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Language Shift and Identity Reproduction among Diaspora Sindhis in India and Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2020

MATTHEW A. COOK Open the ORCID record for MATTHEW A. COOK [Opens in a new window]  and
MAYA KHEMLANI DAVID
MATTHEW A. COOK
Affiliation:
North Carolina Central University Email: matthew.alain.cook@gmail.com
MAYA KHEMLANI DAVID
Affiliation:
University of Malaya Email: mayadavid@yahoo.com
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship between language shift and identity among diaspora Sindhis in India and Southeast Asia. It focuses on questions concerning how members of this community reproduce identity through language shift. The first part of the article describes identity and language shift among diaspora Sindhis in post-partition India. It argues that language shift facilitates the reproduction of core cultural modalities among diaspora Sindhis. The second part describes the history of diaspora Sindhis in Southeast Asia and analyses language shift. It contends that language shift enables diaspora Sindhis to suspend a connection between mother-tongue proficiency and identity. The article concludes by discussing how the diaspora Sindhi experience retunes the interval that conventionally connects language shift to cultural change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 734 - 763
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Kalpana's, Mohan Jalavatni (New Delhi: Sindhi Academy, 2008)Google Scholar and Motwani's, Hari Ajho (New Delhi: Sindhu Dhara Publications, 1997)Google Scholar describe this lack of joy.

2 Ananya Jahnara Kabir, ‘Gender, Memory, Trauma: Women's Novels on the Partition of India’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 25.1: p. 180. This type of trauma involves a ‘dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric, affecting a group of people that has achieved some degree of cohesion’ (Eyerson, Ron, Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 2Google Scholar).

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6 This article uses the term ‘diaspora Sindhis’ for people who are commonly called ‘Hindu Sindhis’. Since the latter designation overly simplifies and communalizes this community's spiritual life, we use the former term. For details about the spiritual life of diaspora Sindhis, see Ramey, Steven, Hindu, Sufi, or Sikh: Contested Practices and Identifications of Sindhi Hindus in India and Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Mark-Anthony Falzon reports: 115,240 Hindus lived in the Karachi District, 242,692 Hindus lived in the Hyderabad District, and 218,829 Hindus lived in the Shikarpur District (Falzon, Mark-Anthony, Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi Diaspora, 1860–2000 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), p. 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar). He also reports that Hindus constituted 42 per cent of the population in the Thar and Parker (namely 151,726) and 10 per cent (namely 22,765) of the people in the Upper Sindh Frontier.

8 Ibid., p. 31.

9 Ibid., p. 32.

10 Panjwani, Jyoti, ‘Introduction’, in Panjwani, Jyoti (ed.), The Pages of My Life: Autobiography and Selected Stories of Popati Hiranandani (Delhi and London: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. xxxvGoogle Scholar. Amils and Sahitis, who held administrative positions in precolonial and colonial Sindh, had higher status than merchants and traders (namely Bhaibands, Bhagnaris, and Chhaprus).

11 In the Karachi District, the Lohana population was 53,098. In the Hyderabad District, it was 147,516. In the Shikarpur District, the community numbered 166,292. In Thar and Parker, the Lohana numbered 32,461. In the Upper Sindh Frontier, the population was 13,882 (Falzon, Cosmopolitan Connections, p. 31).

12 Ibid., p. 33.

13 Panjwani, ‘Introduction’, pp. xix, xviii.

14 Boivin, Michel, Cook, Matthew A., and Levesque, Julien, ‘Introduction’, in Boivin, Michel, Cook, Matthew A., and Levesque, Julien (eds.), Discovering Sindh's Past: Selections from the Journal of the Sindh Historical Society, 1934–1948 (Karachi and London: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 1–13Google Scholar.

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16 Kalpana, Jalavatni, p. 43.

17 Trisha Lalchandani, ‘Alienation, Displacement, and Home in Mohan Kalpana's Jalavatni’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 39.4: p. 813.

18 Kothari, Rita, Unbordered Memories: Sindhi Stories of Partition (Delhi: Penguin, 2009), p. xviGoogle Scholar.

19 Ibid.; Bhavnani, ‘Unwanted Refugees’, p. 795; Kumar and Kothari, ‘Sindh, 1947 and Beyond’, p. 778.

20 Kothari, Unbordered Memories, p. xvi; Bhavnani, ‘Unwanted Refugees’, p. 795.

21 Daswani, C. J., ‘Language Attrition: The Case of Indian Sindhi’, Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications 20(1985): p. 191Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 196.

