Editor’s note: This article quotes historical sources using terms now considered racist to describe Asian workers.

Introduction

French Caribbean people of Indian descent appear to be torn between two identities. A clear picture of this is demonstrated by Ernest Moutoussamy, mayor of the town of Saint-François, in a speech he made aserting his Indian connection when he travelled to India in 2006:

Though we are Catholics we still have images of Hindu Gods at home. We celebrate all the Christian festivals but we don’t celebrate Deepavali. I am an Indian but then Guadeloupe is home to me. 

Mr. Moutoussamy was speaking as a descendent of indentured workers who were recruited by the Société d’Immigration de l’Inde [1] in the colonial province of Pondicherry in the mid-nineteenth century to work on the French Caribbean plantations. Upon their arrival in the French islands, the Indian immigrants faced social pressure from the majority Afro-Creole community who were recently emancipated from slavery and were seeking to assert themselves as the established group. The hostility and rejection led the newcomers to make some cultural adjustments in order to fit into their new environment, and the vast majority to consequently abandon their Hinduism and embrace Christianity. Identity is manifested by, if not bound up in, cultural practices such as food, religion, ceremonies, dress, language and other social customs. The purpose of this article is to analyse how Indian identity has been retained and re-constructed using these practices in the context of their new, distant, West Indies island homes. The second section of the paper provides a historical background on Indian indentureship in the French Caribbean; the third section examines the adjustment of the Indian community in their host territories; the fourth deals with the expression of the Indian culture in Guadeloupe and Martinique, and in the final part I refer to Caribbean scholarship on identity to focus on contemporary Indian identity, reflecting on the survival of the Tamil language and the use of the concepts: “Indo-Guadeloupians/Indo-Martinicans”, “Guadeloupin/Martinicans”, “Indo-French Caribbean”, and “coolitude”. 

Indian migration and settlement in Guadeloupe and Martinique

After Emancipation in 1848, the French planters were faced with labour problems: the newly emancipated slaves left the plantations in great numbers, looking for land of their own, yet the former masters lacked the money to pay for the services of those who remained. As a result, the French government turned once again to Africa for a supply of labour and imported 32,313 Africans at the end of 1860 (Northrup 247). The French authorities established a system of recruiting Africans from the Congo and East Africa who were purportedly free, but binding them by means of a ten-year labour contract. However, the practice was recognised as a form of slavery and the British consequently convinced the French to resort to Indian indentureship.

As a response, the Société d’Immigration de l’Inde was established in southern India as a recruiting agency to hire indentured workers from Calcutta and Madras where sugar cane had been cultivated for centuries (Singaravelou 1975, 17). The shipment of these immigrants took place from the ports of Karikal and Pondicherry in conditions that had many of them falling ill on their way to the French islands, succumbing to lung diseases, dysentery and cholera. Upon their arrival in the French Caribbean, they suffered mistreatment and harsh working conditions, particularly in Martinique which experienced greater attrition than Guadeloupe. According to the Conseil Général’s statistical account, Martinique imported 24,584 Indians, of which 11,944 died, while 4,260 workers returned to India at the end of their five-year contract, leaving an estimated Indian population of 8,380. 

In Guadeloupe, conditions appear to have been quite different with almost twice as many Indians being shipped by 1854, with accounts of 42,326, and 45,000 made by different writers. Moutoussamy (1987, 15) found 8,000 Indians repatriated and Singaravelou (1975, 57) put the number at 9,460, leaving an estimated Indian population of at least 32,866 and as high as 37,000. Reported deaths due to illness were not nearly as drastic, with one count put at 109 for 1872. 

In 1861, an Anglo-French decree was signed to officially allow the recruitment of workers from Calcutta in northern India. Most Indians immigrating to Guadeloupe came from there and because of this were often called “Calcutta”. Others came from Bihar and Uttar-Pradesh, also in the north, as well as Tamil Nadu in the south (Thaniyayagam 1968, 4), the latter supplying the majority of immigrants to Martinique. The Indian government was against the recruitment of workers on its shores and Indian indentureship was brought to an end in 1883. 

The immigrants were in possession of a five-year contract as well as a passport. Thaniyayagam (1968, 4) gives a detailed account of the hiring conditions. Each indentured worker was given a blanket, a pair of trousers and a shirt, and was expected to receive 415 francs from the recruiting company. At the end of their stint, they had options: signing a new contract, working as travailleurs libres (free workers who did not want to return to their homeland), or getting a work permit. Those who stayed were required to work for nine hours on a daily basis. In the case of repatriation, the sum allocated to the immigrants varied according to their age.

In the French Caribbean in the 1850s most Indian communities were found in the countryside. Indo-Guadeloupians were mainly concentrated in rural areas because of the sugar estates and factories. According to Moutoussamy (1987, 16), the Indian population was predominant in Guadeloupian towns including Capesterre Belle-Eau, Moule, Port-Louis, Matouba-Papaye, Petit Canal, Saint-Anne and Saint-François. The Indo-Martinican community likewise remained in the countryside in the north, namely Basse-Pointe and Macouba, where they were involved in agriculture. Apart from working in the sugar cane industry, they were also active in raising other produce such as bananas and market-garden crops. 

