A Summary and Critique of Indian Diaspora

Running head: A SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE OF INDIAN DIASPORA
A Summary and Critique of Indian Diaspora
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A SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE OF INDIAN DIASPORA1
Summary and Critique
Ravindra K. Jain’s article Indian Diaspora, Globalization and Multiculturalism: A
Cultural Analysis is a unique endeavour which seeks to attempt to understand the cultural
dynamics of Indian diaspora communities all around the globe in the context of increasing
globalization and acceptance of multiculturalism as a world-outlook for many people. The
author explores how much the culture of such diaspora communities of ethnic Indians has
come to differ greatly with the culture of those Indians who reside within the Subcontinent
and how the cultural ties existing these diaspora communities and India is often imaginative
and nostalgic, even if these communities become integrated with the dominant culture of the
countries where they reside.
The paper is in itself quite comprehensive in terms of theorisation and structuration,
providing a distinction between the kinds of multiculturalism existing within India and in the
countries where Indians immigrate to (Prato, 2016). The author is able to successfully show
how globalization has affected the multiculturalism of India and other (most often, Western)
countries differently (Ramanathan, 2015). At the same time, the author is able to distinguish
between the colonial and post-colonial effects on Indian culture (Chandra & Majumdar,
2013), by tracing the colonial origins of Indian expatriate communities in other countries
(Lacroix, 2013) – most of which had been British colonies at one point of time. The author is
successful at showing how this colonial origin of most Indian diaspora communities has
influenced their cultural dynamics and distinction from the culture of India proper
The author posits that in order to objectively ascertain the cultural aspects of Indian
diaspora communities and to underscore their differences from the culture as it exists in their
country of origin, a “field of forces” of paradigm is essential to be established as a framework
of sociological and cultural analysis in order to draw definite conclusions about how the