagoo’s lyric that compares Manning’s policies to the holocaust) and the incendiary (such as another song which invokes the Bhagavad Gita to call on Indo-Trinidadians to “fight fire with fire” and take up arms in self-defense). The fact that Indo-Trinidadians can and do cross the line in this new cultural space is yet further evidence that conventional cultural norms are reversed in the spirit of the original Carnival and mythology of Holi.
  
  Conclusion
  Whether considering the changes made within traditional Afro-Trinidadian cultural forms or the production of new Indo-Trinidadian forms such as chutney and pichakaaree, it’s clear that mixing between Trinidad’s divided communities has produced some intriguing and valuable results. In the long-run, the mutual exchange and trading of barbs is less likely to destabilize the country than to promote a richer cultural heritage and stronger sense of nationalism since everyone can lay claim to distinctly Trinidadian traditions.
  
  Footnotes
  *Pride in culture as a form of resistance was also a defining feature of Indo-Fijian identity as I explained in previous posts. In Fiji, indigenous Fijian traditions characterized Fijian national culture while Indo-Fijian traditions were mostly sidelined. In the country’s first coup in 1989, the head of the military, Sitveni Rabuka, even took things a step further by removing Indo-Fijian workers from the airport and tourist hotels since the face of Fiji was to be indigenous not Indian. Even today, tourists can go to Fiji for a week and fail to notice a single Indo-Fijian though they comprise 35-40 percent of the population.
  
  **At the same time as writing this blog post, I was reading an article in the New Yorker called “Homer in India: The oral epics of Rajasthan” by William Dalrymple. He made an interesting point about how, particularly in times of tragedy, Indians tend to draw on epics, while Americans draw on movies to make sense of the events around them. Here’s the section from the article:
  
  India's population may not be particularly literate-the literacy rate is sixty per cent-but it remains surprisingly erudite culturally, as Wendy Doniger, an American Sanskrit scholar, has pointed out. Anthony Lane noted in this magazine in 2001, in the aftermath of the attacks on the United States, that the people of New York again and again compared what had happened to them to films: "It was like 'Independence Day' "; "It was like 'Die Hard' "; "No, 'Die Hard 2.' " In contrast, when the tsunami struck at the end of 2004, Indians were able to reach for a more sustaining narrative than disaster movies: the catastrophic calamities and floods that fill the Mahabharata and the Hindu tradition in general. As Doniger puts it, "The myths pick up the pieces where philosophy throws up its hands. The great myths may help survivors to think through this unthinkable catastrophe, to make a kind of sense by analogy."
  
  Most Indians in the Diaspora that I have met have lost an understanding of most epics, but remain closely tied to the Ramayana. Particularly in terms of politics, the Ramayana was indirectly (and successfully) invoked by Mahendra Chaudhry in Fiji who was ousted by a coup in 2000. The parallels between his loss of power and the protagonist Ram’s exile in the Ramayana provoked many Indo-Fijians to draw the connection and feel an emotional tie to Chaudhry characterized by an almost unconditional devotion. During Diwali, which celebrates Ram’s return to India after exile, I was in Mauritius where the epic was appropriated by the Indo-Mauritian leader Navin Ramgoolam. In Trinidad, it has been invoked when considering who should succeed the long-time leader of the Indo-Trinidadian community, Basdeo Panday.

The Creation of Race, Ethnicity, and Caste in the U.S. and Mauritius

In the United States, we are raised to believe that “race” is real, biological, and even, primordial. In reality, it is socially constructed and imprecise. Americans are so distanced from the origins of “racial” identities that we take them for granted. For three months I lived in Mauritius, a country independent for less than 40 years. As a country still in its infancy, it was fascinating to experience “racial,” “ethnic,” and “caste” identities being created and negotiated on a daily basis.

“Race” is a human invention
Before I jump to Mauritius, I want to explain my general views on “race” … by quoting someone who can articulate it much better than me. In the words of Columbia University history professor Barbara Fields: “Anyone who continues to believe in race as a physical attribute of individuals, despite the now commonplace disclaimers of biologists and geneticists, might as well also believe that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy are real, and that the earth stands still while the sun moves.”

Conventionally, people like to think that “race” denotes a whole range of features such as skin color, body size, eye color, hair type, and shape of facial features. Also, most think that certain genetic features are uniquely held by certain “races” and have been held by them since antiquity. I routinely hear people – educated people – make statements like: “she has a black voice,” “he’s not hairy enough to be an Italian,” and “you don’t look Indian.” This widespread belief that people can be subdivided into separate categories based on sets of appearance-based traits rests on shaky biological evidence.