Indians in the French Caribbean Society

Settling into society, not as contracted labourers, but as immigrants looking to put down roots, Indians met with social disadvantages in several respects, including constraints to religious practice, language, education and civic opportunities. Strict immigration laws prohibited those who came to the end of their contracts from working or getting access to medical care and treatment, because they were not French citizens. Consequently, the death toll among the Indians rose. Henri Sidambarom, born to Indian parents in Guadeloupe in 1863, worked in the Immigration Department where he had access to his fellow countrymen’s files (Singaravelou 1992, 150) and was therefore exposed to information regarding their social situation. We can conclude that he was able to analyse the total picture of the situation for Indians and was not limited to his own experiences or the anecdotes of friends or neighbours. In his position as an advisor at the Pointe-à-Pitre town hall, he fought for Indians’ civil rights and in 1904 he demanded from the French colonial authorities electoral rights for Indians as well as their eligibility for engagement in military service. It was only in 1923, despite his tremendous efforts, that Indians were finally granted French citizenship.

Even though the main society actively marginalised them, it also made determinations on the practices they were allowed to conduct within their group, and their own traditional religion, Hinduism, was frowned upon by the dominant Catholic Church. The pressure was even greater on those who had converted to Catholicism and were still practicing animal sacrifices or other Hindu rituals (Singaravelou 1975, 141).

There were also tensions between Afro-Creoles and Indians. In Singaravélou’s view (1975, 76) Afro-Creoles thought that Indians were favoured by the planters and as such came to take away the jobs that they did not want to do. These pressures forced the Indians to instigate other major adjustments in their lives and one of their responses was to abandon their native languages to interact with locals in French Creole, perhaps recognising that a community requires a common language. 

Singaravelou (1992, 7) provides this explanation: “The disappearance of Indian languages and acquisition of Creole had started long before Départementalisation.” Most Indian parents preferred to interact with their children in French Creole intending that they would adjust more easily to their host environment, but language requires practice, and without parents who spoke standard French, and without full acceptance and integration into the wider community, the Indo-French Caribbean population grew up uneducated, facing problems of illiteracy which lasted into the 1960s.

In contrast to the French islands, both Guyana (then British Guiana) and Trinidad had more significant numbers of Indians reaching their shores after Emancipation, with 238,909 having been shipped to Guyana in 1838, and a census recording that the first 143,000 Indians came to Trinidad in 1845. In Guyana, the majority of immigrants between 1842 and 1871 hailed from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the northern parts of India, and more than 73% were speakers of Avadhi, Khari Bold (Old Hindi), Mathili, Magahi, Bhojpuri, Kannauji, Braj and Bundel. A lingua franca was created from this interesting linguistic mosaic and it was used as a means of communication among the plantation workers. It was named “Guyanese Bhojpuri” by Surenda Kumar Gambhir, however, Indo-Guyanese refer to it as Hindustani. Even so, the problem of survival of Hindustani arose because of the numerous socio-economic and political issues that existed in Guyana. Among the Indian workers who were taken to Trinidad and Tobago, the majority were native speakers of Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, Oriya and Nepali. As in Guyana, Trinidadian Bhojpuri rooted on the plantations where immigrants speaking all the varieties came into contact with each other. It was also given the name of Hindustani. The British colonies had an even more dramatic contrast in the number of Indians, whereby they comprised a miniscule proportion of the populations. Therefore, whereas they had to come to terms with negotiating as an Indian community, they had no commensurate pressures to assimilate the culture of the colonial rulers.

Samuel and Wilson (2009, 96) discuss Gordon’s concept which was put forward in 1964: “assimilation includes the stages of behavioural assimilation (acculturation), structural assimilation (social assimilation) and marital assimilation”. The first stage requires the minority group to embrace the culture of the host community, for example: dressing styles and language. At this stage neither religious faith nor music changes. The second stage refers to the interaction of the minority group with the dominant group on a social level. Marital assimilation was the ultimate step in the process, resulting in inter-ethnic marriage within the host society. For example, in the case of Guadeloupe and Martinique some Indians married Afro-Creoles. Children born in a Black-Indian union were often called Echappé Coolie (Escaped Coolie). Thaniyayagam (1968, 5) observes that the term “Echappé Couli” also refers to an Indian who married a non-Indian for a better social status. Desroches explains that the French Creole term ‘bondyé kouli’ referred to an Indian religious ceremony in Martinique during the 1970s, nevertheless, the pejorative meaning of this terminology surfaces in the French Creole adjective kouli, which designates both the low status of Hindus as a group and Indian cheap labour.

Marital assimilation occurred in a context where Indian men outnumbered Indian women. A disproportion of Indian men to women existed throughout the Caribbean between the 1842 and 1870. Northup (2000, 265) writes:

Although the many gaps in the historical record make impossible a fully nuanced summary of Indian experiences in the French Caribbean colonies, it is impossible to offer a statistical profile by way colonialism. Out of a thousand Indian adults (725 males, 275 females) who emigrated from India in the 1870s, 17 (11 men, 6 women) would not have survived the voyage to the French Caribbean. 

A similar situation obtained in Trinidad and Guyana, of which Naidu writes:

The indenture system facilitated this gross disparity. Even as late as 1890, the proportion of men to women declined to 41 women for every 100 men…. The planters viewed women as ‘uneconomical’ and recruiters were not encouraged to meet the recommended quota… 

Arguably, Indian women were particularly tied to the religious and social systems of their country and this might have put greater restrictions upon their methods of adaptation. However, the extended family effectively disappeared in the transition from the continent to the New World. Cases of unfaithfulness among Indian women living in the French Caribbean plantations (Singaravélou 1975, 143) influenced the Indian family structure even further. Some Indian women deserted their partners and had relationships with French island men of African descent, which was blamed for influencing some heartbroken Indian men to commit crimes on the plantations. 