23 Kothari, Rita, The Burden of Refuge: The Sindhi Hindus of Gujarat (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007), p. 160Google Scholar.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., p. 161. For additional insights into post-partition life for diaspora Sindhis in Gujarat, see Kothari, Rita, ‘Unwanted Identities in Gujarat’, in Boivin, Michel and Cook, Matthew A. (eds.), Interpreting the Sindhi World: Essays on Society and History (Karachi and London: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 58–74Google Scholar.

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28 Kothari, Burden of Refuge, p. 163. For a similar sentiment, see Arvind Iyengar, ‘Self-Perceptions of Heritage Language Shift among Young Sindhis in Pune’, M.A. thesis, University of New England, 2013 (https://www.academia.edu/5322037/Self-Perceptions_of_Heritage_Language_Shift_Among_Young_Sindhis_in_Pune [accessed 17 December 2019]). A diaspora Sindhi from Pune states to Iyengar that ‘today, even if I want to learn Sindhi, where do I learn from? There are no classes, no coaching. I'm not going to do a study on it. Probably just a crash course, like one month, just to get the basics right. But there's nothing to do. Where do I go? So, I think that's like a major problem. I think if you propagate it properly, maybe people will be interested in learning it’ (p. 44).

29 Daswani, ‘Language Attrition’, p. 197; Yashodhara Wadhwani, ‘Sindhi Surnames Ending in–ANI’, Baroda Oriental Institute Journal 3.2: pp. 185–192. Sindhi surnames can also refer to geographic origin (for example, Punjabi and Multani) and frequently end in ‘ja’, a possessive suffix (for example, Hinduja means ‘of the Indus River’).

30 Kothari, Burden of Refuge, p. 161.

31 Daswani, C. J., ‘Problems of Sindhi in India’, in Biswas, A. K. (ed.), Profiles in Indian Languages and Literatures (Kanpur: Indian Languages Society, 1985), p. 215Google Scholar.

32 Daswani, ‘Language Attrition’, p. 197. For more comprehensive studies of language shift among second-generation diaspora Sindhis, see Daswani, C. J. and Parchani, S., Sociolinguistic Survey of Indian Sindhi (Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 1978)Google Scholar; Lachman Mulchand Khubchandani, ‘The Acculturation of Indian Sindhi to Hindi: A Study of Language in Contact’, Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1963 (http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI6407380 [accessed 17 December 2019]).

33 For an account of language shift among Sindhis in Pakistan, see Rahman, Tariq, Language Ideology and Power: Language-learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 353–379Google Scholar.

34 Government of India, Official Languages Resolution of 1968, Para. 2 (https://rajbhasha.gov.in/en/official-language-resolution-1968 [accessed 17 December 2019]).

35 For a history of this policy, see Rahman, Tariq, ‘British Language Policies and Imperialism in India’, Language Problems and Planning 20.2: pp. 91–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Matthew A. Cook, ‘When Writing Fails: The Mid-Nineteenth Century Colonial History of Sindh's Khudawadi Script’. A paper presented at the Writing and the Inscription of Power in South Asia Workshop at Duke University (6 April 2013).

37 Hiranandani, Popati, Sindhis: The Scattered Treasure (New Delhi: Malaah Publications, 1980), p. 15Google Scholar. Jairamdas Daulatram was the first ‘Indian’ governor of Bihar (1947–48). He was also the Union Minister for Food and Agriculture (1948–50) and the governor of Assam (1950–56).

38 Kothari, Rita, ‘The Paradox of a Linguistic Minority’, in Sarangi, Asha and Pai, Sudha (eds.), Interrogating Reorganization of States: Culture, Identity, and Politics in India (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011), p. 130Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., p. 135.

40 Ibid.

41 Daulatram's advocacy of Devanagari was part of a larger push by him to encourage diaspora Sindhis to culturally jettison Muslim ‘overtones’. Bhavnani writes that ‘the Perso-Arabic alphabet [Naskh], which had been widely used by Sindhi Hindus for the Sindhi language over the preceding century, was one of the first casualties of this move’ (p. 796).

