'Over the last twenty years or so, Indian diaspora has suddenly come of age. Shedding its minority status, it has demonstrated its inclination for becoming a majority, not in the sense of numerical superiority, but of growing up, maturing, attaining self-apprehension and self-expression. It can now look at itself, the host country, and the homeland, with a critical humor that has not necessarily dulled its passion or lessened the intensity of its engagement. Moreover, the Indian diaspora has become an important economic force, whose reputed net worth exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars. It is, at once, more mobile and cohesive than ever before, what with faster means of travel and communication. Not only has the old diaspora made inroads into the new, but the access of all the scattered peoples of Indian origin to India, the motherland, has also increased dramatically. Now, it actually seems as if this diaspora has an unprecedented ascendancy and leverage both in the host country and the homeland.' (Publication summary)
Nandan draws on literary work by V. S. Naipaul and critical work by Salman Rushdie, Stuart Hall and Edward Said to discuss issues of identity and belonging. He mentions how the Indian epic the Ramayana offered solace to his parents and grandparents who related Rama's banishment to indenture/exile in Fiji, and he suggests that tensions between Indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians may be read in relation to the ancient fratricidal war depicted in the Mahabharata. Yet however important these two epics are to 'the Indian psyche,' Nandan believes they 'are still profoundly limited' as allegories of the Indian diaspora. He turns instead to the indenture experience itself and to Gandhi's sojourn in South Africa. The essay ends with an extract from 'Travelling into a Far Country' from Nandan's selected work Lines Across Black Waters.