In their assimilation, the French island Indians abandoned certain characteristics that appeared too distinctly Indian to them. Names such as Savérimoutou, Moutoussamy and Sinitambiviroutin became Savéri, Moutou and Biviroutin (Singaravelou 1975, 149). Since the planters treated all Indian ethnic groups the same way, the absence of the caste system allowed for the extensive assimilation of the immigrants (Singaravelou, 143). In his study of the creolisation process of the Indian community in the French Caribbean, Singaravelou (1975, 148) referred to the island topography as another factor causing Indian culture to shrink. The size of Guadeloupe did not allow the establishment of large Indian villages as happened in Trinidad and Guyana. At the end of their contract, the planters did not grant any parcels of land to Indians, in order to avoid conflicts between them and the Blacks and Whites and instead the allowance which they were given was the only aid toward their settlement. Indo-Martinicans received a similar treatment as they were given no land by the local authorities. Owing to their small number, it was difficult for them to build Indian villages as there were in Trinidad where many Indians remained in the island as free land owners and were able to rebuild their communities, giving them Indian names such as Madras, Barackpore and Fyzabad.

Over the years, the social status of Indo-French Caribbean citizens has changed. The high rate of illiteracy, which kept them at the bottom of the social scale with more than 40% of Indians in Guadeloupe being illiterate as late as 1967, saw improvement. With the construction of new schools in the rural areas in modern times, Indians have the same access to higher education as their Creole counterparts. With this means to better themselves, they have taken up more significant roles in society. They are able to fully take part in the political life of Guadeloupe, as exampled by Mayor Ernest Moutoussamy. According to president of the Association des Amis de l’Inde, Mr. Eliézère Sitcharn, [2] many Guadeloupians of Indian origins have been working in the city in roles that represent the spectrum of socio-economic positions and span all industrial sectors and the civil service. Indians are involved in the union and fill management positions at the Conseil Régional. Indians work as engineers and architects; they are found in teaching, in banks and insurance companies. They contribute to agriculture, education, public transport and public works. Sitcharn pointed to Indo-Guadeloupians who owned sugar cane land as well as subsistence crops, and owned the largest transport board in the Public Works sector.

Development of Indian culture in Guadeloupe and Martinique

We have seen how the early conditions the Indians met upon their arrival as immigrants and over time as settlers and citizens meant they abandoned their customs, their language and their religion, either willfully or by coercion, in their efforts to gain social acceptance. Preserving their culture and identity is now a struggle for the Indo-French Caribbean community after years of disconnection from Indian traditions. Vestiges and artifacts have remained and there are on-going attempts to make deeper, more meaningful connections with India and Indian traditions, but turning these efforts into widely held practices has had its challenges.

In spite of the presence of the statue of the Mahatma in the capital, Fort-de-France, not many events have taken place paying tribute to this leading figure, and Indo-Martinican writer Camille Moutoussamy laments that museums have done nothing to keep Indian culture alive. In Guadeloupe, Ernest Moutoussamy complains that intellectuals have hardly paid attention to Indian literature, while Jean Sahai mentions that Indian music is not heard on radio stations, where Zouk is more frequently played in concert with public taste (Sahai 2003). Sahai also observes that although Indian movies are not well-known by French West Indians, when there was a recent public showing of an Indian film in the city of Capesterre only a hundred people came out to see it. Indo-French Caribbean women also hardly wear their sari, even though it is known across the Caribbean and worn by Indians at least on special occasions if not day-to-day.

Contemporarily, intellectuals have recognised the need for formal efforts in the reviving of Indian culture, and various associations have been formed for this purpose such as the Association des Amis de l’Inde, which was established around 1971 in Guadeloupe. These cultural associations have made great efforts to sensitise French West Indians to Indian culture with activities such as yoga classes and by promoting Indian cuisine at various events. On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the first Indian immigrants to the French islands, Mr. Praschent Agwalm, a representative of the Indian Embassy, was invited to attend the celebration. The “return to Indian roots” phenomenon has also emerged in Martinique.

These efforts to encourage Indian culture, which is gradually rising to the surface, reveal that there is still room for improvement. That the majority of Indians have embraced Christianity may be a factor, however some of them have been able to maintain close ties with Hinduism, which is practiced in various forms across the Caribbean region. In temples, most prayers are said in the Hindi language. Naidu (2007, 1) says of Hinduism: 

The evolution of a new form of Hinduism in the Caribbean cannot be observed in isolation, but must be viewed against the experience of Indians as a whole with colonial oppression and their struggle for survival in a new environment.

Even in Guyana and Trinidad, Christian Indians as well as Hindu and Muslim have been particularly circumspect in their entrance to public life and politics. Cheddi Jagan saw the need to encourage the various Guyanese ethnic groups to take part in Hindu festivals in the 1970s and 80s, and it was another decade before Basdeo Panday became the first Indian and Hindu Prime Minister in Trinidad, serving from 1995 to 2000. In Guadeloupe and Martinique, without doubt, Hindu ceremonial customs, whether faithfully preserved or subjected to adaptations, have remained the most visible and strongest evidence of Indian culture and some specific practices, particularly food preparation and words, have not only survived, but have spread indelibly throughout the wider society.

Moutoussamy (1987, 29) compares Indian and Indo-Guadeloupian forms of Hinduism. In Guadeloupe, well-known deities Brahma, Shiva and Vishnou are worshipped as they are in India. Mother Marayamman, who is prayed to by her devotees in Tamil, is known in Guadeloupe by the Creole name Maliémin, and has won the hearts of Indo-French Caribbean people, and even Creoles, owing to her goodness. Mother Kâli hails from northern India (Calcutta) and she is associated with healing power and protecting children from evil. Moutoussamy (1987, 42) argues that Maldévilin is the leading male deity in the islands where he is considered to be both the guardian of the Maliémin temple and a “real God”, while by contrast in India he does not have much influence.