42 Daswani, C. J., ‘Movement for the Recognition of Sindhi and for the Choice of a Script for Sindhi’, in Annamalai, E. (ed.), Language Movements in India (Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 1979), p. 26Google Scholar.

43 Government of India, Ministry of Education, Notification No. F 14/49-D.I. (9 March 1950).

44 Daswani, ‘Movement for the Recognition of Sindhi’, p. 62.

45 Hiranandani, Sindhis, p. 16. For the text of the Ministry of Education's 1951 statement, see Government of India, Ministry of Education, Letter No. N 14-4/49-D.I. (10 January 1951).

46 K. J. Gowalani and Another v. the Municipal Corporation of Great Bombay, Civil Petition No. 10 of 1961 (decided 26 August 1961).

47 Kothari, Burden of Refuge, p. 163. To promote neutrality in the script debate and to move forward, the Government of India established an autonomous organization in 1994: the National Council for Promotion of the Sindhi Language.

48 Jairamdas Daulatram, ‘Sindhu mein Devanagari Lipi’, Hindvasi, Bombay Edition (October 1961); Ghanshyam Shivdasani, ‘Sindhi Bolia/Devanagari Lipi’, Hindvasi, Bombay Edition (April 1963); Jetley, Loknath, Sindhi Bolia ji Lipi (Bombay: n.p., 1859)Google Scholar; Tarachand Gajra, ‘Devanagari Script for the Sindhi Language’, New Era, Ulasnagar Edition (1966).

49 Hiranandani, Sindhis, p. 19.

50 Kothari, ‘Paradox of a Linguistic Minority’, p. 138.

51 Wadhwani, T. T., Sindhi Bolia Jee Lipi Keri (Delhi: Sindhi Boli ain Lipi Sabha, 1962), p. 32Google Scholar.

52 For additional perspectives on this issue, see Vasant, Tirth, ‘Sindhi Boli ain Lipi’, Naeen Duniya 10(1958)Google Scholar; Mirchandani, Lekhraj Kishanchand (a.k.a. Aziz), Sindhi Bolia ji Lipia jo Masailo (Bombay: n.p., 1959)Google Scholar; and Wadhwani, T. T., Sindhi Bolia ji Lipi Kehri (Bombay: n.p., 1962)Google Scholar.

53 Kothari, Burden of Refuge, p. 163.

54 Daswani, ‘Problems of Sindhi’, pp. 217–218.

55 Ibid., p. 218.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Carol McGranahan, ‘Ethnography Beyond Method: The Importance of an Ethnographic Sensibility’, Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies 15.1: p. 1.

60 Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 6Google Scholar.

61 Kroskrity, Paul, ‘Identity’, in Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), Key Terms in Language and Culture (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), p. 106Google Scholar.

62 Bucholtz, Mary and Hall, Kira, ‘Language and Identity’, in Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), p. 384Google Scholar.

63 Ibid.

64 Cook, Matthew A., Annexation and the Unhappy Valley: The Historical Anthropology of Sindh's Colonization (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016), pp. 21–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Daswani, ‘Problems of Sindhi’, p. 218. In The Pages of My Life, Popati Hiranandani similarly states that ‘nowadays Sindhi books are not sold at all because most of the Sindhi medium schools are closed. Who will learn Sindhi? It has lost its utility because we haven't got our own state! Nobody gets a job when he has studied in a Sindh medium school. Hence, when I don't sell my own books to others, how can I charge you [Panjwani]? Now we only exchange our books—we the Sindhi writers’ (Hiranandani, in Panjwani, ‘Introduction’, p. xc).

66 Daswani, ‘Movement for the Recognition of Sindhi’, p. 68.

67 Ibid.

68 Daswani, ‘Problems of Sindhi’, p. 218.

69 Falzon, Cosmopolitan Connections, pp. 29–30.

70 Thapan, Anita Raina, Sindhi Diaspora in Manila, Hong Kong and Jakarta (Manila: Ateneo De Manila University Press, 2002), p. 1Google Scholar.