Legal scholar Sharona Hoffman summarizes the science:

Scientists estimate that human beings share 98.56 percent of their genes with chimpanzees. 148 Human beings have approximately 30,000 to 35,000 genes, 149 and 99.9 percent of genes are identical for all human beings. 150 While there is variation in the remaining one tenth of a percent, ninety to [*1117] ninety-five percent of variations, which are called alleles, 151 are found at equal rates in every population. 152 Consequently, only five to ten percent of all genetic variations (in the one-tenth of a percent of genes that actually vary) are distributed along geographical or continental lines. 153 Significantly, among the five to ten percent of variants in that tenth percent of variable genes that seem to be distributed differentially between geographical populations, there are no variants or alleles that are unique to one "race." 154 (emphasis added)

Importantly, in the lengthy quote above, Hoffman notes that there is a small geographical component to human genetic variation. Admittedly, over very large spans of time, one’s environment can provoke certain genes to be expressed. Thus, native sub-Saharan Africans have black skin because it’s advantageous in a hot and sunny climate. Also, because different environments may have different kinds of infectious organisms or bacteria, bodily functions such as digestion may slightly differ among people with different geographic origins. None of this is to say, however, that “race” is a coherent concept.

Hoffman’s last statement—that no variants or alleles are unique to one race— is crucial. Consider the concept of a “black race.” Does such a “race” include or exclude groups like New Guinea highlanders and Australian aborigines who share skin color, but little else, with those originally from sub-Saharan Africa? Does it include or exclude Ethiopians who also share the same skin color, but whose genetic structure (meaning whose five to ten percent of geographic difference in the tenth of a percent of genes that actually vary) bears greater similarity with Europeans than sub-Saharan Africans (according to a 2001 study by James F.Wilson printed in Nature Genetics)? Furthermore, although most associate heightened susceptibility to the disease sickle cell anemia with a “black race” or “African race,” black South Africans actually are not more susceptible to the disease (though, interestingly, individuals from Greece and Sicily are). Perhaps the most important question is: how does one classify those of mixed heritage?

Clearly, upon deeper investigation, “race” classification is a complex phenomenon that is largely a social construction. The Human Genome project supports such an assertion. It found that there is dramatically greater genetic variation between any two individuals within a “race” than there are between the genetic profiles of the “races” (the project created profiles of each “race” by averaging the genetic statistics for individuals who self-reported a “race” they belonged to). Thus, as Hoffman writes, “interest in an expressed-trait difference [between “races”] is a social decision rather than a biological structure.”

The Creation of “Race” in America
The precise historical origins of the term “race” are unknown though most speculate that it was not used as a term until the 17th or 18th Century. In America, according to historian Barbara Fields, “racial” ideology gained prominence among white elites as a response to issues they faced with the country’s independence movement. Before independence, these elites had no qualms about enslaving whites to achieve their money-making ends. However, with the emerging notion that all humans possessed “inalienable rights,” it became necessary for Euro-American profiteers to reconcile this ideology of liberty with slavery. The response was to end the slavery of whites, import more African and Afro West Indians slaves, and craft a “racial” ideology that declared blacks were a sub-human “race” and thus undeserving of the same rights as whites. The unfortunate solution worked for them, allowing their economic interests in slavery to coexist with the country’s lofty ideals.

As Hoffman has noted, interest in “race” theory spiked in Europe and America during this time. Harvard professor Louis Agassiz – believing that races formed distinct sub-species with some superior to others – urged fellow researchers to rank the races with biological evidence. A Philadelphia physician named Samuel Morton did precisely this, gathering more than 800 skulls from countries spanning the globe. He measured the skull size of each “race” and determined (surprise, surprise) that “caucasians” ranked highest and blacks lowest. Twentieth century scientists rebutted Morton’s findings, noting that he: 1) (either consciously or unconsciously) fudged the measurements to find what he sought, and 2) failed to show that there is a link between skull size and intelligence.

Throughout American history there were (and continue to be) problems with defining “race.” Assigning a “race” to those with mixed backgrounds became a perennial headache. In some states a person was legally black if one of his grandparents were black while in others a single drop of black blood would suffice. This meant that a person could magically change “races” by crossing imaginary state lines.

American courts were frequently implicated in deciding the “race” of individuals and, consequently, the rights they inherited. Since “race” is an incoherent concept, judges could not reference a reliable formula for determining it. Instead, they rendered decisions deemed favorable to society’s stability and needs. Hoffman cites three court cases that illustrate the absurdity of trying to definitively assign someone a “race.”