Scholar Martín-I-Prado (2006, 1) interviewed a female forty-year Hindu practitioner in Guadeloupe who differentiated between two forms of Hinduism: Global and Traditional, claiming that changes were brought into Global Hinduism. Traditional Hinduism reached the Guadeloupian shores during the Indian indentureship. The informant’s comments on Hinduism in Guadeloupe were reported as follows:

Global Hinduism underwent a number of changes. This is Hinduism. And, then there is the Hinduism that came to Guadeloupe in 1854. This is traditional Hinduism; it is traditional for us because until very recently we did not know any other type of Hinduism.

She questioned the authenticity of the forms of Hinduism that are present in Guadeloupe today and also commented on the fact that some people perceived one of the forms of Hinduism to be “corrupt”. For her, while the two forms of Hinduism that exist in Guadeloupe are distinct, they are still part of Hinduism.

A study of Hinduism and Hindu temples in Martinique was conducted by Desroches (1996, 58). In 1986 there were seven temples located in the towns of Trinité, Sainte-Marie, Basse-Pointe, Saint-Pierre, and Lamentin, some of them dating back to soon after the first Indians came to the islands, with a combined dozen statues found in front of them. The first Hindu ceremony was conducted in Changy which is considered to be the oldest temple in Guadeloupe. From the fifties to the seventies, metal sheets and pieces of board were frequently in use, but in modern times, most renovations are in concrete.

Before a ceremony takes place, a temple is decorated with flowers and the officiant spreads the floor with a liquid called mandiani, made from lime juice, turmeric power and cow urine blended together in salt water. Rice and milk are cooked together and offered to Mother Mariemin (Benoist and Desroches 1982, 16). At the end of the ceremony, the devotees consume rice and meat. Benoist and Desroches (1982, 3) also describes the greater number of now extinct rituals which were practiced in Martinique at the beginning of the twentieth-century. Marching on a cutlass for instance, a common practice in the early days, is now unheard of.

It appears that a French Indian cultural renaissance started to make a flourish in the 1990s when the number of festivals and celebrations started to grow in number and size. In 1996 the first Diwali festival was announced on the radio and was held in Guadeloupe. It was said in the on-line magazine Hinduism Today that 400 people were present as both locals and tourists partook of Indian yoga, music, fashion, food and religious ceremonies laid on at the festival. Almost two decades later, a report coming from Hinduism Today magazine reported that Diwali in 2013 attracted 3,000 people belonging to various denominations. Activities planned by the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin, included Bollywood and Chutney dances. Southern Indian musicians, personalities from the Indian Association of France and Trinidadian dancers also attended the event. Marion O’Callaghan (1998, 8) describes Diwali as “a vegetarian” event during which there is such great demand for vegetables by consumers that the prices increase. Senior bureaucrat of the Indian government Dandeep Silas spoke about the difficulties of leading a vast and culturally diversified country like India.

An annual event called “Lé Mé”[3] takes place on the 22nd May in the district of Dillon in Fort-de-France to commemorate Emancipation. On the 6th May 2003, Martinique celebrated the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first indentured Indian workers in their country. The director of the ICCR (Conseil Indien pour les Relations Culturelles)[4] Mr. Kanti Tripathi and the representative of the Indian Embassy Mr. Prashant Agawal attended the celebrations (Vildeuil 2003, 2). After a religious ceremony, flowers were thrown into the sea as a way of paying tribute to the ancestors, and there were exhibits of Indian delicacies and jewellery. On the 13th July 2003, a fete called “méla” was held at the Parc Floral in Fort-de-France (Vildeuil 2003, 3). In northern Martinique, a prize was awarded for having the best Colombo during Le Mandia d’Or event.

On 24th December, 2004 a First Day monument was unveiled in the town centre of Pointe-à-Pitre as Guadeloupians commemorated the arrival of the first Indians to their island. There is a plaque on the monument on which it is written:

On December 24, 1854, the sailing ship “Aurélie”, after a dreadful three-month passage, disembarked on this spot 314 East Indians requested by the Colony to cope with the loss of labour resulting from the abolition of slavery in 1848.

The 80th anniversary of Henri Sidambarom’s struggle for Indians’ civil rights and citizenship was first commemorated in 2004 as well.

In January 2011, Martinicans attended a Pongal festival which was organised in the city of Saint-Pierre by the Apsura and Shakit associations. Pongal is a southern Indian four-day harvest festival during which people give thanks to the Sun God, the rain and animals (Alamkan 1996). The Pongal festival was the only time Indians were granted vacations in the French colonies. On the first day, boiled rice with milk is offered to the Rain God; on the second day, the Sun God is worshipped; on the third day, the cattle are given a bath and they are dressed with flowers. Hinduism Today described how the 160th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in Martinique was commemorated in the town of Basse-Pointe in May 2013, during which Tamil language, cuisine, traditional dress, jewellery and locally grown Indian medicinal plants were on display. The public was invited to a walking tour of two Hindu temples.