71 This article utilizes examples from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. For a personal history of the community in Manila, see Lou Gopal, ‘Manila Nostalgia’, 5 December 2015 (http://www.lougopal.com/manila/?p=3590 [accessed 17 December 2019]). About language shift among diaspora Sindhis in Manila, see Roopa Dewan, ‘Deethnicisation: A Study of Language and Culture Change in the Sindhi Immigrant Community of Metro Manila’, Philippine Journal of Linguistics 20.1: pp. 19–27. For an analysis of diaspora Sindhis in Asia but outside the region covered by this article, see Mamta Sachan Kumar, ‘Trade of the Times: Reconceiving “Diaspora” with the Sindhi Merchants of Japan’, M.A. thesis, National University of Singapore, 2010 (https://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/22835 [accessed 17 December 2019]).

72 Markovits, Claude, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 58–59Google Scholar.

73 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p. 19. For more details about Indian businessmen in Southeast Asia, see Bhattacharya, Jayati, Beyond the Myth: Indian Business Communities in Singapore (Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Regarding the history of Sindhi businessmen in Singapore and other Southeast Asian locales, see the 2009 International Conference on Southeast Asia (ICONSEA) presentation by Jayati Bhattacharya entitled ‘Alienation, Survival, and Success: The Sindhi Community in Southeast East Asia’.

74 Markovits, Global World, pp. 58–59.

75 Wassimull-Assomull and Company and K. A. J. Chotirmall and Company initially began in Java—a Dutch rather than British colonial territory.

76 Regarding the textile firm B. H. T. Doulatram (which had branches in Penang and Singapore), see Bhattacharya, Beyond the Myth, p. 49.

77 Falzon, Cosmopolitan Connections, pp. 115–122.

78 David, Maya Khemlani, The Sindhis of Malaysia: A Sociolinguistic Study (London: ASEAN Academic Press, 2001), p. 12Google Scholar.

79 While hard numbers can be difficult to ascertain, it is the case that the Sindhi Merchants Association of Singapore only had ten members when established in 1921. By 1939, its membership had more than doubled to 21.

80 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p. 37.

81 In India, Amils remain the elite group among diaspora Sindhis. They not only make up the community's traditional literati, but, as in the precolonial and colonial periods, occupy politically influential positions (for example, Lal Krishna Advani and other Sindhis in the Bharatiya Janata Party). For additional details on the historical roots and relationships of Amils and Bhaibands, see Matthew A. Cook, ‘Keeping Your Head or Getting Ahead? The “Sindhi” Migration of Eighteenth-Century India’, in Boivin and Cook (eds.), Interpreting the Sindhi World, pp. 133–149.

82 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p. 14.

83 Ibid.

84 Cook, Annexation and the Unhappy Valley, pp. 66–67.

85 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, pp. 14–15.

86 Thapan writes that ‘within the [Sindhi] community it is not uncommon for those who have gone to school or have taken up professions to sometimes adopt names that are associated with the Amils. These names represent a tradition of learning and professional expertise and give one a sense of prestige within his or her own community’ (ibid., p. 77).

87 Ibid., p. 75.

88 Ibid., p. 77.

89 David, Sindhis of Malaysia, p. 25.

90 Ibid. The fact that some third-generation Bhaibands gravitate toward conventionally Amil occupations (such as medicine and law) is a further example of this cultural change among diaspora Sindhis in Malaysia.

91 Kulick, Don, Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self, and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinea Village (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 21Google Scholar. Similarly, Jane and Kenneth Hill define code-switching as a ‘self-conscious use of foreign materials in order to create a “meaningful juxtaposition” of distinct language systems’ (Hill, Jane and Hill, Kenneth, Speaking Mexicano: Dynamics of Syncretic Language in Central Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986), p. 345Google Scholar).

92 Hill and Hill, Speaking Mexicano, p. 348. On code-mixing, see McClure, Erica, ‘Formal and Functional Aspects of the Codeswitched Discourse of Bilingual Children’, in Duran, Richard (ed.), Latino Language and Communicative Behavior (Ablewood, NJ: Ablex, 1981), pp. 69–94Google Scholar.

93 Gal, Susan, Language Shift: Social Determinants of Linguistic Change in Bilingual Austria (New York: Academic Press, 1979), p. 7Google Scholar.