1) Hudgins v. Wright. A group of slaves argue that they have Native American descent and are entitled to freedom. The court ultimately sides with them but judges disagree on the role of appearance in defining one’s “race.” According to Hoffman, “Judge Tucker stated that even if one's color is in doubt because of ‘racial’ mingling, ‘a flat nose and woolly head of hair,’ which disappear ‘the last of all,’ can serve as reliable indicators of an individual's status as ‘African.’ On the other hand, Judge Roane asserted that when ‘races’ become mixed, ‘it is difficult, if not impossible, to say from inspection only, which race predominates in the offspring.’”

2) Ozawa v. United States. A Japanese man attempts to gain U.S. citizenship, which was restricted to “whites and persons of African nativity,” by claiming that he appears white. The Court denies his appeal because to be white was to belong to the “Caucasian race,” which he allegedly did not.

3) Thind v. United States. Just months after Ozawa, Thind, of Asian Indian ancestry, provided evidence that north Indians were conquered by members of the “Aryan” race in 2000 B.C.E. and, thus, were technically “Caucasian.” Flip flopping on its judgment in Ozawa, the Court denied Thind citizenship, declaring that to be white was not to be Caucasian after all, but to be whatever is “the understanding of the common man.”

Re-Casting "Race" for Rights and Recognition
While Ozawa and Thind failed in re-casting their “race” for rights and recognition, many in early America (as in the case of Hudgins) succeeded (sometimes by not merely recasting but inventing). In his fascinating 2007 law review “Crossing the Color Line: Racial Migration and the One-Drop Rule, 1600-1860,” Daniel Sharfstein details the history of individuals changing “races” to gain legal and social acceptance, particularly in the antebellum South.

In his opening example, Sharfstein cites from the writings of a native Scotsman, James Flint, who recounted an incident in Jefferson, Indiana where a black man and white woman asked a local official to marry them. They were politely rebuffed because, according to Flint, the law prevented “all sexual intercourse between white and coloured people, under a penalty for each offence.” The official, however, hinted at an alternative, noting “that if the woman could be qualified to swear that there was black blood in her, the law would not apply.” Flint went on: “…[T]he lancet was immediately applied to the Negro's arm. The loving bride drank the blood, made the necessary oath, and his honour joined their hands, to the great satisfaction of all parties."

The Scotsman Flint expressed his displeasure at the permeability of early American laws, writing that “equivocations of this sort have been so often noticed in the United States, that they must be looked on as notorious.” Although in the example the white woman became black by mixing, it was also possible for individuals to become white, a process that Sharfstein terms “racial migration.” He writes that “racial migration” was a widespread phenomenon, necessary for maintaining stability in Southern society and approved by, basically, a system of winks and nods:

“With an exponentially increasing number of people who were vulnerable to reclassification, the stability of Southern communities depended on what was in essence a massive grandfathering of white people with African ancestry. This racial amnesty was accomplished through court decisions that discouraged overzealous policing of the color line; 14 through scientific theories and popular beliefs that African ancestry would always be visible on people's bodies; and most importantly, through small-town Southern traditions of acceptance, secrecy, and denial.”

Even when those of mixed heritage could not be accepted as white, their options for “racial migration” did not end. From cases like Hudgins that I cited earlier, many got the cue that by becoming Native American or some other inbetween identity (like “Portuguese” or “Turk”), they could gain similar rights as whites. In other cases, individuals coupled their “racial migration” with a physical migration to other towns or states. Joshua Peavy was born a free person of color in early 19th Century North Carolina, but according to Sharfstein, was “born again as Methodist and ‘French’ by the time he reached Alabama.” Citing the account of locals, Sharfstein writes, ironically, that “ordained a minister, Peavy was known for ‘the alacrity with which he met heretics, and the zeal with which he engaged in driving away erroneous doctrines’ – and for his ‘very dark complexion.’”

In the years leading up to slavery’s demise, and certainly thereafter, Southern societies toughened their laws on “race.” Abolition threatened to accelerate mixing to unacceptable levels, so stricter lines needed to be drawn. Nevertheless, individuals (though certainly fewer) still found ways around the system in the South. Many more opted to move to the West or North and begin anew, including with an invented ancestry. Summarizing the experience, Sharfstein cites a Boston journalist who wrote the following in 1925: "Suffice it to say, that there are hundreds of ‘Portuguese' who were once just plain Jack Johnsons and Mary Browns... . There are scores of ‘Armenians' and ‘Greeks' and a few ‘Italians' who came to this great center of culture and liberty from Shoe Button, Mississippi; Hop Toad, Georgia; and Corn Pone, Arkansas.”

