Diasporic Writing: A View-By Naushad Umarsharif

Diasporic Writings: A view
Lecturer Shaikh Naushad Umarsharif

AKI's Poona College of Arts, Com. & Sci.
Camp, Pune-411001.
ABSTRACT
This Paper is an attempt to describe Indian writing, governing term 'Diaspora',
which has become an informing principle for exploring works from a variety of
geo-political locations. Reading texts in relation to a diasporic context is useful
since it points to interrelatedness across geographic boundaries. Here it is
referred to the work of art generated as a result of the diasporic experience of
various literary figures.
Introduction:
It is universally accepted that all literary theories and terms have single sole
object that they help in understanding a work of art or serves as tools to fathom the
meaning of the text or human expressions. Shakespeare's heroes died being
dominantly governed or (mis)guided by supernatural powers or elements in his
fame earned tragedies. In the same way, we see an impression or rather reality that
most of Indian writers like Roy's or Rashdie's etc. characters growing or surviving
in the environment of an element called diaspora. It very much peeps out of their
characters while reading them.
Origin of the term 'Diaspora':

'The term 'diaspora', originally used for the Jewish externment from its
homeland, is now applied as a "metaphoric designation" for expatriates, refugees,
exiles and immigrants. It refers to the work of exile and expatriates and all those
who have experienced unsettlement and dislocation at the political, existential or
Diasporic Writing: A view- by Naushad Umarsharif 1

metaphorical levels. Significantly enough, the Diaspora Indian writing in English
covers every continent and part of the world. It is an interesting paradox that a
great deal of Indian writing in English is produced not in India but in widely
distributed geographical areas of indenture ('Girmit') i.e. Indian Diaspora in the
South Pacific, the Caribbean, South Africa, Mauritius, and the contemporary
Indian diasporas in the U.S.A., the U.K., Canada and Australia. Frankly speaking
the very idea of 'India' needs to be understood properly when contextualized in the
backdrop of cultural study of the Indian Diaspora.
Aims of studying the term diaspora:

While studying, we will examine how the diasporic experience can serve as
a form of transcultural critique, offering the possibility of 'reading one culture's
space and time from the space and time of another'. We will also look at the
strategic value of 'doubleness' in terms of identity constructions and self-
(re)inventions, and also the concept of creolisation as a strategy for cultural
resistance/It has been argued that comparative approaches (including the
transdisciplinary) are inevitable in the study of post-colonial literatures. Since
fictions produced in these contexts themselves transform languages and cultural
traditions, reading from a cross-cultural perspective can thus become a way of
discovering productive new modes of thinking and expression.
Roots of Diaspora:
Globalisation has produced new patterns of migration and provoked
divergent, responses worldwide. The seemingly homogenising effect of
globalization cannot hide the different responses it has prompted in the various
regions within its reach. Questions of diaspora arise with particular force: tensions
between internationalism and nationalism; the relationship between place and
identity; and the ways cultures and literatures interact. New patterns of mobility
are being drawn on the familiar landscape of migration and exilic exclusions.

Migration from centres of capitalist economies to cosmopolitan pockets in the
margins ('first' to 'second' or 'third' worlds), migration from deprived economies to
lands of opportunities ('third' and 'second' worlds to 'first' world, or margins to the
cosmopolitan centres within the 'third' world), seem fertile ground for new forms
of identity politics. New articulations of diaspora, necessarily overlapping with
familiar ways of conceptualising it, have found their way to literary writings.
Migration as one of the major elements of diaspora:

Different responses to migration, whether as an attendant phenomenon of
globalization or a consequence of political persecution, ethnic cleansing or natural
disasters are articulated in literature produced in places where diasporic
communities exist. The interaction between the 'host' and 'immigrant' cultures,
complicated by translation, asks new questions of identity politics and the issues
involved. It also problematises conventional notions of literariness, bringing to the
fore an urgent need to re-explore the ways in which aesthetics, politics and ethics
intersect, and cultural differences delineate patterns of such intersection. It also
asks new questions of how culture and literature interact, more particularly, how
the overlapping of old and new patterns of voluntary and forced migration is re-
mapping cultural and identity politics, literariness, and literary texts. Questions of
identity politics arise out of migration, diaspora and exile. Identity politics driven
by migration, diaspora and exile have in turn mapped literary imagination and
produced literary writings of distinct characteristics.
Conclusion:
With more and more writers of Indian origin settling abroad and engaging
themselves in creating writing in the countries of their domicile, the theoretical
problem is that of the critical parameters by which their works have to be defined
and assessed. Although there are certain common resonances in the literary
representations of the experience of the writers of the 'indenture' and the 'new'

Indian diaspora, the responses and the narratives of the individual writers vary
greatly. Writers like A.K. Ramanujan, Agha Shahid Ali,Bharati Mukherjee, David
Dabydeen, M.G. Vassanji, Meena Alexander, Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie,
Satendra Nandan, V.S. Naipaul, to mention a few, differ from each other not only
in their socio-cultural backgrounds and literary ancestries but also in their thematic
preoccupations and literary styles. Further, the responses of the diasporic writers
to India are also varied and not always adulatory; they range from sentimentality
and nostalgia to a cynical celebration of their coming of age. However, their
diasporic condition, their sense of exile and alienation and their efforts to seek
replenishment by making symbolic returns to their origins bind all this writing into
a unity.
Diaspora as informing principle:
The concept of diaspora has become an informing principle for exploring

Works from a variety of geo-political locations. Reading texts in relation to a
diasporic context is useful since it points to interrelatedness across geographic
boundaries while simultaneously foregrounding the discreteness of linguistic,
cultural and geo-political contexts, traditions and experiences. Rather than
focusing on the familiar crises of alienation and globalisation, the focus here will
be on exploring' the 'in-between spaces' opened up as a result of the diasporic
experience.
References:
1. African Diaspora: Ingrid Monson
2. Diaspora Identity and religion: Wattraud Kokot
3. White Diaspora: Catherine Jurca
4. American North American Literature: A Critical introduction to Diaspora.
5. Writers of the Indian Diaspora: A Bio Bibliographical Criticism: Nelson
Emmenuel. S.

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Diasporic Writings: A view

Lecturer Shaikh Naushad Umarsharif

Origin of the term 'Diaspora':

Diasporic Writing: A view- by Naushad Umarsharif 1

Aims of studying the term diaspora:

Diasporic Writing: A view- by Naushad Umarsharif 2

Migration as one of the major elements of diaspora:

Diasporic Writing: A view- by Naushad Umarsharif 3

Diaspora as informing principle:

The concept of diaspora has become an informing principle for exploring

Diasporic Writing: A view- by Naushad Umarsharif 4

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