94 Maya Khemlani David, ‘Code Switching Among Sindhis Experiencing Language Shift in Malaysia’, in Boivin and Cook (eds.), Interpreting the Sindhi World, p. 111.

95 David, Sindhis of Malaysia, p. 48.

96 Gal, Language Shift, p. 13.

97 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p. 161. A similar shift appears ongoing among diaspora Sindhis in Thailand. While no formal study exists, comparable cases suggest that such change is not exclusive to diaspora Sindhis (Rachanee Dersingh, ‘Patterns of Language Choice in a Thai-Sikh Community in Bangkok’, MANUSHYA: Journal of Humanities 17.1: pp. 22–44).

98 Ibid.; David, ‘Code Switching’, pp. 110–114.

99 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p. 85.

100 Ibid., p. 160.

101 Ibid., p. 85.

102 David, Sindhis of Malaysia, p. 193.

103 Ibid.

104 For a full description of the survey's questions, answers, and methodology, see the URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304613688_Does_loss_of_a_language_equate_to_a_loss_in_identity?enrichId=rgreq-3dbcc3fc413b1fe5977054391d9c50ff-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzMwNDYxMzY4ODtBUzozNzg1NzM3NjU1Mjk2MDJAMNzI3MDQyNzM3NQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_2&_esc=publicationCoverPdf (accessed 17 December 2019).

105 David, Sindhis of Malaysia, p. 194.

106 Ibid.

107 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p. 78.

108 Ibid., p. 39.

109 Ibid., p. 40.

110 Moneymaking, in and of itself, is often culturally inadequate for Bhaiband men. They often spend their money on items aimed at communicating their success. Thapan writes that ‘personal satisfaction at the accumulation of wealth, however, is insufficient and must be complemented by the recognition and admiration of his community. That is why keeping a low profile while making headway in business is not in the Sindhi [Bhaiband] character. In order to gain the recognition of his peers, he must equip himself with the symbols of success and these are material goods in the form of a grand house in an affluent area, the most expensive cars, membership in exclusive clubs, diamond jewelry for his wife, and so on’ (ibid., p. 40). In India, such spending habits result in the widespread impression that Sindhi women are chumkili (glittery).

111 Hill and Hill, Speaking Mexicano, p. 411.

112 Ibid., p. 100.

113 Ibid., p. 389. Also see Chomsky, Noam, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Boston: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

114 Hill and Hill, Speaking Mexicano, p. 55. On the influence of ‘purism’ in anthropological thought, see Hogdon, Margaret, Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964)Google Scholar. On the concept's linguistic roots in the ‘Adamic Model’, see Aarsleff, Hans, From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the Study of Language and Intellectual History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

115 Hill and Hill, Speaking Mexicano, p. 404; Gal, Language Shift, p. 17; Kulick, Language Shift, p. 3. Also see Sankoff, Gillian, The Social Life of Languages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

116 David, Maya Khemlani, ‘Does Loss of a Language Equate to a Loss in Identity’, Language and Society Newsletter 3(2008): p. 8Google Scholar.

117 Ibid., p. 5. High Street is no longer a centre for diaspora Sindhi businesses in Singapore. For more about the Singapore community and an analysis of language shift, see Maya Khemlani David, ‘The Sindhis of Singapore: Language Maintenance or Language Shift’, Migracijske Teme 16.3: pp. 271–287.

118 David, Sindhis of Malaysia, p. 63; Gal, in Language Shift, states that social networks in Austria (as they do in Southeast Asia and other places) greatly influence people's language choices: ‘Social networks do not influence language use directly, but rather by shaping people's goals and their means of action. Particularly relevant here are the effects of networks on the social categories with which speakers aim to identify themselves. Social networks influence people's communicative strategies when such identification is expressed through speech. In turn, the power of social networks to constrain linguistic presentation of self depends on the fact that social contacts associate certain linguistic choices with particular social categories’ (pp. 15–16).

119 David, Sindhis of Malaysia, p. 24. Other events mentioned by respondents to the online survey include Cheti Chand (Sindhi New Year's Day), Asa di Var (the 24 pauri or stanzas of Guru Nanank), Diwali (the festival of lights), and eating vegetarian on Mondays and full-moon days.

