On

“Indian Diaspora in Francophone and Lusophone Africa: Comparing Opportunities for Indian Foreign Policies”

27th September 2011

at

Conference Room-001

School of International Studies

Jawaharlal Nehru University

 

 

Africa has more than three million people belonging to Indian Diaspora. They are spread in Francophone, Lusophone and Anglophone countries. They had gone into different capacities as indentured workers, labourers, artisans and some early ones as slaves. They are spread all along Indian Ocean coastal region of Africa as well as in the Western Indian Ocean island countries. The history, identity issues and socio-economic status of Anglophone Indian Diaspora in Africa is a well researched area. However, Indian Diaspora in Francophone and Lusophone area not adequately researched and written on. The absence of Commonwealth connection which Anglophone countries enjoyed and the assimilative policy of Francophone countries made this section of Indian Diaspora dilute many of its cultural identity and practices. The new Diaspora policy of India which is ‘pro-active association’ with Indian Diaspora and is in contrast to its ‘active disassociation’ of Indian Diaspora needs fine tuning of its policy instrument to target these latent Diasporas to have effective linkages with India.

The symposium will compare and contrast these two latent Diasporas, their identity issues, their socio-economic status and their expectations from India. Besides, this symposium would also focus as how far the Indian policy instruments of linkages with the Diaspora are suitable or irrelevant for Francophone and Lusophone Diaspora which form a minority section in overall Indian Diaspora. Further it will be attempted to analyse voices of their protest and their allegations of covert biases of Indian policies towards Indian Diaspora in Anglophone.