Seeing the Creation of “Race,” “Ethnicity,” and “Caste” First-Hand in Mauritius
Every human confronts the chaos of meaninglessness. While animals inherit a set of comprehensive instincts that program their lives until death, humans must construct order from a world of infinite possibility. Group identities (such as “race,” “ethnicity,” and religion) tend to place social mores and values onto individuals, giving them a set of constraints that permit life to no longer be a formless void, but one of bounded order. Out of this order, life gains meaning and purpose. While such identities (and associated beliefs, values, and rituals) are typically created at a particular moment in time and adapt to changing circumstances, people (as I have shown with the case of contemporary Americans and “race”) tend to think of them as part of objective reality. Living in Mauritius, I had the unique opportunity to see various groups of society struggling to create a workable identity.

As I stated in a previous post, nearly 70 percent of the population is of Indian ancestry with Creoles (who are of mixed African and European or Asian ancestry) comprising roughly 27 percent. Small populations with Chinese ancestry and European ancestry make up the rest. Since independence there has been the development, consolidation, and redevelopment of group identities, particularly within the Indo-Mauritian population. During the drafting of the Mauritian constitution, Indo-Mauritian Muslims feared marginalization under a general Indo-Mauritian category and were able to gain a separate category for themselves. The final Mauritian constitution recognized (and still recognizes) four groups: Hindus, Muslims, Chinese, and General Population. This constitutional language filtered down to the level of daily conversation as the word “Indo-Mauritian” has largely disappeared. When I asked people “are you Indian?” I don’t recall anyone saying “yes” as many would often respond “I am Hindu.”

Meanwhile, Muslims have distanced themselves from their Indian heritage and seen many aspects of their culture become “Arabized.” In his Ethnology journal article “Islamic revivalism and political opposition among minority Muslims in Mauritius,” Oddvar Hollup writes that this trend “is an expression of a need for a separate identity, but also a response to Hindu-Muslim antagonism and an expression of opposition to the political dominance of the Hindus.”

Arab Islamic culture has altered several aspects of Muslim Mauritian identity. A once popular Muslim festival known as “Muharram” (still widely practiced in Trinidad, known here as “Hosay”) which borrows some features from Hindu rituals is now virtually non-existent. Other Indian elements have been purged in favor of more orthodox Arab Sunni practices. Muslim women rarely donned a veil or burqa in the past, but now most do. Perhaps most interesting, increasing numbers of Muslims in census data claim Urdu or even Arabic as their ancestral language (though no Arab Muslims are present in Mauritius and the Indo-Mauritian Muslims’ forefathers spoke Gujarati or Bhojpuri). In Mauritian madrassas (Islamic schools that are largely financed by Saudi Arabia and Libya), children are taught to read and write in Urdu and Arabic. Additional Arab cultural influences are evident in the architecture of new mosques and their domes and in the intimate greeting among Muslim men (embracing and shaking hands) at religious events. Finally, in recent years large numbers of Muslims have abandoned their affiliation with the socialist political party and joined a fundamentalist Islamic party known as “Hisbullah.”

Unlike in any other country in the Diaspora that I have visited or will visit, the caste system is at least partially operational in Mauritius among Hindus. In each country I have visited the caste system vanished when the Hindus, regardless of previous standing or caste, were forced to do the same degrading work on sugar plantations. Mauritius, initially, was no exception. With the first wave of indentured servants, many customs disappeared under a period of dissolution. A scarcity of Indian women in the initial wave compelled Indian men to reproduce with black ex-slaves, thereby breaking previous custom requiring marriage and reproduction within one’s religion and caste (and producing the large numbers of Mauritian “Creoles” who many mistakenly believe are primarily from mixed African-European ancestry). With the arrival of large numbers of Indian village women generations later, the caste system (or at least a primitive replica) became reconstituted. Groups of Hindus were somewhat arbitrarily assigned to different groups. The arbitrariness is perhaps most evident in the prominence of the “Vaish” or merchant caste. Most Hindu Mauritians claim to be Vaish, though their ancestors were brought to Mauritius as extremely poor laborers not merchants. Nevertheless, the caste system today operates in the Mauritian consciousness as if it were directly imported from India.

Perhaps the most interesting people under the Mauritian caste system are the “Rajputs” or members of a warrior caste. A group that was classified as a lower caste upon the system’s reconstitution did not appreciate its low standing and proceeded to simply reinvent its caste and ancestry decades later. This group has claimed to be Rajputs, a famed warrior caste who are also the descendants of maharajas in the north Indian state of Rajasthan. The fact that no laborers were brought from Rajasthan has not stopped these “Rajputs” from building Rajput Hindu temples throughout Mauritius and bringing dance groups from Rajasthan for cultural events to celebrate their “shared” heritage. While some learned and older people recognize that the Rajput identity is purely invented, most others (including the government who has provided grants to the group) have no idea and accept it as fact.