Moutoussamy (1987, 89), looks at some of the culinary traditions which were brought to Guadeloupe and Martinique and have remained. The previously mentioned Colombo, is one of the most popular dishes in the French Caribbean. The preparation of this dish requires two major steps. The first one, massalè, consists of grinding saffron seeds, called “mandja” in French Creole, into a thick paste by mixing them with various spices such as coriander, garlic, pepper, mustard, chives, and grilled rice. The second step consists of adding the massalè to the seasoned meat. Another dish, called moltani, owes its name to the Tamil word “milagou tanni”. A thin mixture is made of small crushed pieces of seasoned meat to help digest food. The rotti is a northern Indian pone that is made of wheat flour and colombo paste and fried in a tawa. One might be surprised at the number of plants popularly embraced across the larger socio-cultural groups, which are originally Indian plants that were brought into the French Caribbean during the early days and used in Indo-Caribbean cooking. Among these are ginger, pumpkin, and mandja; another, the paroka plant or ponm kouli, [5] known for its medical properties, is commonly used in French Caribbean folk medicine.

Indian Identity in the French Caribbean Space 

Having looked at the circumstances that predicated the initiation of the Indian immigration, the early marginalisation processes imposed on the first generations of that population and some of their responses, and how popular celebrations of cultural events have become more frequently organised, we can discuss the nature of identity and how important the fragments of customs were in the rejuvenation of the Indian cultural identity. We will examine what other modes of expression– specifically language as cultural remnant and as the foundation for forming new terms–could be integral to the reclaiming of an authentic identity, and whether what was robbed can be indeed reclaimed, or whether by necessity a new identity must be understood.

The concept of “identity” has sparked heated debates among scholars over the years. Premdas (1996, 10) explains that ethnic identity is directly linked to a “collective group consciousness that imparts a sense of belonging derived from membership in a community bound putatively by common descent and culture”. According to Premdas’ definition of ethnic identity, individuals who share a common culture, language, religion and race express “a sense of belonging to a particular group”. Consequentially, expressions of ethnic identity by minorities can attract the hostility of other groups. Roopnarine (2009, 72) defines identity as “the perception of one’s self. This perception comes from consciousness, a form of intelligence that enables skills such as foresight, recognition of the self as separate from others, and empathy towards others”. Pataki (2012, 4) provides a definition of the term “in-betweenness”:

a constant feeling of dislocation and identity confusion, a feeling that characterises first generation immigrants the most. In the case of the second generation, however, a less strong bond with the home country and culture and the natural acceptance of the new world around them tend to result in another condition of cultural existence: hybridity.

In analysing Indo-French Caribbean identity, it is invaluable to examine how French Caribbean identity was studied by post-colonial writers. Three main literary streams known as Négritude, Antillanité and Créolité were in vogue at different points in time in the twentieth-century in the French territories. In the 1930s, the Négritude movement was founded by three students living in Paris: writers Aimé Césaire from Martinique, Léon Gontran-Damas from French Guyana, and Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor. The trio was much in favor of giving a positive perception of Blackness and Black culture in both Africa and the African diaspora, and aimed to dismantle the negative stereotypes. Léopold Sedar Senghor became President of Senegal (1960-1980); Aimé Césaire founded a political party known as Le Parti Progressiste Martinique and became the mayor of Fort-deFrance in 1945. Leon Gontran-Damas, who was also a poet, became deputy for French Guyana from 1948 to 1951. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1970 until his death in 1978.

Martinique became a French Overseas Department on the 19th March 1946. In the 1960s Martinican poet and writer Edouard Glissant who was expressing concern about Martinicans’ identity problems, was credited with starting the Antillanité movement (Ormerod, 1998). Glissant contends that Martinique’s “neo-colonial relationship” with mother country France separated this island from the Caribbean archipelago: Martinique is therefore denied both its right to difference as well as its ability to enter into the field of islands.

The late 1980s marked the development of the Créolité School. Three Martinican intellectuals, Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant launched the Créolité movement in their book entitled Eloge de la Créolité (In Praise of Creoleness) in which they state: 

Neither Europeans nor Africans, we proclaim ourselves Creoles. Unlike the Négritude fathers, the Créolité proponents viewed the Martinican society as multiracial: “The interactional or transactional aggregate of Caribbean, European, African, Asian and Levantine cultural elements united on the same yoke of history" (Ormerod 1998, 4).

According to Bernabé and his colleagues, the French Creole language should be adopted in writing, and in fact Confiant’s first novels were initially written in French Creole. French Creole words and expressions are also found in Chamoiseau’s books. Ormerod (1998, 6) writes of these authors: 

They view the Creole language as the great unifying force which has arisen from racial diversity and resisted centuries of imposed education despite the “official policy” of France.

Ormerod (1998, 2) also comments: 

While invoking the Hindu in Calcutta, for example, Césaire does not consider the different cultural position of the large number of West Indians descended from coulis or East Indian indentured labourers, whose syncretic life-style may combine Eastern religious practices with West Indian social elements.

We have been using the terms Indo-Guadeloupian or Indo-Martinican to describe people of Indian ancestry who were born either in Guadeloupe or Martinique, but Desroches (2005, 6) introduces the terminology “Indo-Creole”, which may plainly refer to somebody of Indian descent who was born either in Guadeloupe or Martinique. In fact, the term may be extended to the Indian populations of other territories such as Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and even arguably La Réunion, Mauritius and Seychelles, where Indians also went as indentured workers after Emancipation, and which have significant Indian populations. We may look for instance, at the gradual diminishing in use of Indian native tongues and customs and ask what other criteria might need to be taken into consideration when we speak about Indo-Creole. What indeed makes someone Indo-Creole? Does it refer to the first immigrant Indians or does it start with the second generation? To answer this question, it may be useful to keep in mind Roopnarine’s definition of identity as the perception of oneself. While some of the first-generation Indians identified themselves as Indians, many began to embrace Creole customs and culture. The latter group may be called “Indo-Creole by adoption”. Unlike their progenitors, second-generation Indians may have preserved their parents’ or grand-parents’ culture or they may not have, either throwing it off decisively, or having it reluctantly pried away.

