2 - Making a modern diaspora

Summary

The modern South Asian diaspora, as it exists at the start of the twenty first century, is a very complex human phenomenon. It has been fashioned by many different migratory trajectories of distinctive groups of people out of the subcontinent over at least a century and a half, which have created multiple strands in the diaspora. Chapter 1 sketched the changing environment over this period that enabled the movement of people out of South Asia, in terms of local and international economic change, political power and public policy, and the changing technology of transport and communication. This chapter charts the major historical flows of South Asian people from the early nineteenth century to the present. (See maps 1–6 of journeys and settlements.) It deals primarily with the initial stage of overseas movement, whether this was a first or a second migration, as in the case of some South Asian groups who were forced to move onwards often decades after their original journey, becoming ‘twice-migrants’. It sets the scene for the following three chapters, which analyse how migrants dealt over time with the many challenges facing them as they made new homes on arrival and in subsequent years.