Mauritius is also the only country in the Diaspora (that I have visited) where several Indian state identities are becoming more entrenched. Thus, Marathis (from the Indian state of Maharastra), Tamils (from contemporary Tamil Nadu), and Telegus (from Andhra Pradesh) all claim distinct identities from what locals call the “Hindu” group (more descriptively Hindus that descends from the north Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh). These state identities, too, are modified and consolidated at a dizzying pace. For example, each community now has its own government-funded cultural centers where individuals can learn their original state language, music, and dance. A drive along any Mauritius thoroughfare will reveal the construction of massive ornate Tamil temples. The Tamil community felt that their temples did not look sufficiently distinctive so they have brought in architects from Tamil Nadu, India to design and build temples that are visibly “more Tamil.” In addition, Tamils and Marathis each have their own governmentally recognized holy festivals. Since their arrival in Mauritius, Tamils have observed a festival known as “Cavadee.” Marathis, however, only recently began taking a deeper pride in their identity, celebrating their own festival of “Ganesh Chaturthi Utsav” on a very large-scale. Feeling left out, Telegus have collapsed a festival dedicated to the Hindu Lord Vishnu (that traditionally spans several days) into a single day, hoping to also gain government recognition.

Interestingly, the dominant “Hindu” group has distanced itself from its state origins and adopted a more Hindu nationalist identity. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where these individuals hail from, are considered two of the poorest and most corrupt states in India so the distancing is understandable. Although people from these areas traditionally speak “Bhojpuri,” the “Hindu” group often claims “Hindi” (a national language of India) as its ancestral language and is interchangeably known as the “Hindi-speaking” group. Hindus also have a strong institutional base. Large mainstream organizations include Hindu House and Sanatan Dharam Temples Federation. Highlighting the differences among communities in Mauritius, a recent report by the Indian government on People’s of Indian Origin (PIOs) were shocked to find out from Hindu House that “Tamils are not really Hindu” when they inquired about the presence of non North Indians in the organization.
A critical part of Hindu identity in Mauritius is the massive celebrations of the Hindu holy day Shivaratri. Shivaratri celebrations enable Mauritian Hindus to reaffirm their close bond to India and place in Indian sacred mythology. On Shivaratri, roughly a quarter of Mauritius’ 1.2 million people make a pilgrimage (by foot) to a mountain lake in the southwest corner of the island known popularly as Grand Bassin or to Hindus as Ganga Talao (Ganges pond). Several local myths explain how water from the Ganges in India was brought to Grand Bassin, thereby conferring it equally sacred status. According to one myth, the goddess Ganga shed a tear when she saw Indians leaving for Mauritius and that tear was carried to the site by Vayu, the god of the winds. The main rituals at the pilgrimage site consist of taking water from Ganga Talao and pouring it on Shiva lingam, a large stone representing the Lord Shiva, brought from India.

In his journal article “Temporalities of Community: Ancestral Language, Pilgrimage, and Diasporic Belonging in Mauritius,” Patrick Eisenlohr describes how Ganga Talao has been deliberately constructed to assume “a sacred geography resembling that of the Hindu pilgrimage sites on the sacred river Ganges in North India.” He cites several examples of sacred geographic imitation, including:

· The steps leading down to the lake closely resembling a bathing ghat common to Hindu pilgrimage sites in India where devotees perform rituals and gather holy water.

· The architecture of four temples overlooking the ghat at the site which resemble typical Indian temples.

· The two Shiva temples, in particular, project this aura of authenticity and are complete with Shiva lingams brought from India. One of these temples is even named after the renowned Kashi Vishvanath Mandir of the holy city Banaras on the Ganges.

· The location of a Hanuman Temple on top of a hill overlooking Ganga Talao. This is popularly known to reference a scene in the holy text the Ramayana where the monkey god Hanuman lifts an entire mountain.

All of these elements, along with the impressive natural beauty of the site itself, evoke the sense that Ganga Talao is a holy site on par with the Ganges. By making the annual pilgrimage to the site, Mauritian Hindus claim a distinct place in the sacred traditions of Hindu mythology.

Conclusion
As the examples of the United States and Mauritius show, group identities are incredibly powerful and incredibly fluid. While they can give people meaning and purpose, they also pose the threat of distorting reality and depriving people of their common humanity. As societies throughout the globe continue to struggle with sectarian conflict, a solid step forward may be merely recognizing the contingent nature of group identities.