Embracing Creole culture would have made interethnic relationships possible, and we can view these from a social and cultural point of view. In Trinidad, the child of an African-Trinidadian parent and an Indian parent is often known as "dougla". Stoddard and Cornwell (1998, 222) state that the word "dougla" comes from the Hindi word for bastard and it is closely related to Hindu customs that do not accept inter-caste unions. Both authors suggest that “douglarisation” is a form of “indianisation” of the Creole culture. In the French Caribbean, Mehta (2010, 7) turns our attention to terminologies such as Bata-Zendyen [6] and “Echappé-Couli” to designate an offspring of African French island and Indian French island parents. However, the word “métissé-indien” has recently been adopted. This writer suggests the term “Indo-Creole” to also refer to a child of such unions.

The term "dougla" has been given a cultural and political dimension since the 1980s when the term "douglarisation" was adopted by Indian politicians and cultural leaders. Trinidadian politicians and cultural activists have frequently demanded the recognition of Indian cultural expressions and holidays by different institutions. Mehta (2010, 7) recognises that the French Creole words “Bata Zendyen” and “Echappé Couli” are limited to race, not having been used to describe the Indianisation process of the Afro-Creole culture.

The word “Indo-Creole” should not be limited to race as it is credible to extend it to African Indian culture as well. In Trinidad Chutney music, the incorporation of Indian musical instruments and rhythms with Calypso, is an example of Indianisation. Indo-Guadeloupians/Martinicans have opened their doors to all ethnic groups to learn more about their culture, tantamount to officially acknowledging the possibilities for the myriad fusions of the cultures that could take place and have taken place. The Service Communication du Conseil Guadeloupéen pour la Promotion des Langues Indiennes [7] have been offering Hindi and Tamil classes to the public, and secondary school children have been learning Hindi since 2000. [8] On the 25th and 26th of November 2009, “Semaine Indienne” (Indian week) took place at the Centre Commercial Milénis where Indian clothes and various spices, a fashion show and dances were exhibited. Indo-Creole fusion is observed in Martinican Hinduism. Benoist and Desroches (1982, 12) explain that the vatialou or interpreter translates the Tamil prayers into French Creole, and the sacrificer [9] may also be Creole. In Guadeloupe and Martinique the Creole society at large has adopted the Colombo dish and bestowed it with some prestige apart from its association with Indian religion. There can be hardly a more distinguished example of Indo-Creole than the adoption of the madras, an Indian cotton fabric, as the headpiece of the French Caribbean national costume since the Indian immigrants joined the colony. In modern times, it has entered into many uses such as cuisine, home decoration and clothing.

In contrast, there are writers who have highlighted the separateness rather than the cultural mingling. In discussing the terms ‘Indiens de la Guadeloupe/Martinique’ (Indians of Guadeloupe/Martinique) Curtius (2010, 115) brings into focus a difficult question that was raised by writer Juliette Sméralda-Amon in her interrogation of Indian identity: 

Les Indiens qui vivent depuis un siècle et demi en Martinique sont des Indiens de la Martinique ou des Indiens martiniquais? (Do Indians who have been living for a century and half in Martinique consider themselves Indians of Martinique or Indian Martinicans?).

In my view, the term ‘Indians of Guadeloupe and Martinique’, seems to have a specific meaning. Firstly, it may be associated with Indians who safeguard most of their culture–religions, languages and customs–even though they were born in a Creole environment, and secondly, it can be applied to Indians who were not born in the Caribbean but on coming to this region made a great contribution to their host society such as the late Loganadin Sinamadin who was a retired teacher and collaborated with the Conseil Guadeloupe pour la Promotion des Langues Indiennes to promote both Hindi and Tamil languages in the island. Let us examine a few examples of Indians who have remained attached to their culture. Camille Moutoussamy defines himself as "Indo-Martinican": "Je suis profondément Indo-Martiniquais..." (I am an Indo-Martinican to the soul). He argues that he is the child of a Tamil mother and a Dougla father. As a Hindu, he comments: "je pratique l'hindouisme des villages du sud de l'Inde où sont venus mes aïeux." (I practise a form of Hinduism that came from the southern Indian villages where my foreparents were born). Camille Moutoussamy takes pride in his Indian background and religion, contrary to most Indo-Martinicans who are Christians. 

During an interview with Le Livre (The Book), Camille Moutoussamy gave a sypnosis of his book entitled J'ai rêvé de Kos-City (I dreamt of Kos-City). He related the story of a young Indo-Martinican architect who traveled across India and the rest of world in search of inspiration. The architect's purpose in going to India was two-fold: to build a town in a healthy environment in Martinique and to bring solutions for unemployment and housing problems. Moutoussamy does not detail the building of the town and his main focus seems to be placed chiefly on a healthy environment–possibly influenced by his work as an environmentalist. The protagonist wishes to see the introduction of Indian elements into Martinican architecture which is mainly Euro-Creole; in travelling to Kos-City perhaps he also seeks communion with his ancestors' birthplace. For Camille Moutoussamy, the reconnection with India plays a significant role in the preservation of Indian cultural elements in Martinican architecture. Thanks to this reconnection, a new style of architecture reflecting both Indian and Creole influences is expected to arise. Regarding language, Camille Moutoussamy expresses anger towards those who "assassinated" his native Tamil :

S'agissant de la présence indienne à la Martinique, je m'insurge, après l'assassinat de la langue tamoule (ma véritable langue maternelle contre le fait que rien dans nos museaux régionaux et départementaux ne met en valeur cette part de notre patrimoine culturel et identitaire. [10]

In his novel entitled Eclats d’Inde, he confronts the realities of indentureship and colonial history as he speaks about the contribution of Indians in the Martinican sugar industry, their life on the plantations and their fight for equality during the 1960s.

