Internationally known visiting Guyanese scholar Dr Vishnu Bisram delivered an impressive keynote address at a symposium at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Tuesday December 2 on the African and Caribbean diasporas. It was a very insightful talk touching on the rise of the two diasporas in the Caribbean and the Americas and their contributions to economic development.
I wish to convey gratitude and appreciation to and applaud Dr Vishnu Bisram for this very incisive broad, informative, and erudite talk on the history of the Indian diaspora that he said started in Reunion Island in 1828 and continued in Mauritius (1834) and then the Caribbean (1838), Pacific, Indian Ocean, Asia and Africa. The lecture was delivered to faculty and a group of Masters and PhD students of JNU and other institutions. This was the second time I heard Dr Bisram speak on the Indian diaspora and the first on the African diaspora. The first lecture was at an international conference at India International Habitat Center also in Delhi last January. Dr Bisram is an authority of diasporas and has written on Latino, Caribbean, Asian diasporas. On December 2, he was the feature speaker at the JNU symposium organized by the Department of African Studies.
After introducing Dr Bisram by the Chair Prof Sushmita Rajwar of the Department, the visiting speaker was felicitated with a shawl and flowers. The department thanked him for availing himself away from his hectic schedule to participate in the symposium organized by the Department of African Studies, School of International Studies. Dr Bisram is no stranger to JNU having first visited in 1975 as a visiting scholar. Since then he visited multiple times delivering lectures organized by several departments in SIS, not the least being Center of American and Canadian Studies, Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Center for Diaspora Studies, Center for Migration Studies, as well as Department of Economics. Dr Bisram is an academic of extraordinary depth with degrees in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and education. He studied in Guyana, USA, and India. His talk, held on Tuesday Dec 2, was on “the Indian and African Diasporas in Guyana and the Caribbean: Identity and Role in the Economic Development”.
The visiting Guyanese scholar is well known in academia in universities with diaspora programs and has published many articles on the Indian diaspora. He organized many international conferences and delivered talks in Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, throughout the Caribbean, USA, Mexico, and Canada on Indian diaspora. He is known to have coined the term Indian Diaspora since the 1980s when NRI (post 1947 migrants from India) was in vogue followed later on by PIO, referring to descendants of indentureship. He, Dr Mahin Gosine, and other scholars co-organized the fourth conference of Indians in the diaspora at Columbia University in July 1988. The PIOs constitute the original Indian diaspora, as explained by Dr Bisram, a fourth generation Indian at that conference and subsequently.
The distinguished Guyanese scholar and prolific writer, who is also an international pollster or psephologist as well as a political activist in USA and Guyana, has been on lecture tour in India. He spoke at several seminars, conferences, and symposiums in India over the last couple weeks on issues relating to Indian diasporas in several countries including on Fiji and Trinidad and his native Guyana. He also met leading politicians in India including from his home or native states of UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, and of several districts including Mau, Bharatpur, Azamgarh, Ghazipur, and Chapra. He visited his ancestral villages in earlier trips to India and sponsored programs and projects to uplift lives of the poor over the last two decades.
The Guyanese born distinguished scholar and journalist highlighted the contributions of the Indian and the African diaspora in the making of modern Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, and the Caribbean. He is widely known as a Indo Caribbean trailblazer on writings on the Indian Caribbean Diaspora in USA. His writings on Indian Caribbean and Asian Indians in USA in Indian publications are groundbreaking.
The visiting Indo Caribbean luminary spoke about the historical Atlantic Slave trade and the Indentured Labour migration of Portuguese, Chinese, and Indians that led to their diasporas or overseas communities. Unlike the other groups, Indians have retained transnational and cultural linkages with their ancestral homeland.
Dr Bisram described both systems of forced labor, with indentureship disguised as contractual) labor, as dehumanizing and a violation of human rights and human decency. Slavery, he stated, was a crime against humanity. Indian Indentureship was similarly oppressive. The renowned scholar explained that slavery existed side by side with indentureship in several colonial territories such as Reunion island of the French empire. The consummate researcher also pointed out that Indians were slaves in several colonies in the Indian Ocean islands and that Africans also served as indentured laborers. He talked about the struggles of Africans and Indians for their freedom. He described the conditions of the Girmitiyas or descendants of indentured laborers during the indentured period and their determined efforts to preserve culture and identity under colonial conditions.He also spoke about the history of the economies of the region and modernization including the discovery of fossil fuel in Trinidad, Guyana, and Suriname. Apart from his focus on multi ethnic Guyana and Trinidad, Dr. Bisram also talked about Jamaica and other Caribbean nations and also provided an overview on the CARICOM community as related to economic development and the recent stunning rise of Guyana and the economic decline of Trinidad and Tobago.
The symposium was chaired by Dr. Sushmita Rajwar, associate professor at the Centre for African Studies, JNU; and Dr. Rajneesh Kumar Gupta, an associate professor at the same centre was the discussant.
The event was well attended by research scholars and master’s and PhD students, who actively engaged in the question-and-answer session after the keynote address was concluded. Dr Bisram, a fan of cricket, also talked about West Indian cricketers. His broad knowledge, intellect, and clarity in presentation on various issues earned him admiration and accolades from staff and students who gave him a standing ovation and sought private exchanges and photo opportunities. Dr Bisram warmly engaged students one on one.
Prior to speaking at JNU. Dr Bisram presented papers and or participated in discussions on Jammu and Kashmir, Poet Nobel Laureate Ravindranath Tagore, and Performing Ancestral Puja in Gaya. He is due to speak on Bollywood’s role in the preservation of Indian culture in the diaspora at the prestigious Benaras Hindu University in Varanasi, constituency of PM Modi.
By Nikhil Biswas (PhD Student in African Studies)