120 Ibid., p. 28.

121 Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p. 2. Widespread after partition, endogamous marriages are no longer as prevalent as they once were in some diaspora Sindhi communities (for example, Malaysia).

122 Ibid., p. 153. This sense of distinctiveness is so strong that young diaspora Sindhis still frequently consider their mother tongue to be Sindhi despite not being able to speak the language.

123 Ibid., p. 11.

124 Ibid., p. 225.

125 David, Sindhis of Malaysia, p. 23. With recent shifts toward condominium living, this type of residential clustering is now reduced in Malaysia.

126 Prasenjit Duara, ‘Asia Redux: Conceptualizing a Region for Our Times’, Journal of Asian Studies 69.4: p. 963.

127 Ibid., p. 964.

128 Kulick, Language Shift, p. 9.

129 Ho, Engseng, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. xxivCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

130 Ramey, Hindu, Sufi, or Sikh, pp. 107–124.

131 Ray, Anita, ‘Jhulelal, Gorakhnath, and the Hindu Sindhi Diaspora’, Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 43(2011): pp. 146–147Google Scholar.

132 Boivin, Michel and Rajpal, Bhavana, ‘From Undero Lal in Sindh to Ulhasnagar in Maharastra: Partition and Memories across Borders in the Tradition of Jhulelal’, in Mahn, Churnjeet and Murphy, Anne (eds.), Partition and the Practice of Memory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2018), p. 44Google Scholar.

133 Bhavnani, ‘Unwanted Refugees’, p. 797.

134 Ibid. While spiritual practices and sites may shift to India (and elsewhere), their cultural meanings do not always stay the same. Rather than representing a ‘quasi-syncretic understanding of religion’, diaspora Sindhis frequently invoke Jhulelal to confer ‘upon themselves a “normal” Hindu identity’ (Kothari, ‘Paradox of a Linguistic Minority’, p. 141).

135 Like diaspora Sindhis, Tamils experienced language shift and cultural continuities after migrating to Malaysia (Lokasundari Vijaya Sankar, ‘Women's Roles and Participation in Rituals in the Maintenance of Cultural Identity: A Study of Malaysian Iyers’, SEARCH: The Journal of the South East Research Center for Communication and the Humanities 7.1: pp. 1–21). For a more in-depth analysis of Tamil identity and language in the South Asian diaspora, see Das, Sonia, Linguistic Rivalries: Tamil Migrants and Anglo-Franco Conflicts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an analysis of language shift and ‘identity retention’ among South Asians in South Africa, see Mesthrie, Rajend, ‘Language Shift, Culture Change, and Identity Retention’, South African Historical Journal 57(2007): pp. 134–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Despite socio-cultural differences with diaspora Sindhis, the Parsi, Bohra, and Khoja communities are cases for comparison. For details, see Usha Desai, ‘An Investigation of Factors Influencing Maintenance and Shift of the Gujarati Language in South Africa’, Ph.D. diss., University of Durban, 1997 (http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/Lang/Desai_U_Investigation_Factors_Influencing_Maintenance_Shift_Gujarati_Language_South_Africa_1997.pdf [accessed 17 December 2019]); Thomson, Greg, ‘Language and Ethnicity Among a Group of Pentalingual Albuquerqueans’, Working Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session 44 (2000): pp. 1–22Google Scholar; Payal Mohta, ‘The Quest Is on to Save a Dying Zoroastrian Language’, 19 June 2019 (https://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/the-quest-is-on-to-save-a-dying-zoroastrian-language/94521 [accessed 17 December 2019]); Damani, Ali Jan, ‘Nakhlanki Gita’, in Karim, Karim H. (ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Ishmaili Studies Conference: Mapping a Pluralistic Space in Ishmaili Studies (Ottawa: Carlton University, 2017), pp. 97–98Google Scholar; Geoffrey Hill, ‘Dawoodi Borha Implementation of Meaning Making Methods for Successful Establishment in Western Societies’, M.A. thesis, Uppsala University, 2015 (http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:822240/FULLTEXT01.pdf [accessed 17 December 2019]).

136 Kulick, Language Shift, p. 24.

137 Ibid., pp. 20–21.

138 Ibid., p. 24.

139 Ibid., p. 9.