In his 2006 interview with Deepa H. Ramakrishnan, writer Ernest Moutoussamy who was in India at that time spoke of how important the reconnection was for him (Moutoussamy 2006). He defends his Indian ancestral background when he says that he is Indian but he still points out the fact that Guadeloupe is his home as well. This may suggest that he identifies as an Indian of Guadeloupe. Unlike his counterpart Camille Moutoussamy, he is a Christian, but by keeping pictures of the main deities in his house he has kept close ties with Hinduism. As a writer, he describes the challenges that Indians were facing in their own country as their experiences as Indians on board the ship named L’aurore. [11] Ernest Moutoussamy has also been engaged in the political arena of Guadeloupe. He explains that among the reasons why he participated in politics apart from the ideological, was to show that a person of Indian origin could win, and also to boost the confidence of people of that group.

Ernest Moutoussamy (1987, 23) brings the concept of “Indianité”, or the advocating of a strong relationship with India and its culture and values, to the fore. This movement also promotes Indian roots and the history of the Indian diaspora, and goes beyond boundaries as a means of bringing unity among individuals. According to Mehta (2010, 5), the purpose of "Indianité" is to close the chapter of racism, marginalisation and conflicts between Indo-Caribbeans and Afro-Caribbeans.

Scholar Smita Tripathi (2009, 159) writes: “The term ‘coolitude’ is attributed to Mauritian poet Khal Torabully (1992)”. The poet recognised the importance of Indianness in the Indian diaspora and pioneered a new literary movement called ‘Coolitude’. For Bragard (2005, 221), the concept of Coolitude expanded beyond the Mauritian context since it also related the experiences of Indian indentured immigrants who went to East and South Africa, Fiji, Guadeloupe, Guyana and Martinique. In her work Mehta (2010, 5) quotes Torabully’s comments: 

For the Indian descendants, there was no real founding text for their indentureship, and their presence on the islands […] was vitiated by a cultural uneasiness bordering on frustration. Expressing their presence in the Caribbean society remains an intense desire for them, in view of participating fully in it.

The term “coolitude” owes its origins to the word “cooli"; a word fraught with negative connotations to many and ambivalence at best. This raises the question: will Indians accept the word “kouli” as a synonym for Indian and Indianité? Its acceptance may depend on the individual’s feelings and experiences.

If in nothing else but the name one chooses to be called, or conversely which one finds offensive, we see that language can be a powerful tool for expressing identity. Thanks to the great efforts of French Caribbean linguists, a number of French Creole dance and music terminologies have been recently adopted. It is now common to see creolised forms of French words, such as ‘tambour de basque’, while ‘chanteur’ [12] have been creolised to ‘moun a vwa’. Desroches provides an interesting example showing that the French term ‘abbé-kouli’ has been replaced by the Indian term ‘pouçari’. A decade after ‘bondyé kouli’ came into use, French Creole ‘sèvis Zendyen’ [13] arose. According to Benoist and Desroches (1982, 58), the use of ‘Zendyen’ is a means of departing from the negative image portrayed by kouli. Zendyen enhances Indian identity. The attempt at asserting Indian identity through language seems to promise a long journey because the Tamil language has barely survived owing to the thoroughness of the acculturation process and the reality that the population of Indians living in the French Caribbean is small.

Only a few Tamil names and words have survived in Guadeloupe and Martinique; Colat-Jolivère gives a few examples. On the 13th of July 2003, le Mandja d’Or was organised in the town of Basse-Pointe in northern Martinique; the word “mandja” is the Tamil equivalent for saffron, and Mandja d’Or can be translated as “gold mandja” or “gold turmeric” for the herb which Indians brought with them when they came to the island, and which is also known as Indian saffron. During this event the best cook received a prize for having prepared the best colombo. While Tamil has been on the verge of extinction, the colombo dish has made inroads into French Creole cuisine. Moutoussamy (1987, 89) notes that the name “colombo” derived from Tamil “Koujambou”. The origins of the word “colombo” could raise further questions about whether it could have also been named after the capital of Sri Lanka. If this is the case, it may suggest that there were persons from Sri Lanka among the immigrants recruited to work in the French West Indian plantations. The “pâte à colombo” (colombo paste) is the French Caribbean version of Indian curry powder. It contains turmeric, coriander, cloves, fenugreek and pepper. Many Guadeloupians and Martinicans cooked their fish and chicken using curry powder. The poulet ou poisson au colombo (curry chicken or fish) is generally served with rice. Moutoussamy (1987, 89) describes the way Indians prepare the “pâte à colombo" known as massala. The massala paste consists of mandja, cloves, garlic, chives, mustard, coriander and fried rice. All these ingredients are mixed together to make a paste. In the early days, Indians used the “roche à Massalé” [14] to make the paste. It is interesting to note a development where the Tamil word has been fused with English to create a brand name for a modern drink. Caribbean Flore, a Martinican store, has been selling and advertising "Mandj’in" as an energising drink, made from mandja power, and recommended for the treatment of many ailments.

A comparison between Guyana and the French Caribbean islands may be drawn in terms of Indian language retention. It is not unusual to hear children referring to their paternal grand-parents as “aajee” (grand-mother) and “aaja" (grand-father). Maternal grand-parents are respectively called naanee (grand-mother) and nana (grand-father). The most common Hindi names are found in Guyanese food and flora and they include bygan (eggplant), karaila (bitter melon), bhaaji (leafy vegetables like spinach), daal (a soup consisting of split peas and lentils). A number of Bhojpuri and Hindi words such as bap (father), barra (deep fried saffron coloured bread), beta (son), beti (daughter) chutney, roti and many more have slipped into Trinidadian English.

Worthy of note is the creolisation of some Tamil words. Words such as avereykaï, milagou tanni, pawka underwent phonological changes. In Guadeloupe, averey-kaï has been pronounced as avelka by most Guadeloupians, but Colat-Jolivière (1994, 172) observes that many of those with Indian ancestry do not know the origin of this word, which is the name of a bean in India. In Colat-Jolivière’s opinion, (1994, 172), the particle “kai” means vegetable in Tamil. Pawka also owes it origins to Tamil pàgarkaï (mordica charenta). Indo-French Caribbean people pronounce it as “pawka” while Creoles say “pawoka”. However, pawoka has been gallacized and it is written “paroka”. Moutoussamy (1987, 89) observes that the Tamil expression “Milagou tanni” was reduced to “moltani". The moltani is a liquid made of crushed, spicy pieces of meat after a meal, said to be good for digestion. 

Colat-Jolivière’s work on Tamil language shows that some words were altered by various phonological processes. The French-like spelling of pawka resulted from the process of epenthesis since the vowel /o/ has inserted between /w/ and /k/. The word “Milagou tanni” may have undergone syllable reduction. Avelka is also the result of syllable reduction and substitution. The consonant /l/ has substituted for /r/.

Other cases of substitution were discussed by Murugaiyan (2012, 225). For example, Indian Tamil raja (king), neruppu (fire) and vatyaru (priest) are heard as laja, nelpu, and vatyalu in Martinique. Indian Tamil palu (milk) is pronounced as paru in the French islands. Finally, eduttom becomes ertom/yeltom in Martinican Tamil. The word nadrom or nadron is known as nadagam in India (Murugaiyan 226). While many Tamil words succumbed to the creolisation process, some retained their purity. Among these is ‘samblani’, the name of a religious ritual in Guadeloupe, and the ‘panialon’, a small sweet cake made of ground rice and wheat flour.

These words indicate that the resonances of the Indian culture have persisted in the most fundamental aspects of human life, particularly in cuisine and religious practices with traces in terms for family. This shows how basic language was for the retention of identity for the immigrant Indians, and indeed the Indian cultural renaissance. The promotion of language programmes at school bear testimony to such even as it perpetuates understanding of Indian culture. Yet promoting Tamil is challenging. While Guadeloupe has gone further than Martinique in implementing Indian language programmes, perhaps its success will indicate what direction the future holds regarding the use of Tamil in our communities and its significance in fully fleshing out the sense of Indian or Indo-French Caribbean identity or identities. Is it likely to be used among Indo-Caribbeans, or is it likely to function as a new language for communication between Indo-Caribbeans and Indians from India?

Conclusion

The 1970s and the 1980s witnessed the resurrection of Afro-Creole art forms including Bèlè, Gwo Ka, Mazurka, Mizik Chouval Bwa which had been rejected by the Guadeloupian and Martinican elite and the French authorities. As time went by, the French Creole language gained recognition although it did not became the official language of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Similar to their Afro-Creole counterparts, Indo-French Caribbean citizens struggled to preserve their identity and culture in the early days. Upon their arrival in their host islands, Indians were subjugated to the assimilation process which stripped them from their identity and culture. Their integration into the French Caribbean society was slow and painful due to the hostility of the French government and the Afro-Creole population. In recent times, more Indo-French Caribbean people have achieved higher education, and have expressed collectively the need to revive their culture by means of creating associations, organising events such as Diwali and Le Mandia d’Or or traveling to India. This emerging sense of identity has not given rise to the formation of any political party by the minority Indo-French Caribbean people. The question of Indian identity in non-independent islands remains a challenge. The various concepts including Indo-Creole, Indians of Guadeloupe/Martinique and Indo-Guadeloupians indicate that Indian identity is multifaceted and fluid based on each individual’s experiences and upbringing.

Notes

[1] French recruiting company that was located in India.

[2] Personal interview, 7 July 2012.

[3] French Creole that derived from French “le mai” meaning the “month of May”.

[4] Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

[5] Scientific name: Momordica Charantia (Cucurbitaceae).

[6] French Creole term literally “Bastard Indian”. It derives from French “Bâtard Indien”.

[7] Guadeloupian Council for the promotion of Indian Languages.

[8] West India magazine has been published by the Service Communication du Conseil Guadeloupéen pour la Promotion des Langues Indiennes (Guadeloupian Service and Council for the Promotion of Indian languages).

[9] A person who kills a sheep for the worshipping of Gods.

[10] When it comes to Indian culture in Martinique, I rebel against the "assassination of the Tamil language (my true language) and the museums which have done nothing to preserve this element in our cultural heritage." (See References).

[11] Name of the vessel that took the first Indian immigrants to the French West Indies in 1853/1854.

[12] Both terms literally mean “Drum of Basque” and “singer”.

[13] French Creole term meaning “Indian service”.

[14] Flat rock found in rivers (Guadeloupe and Martinique).

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