Emigration and Social Change: A Sociological Study of the Early Emigrants of Andamans"The book analyses the socio-economic and cultural patterns of the `locals' of the Andaman Islands who have a certain amount of ethnic consciousness and cultural identity among themselves. The locals are the creation of the British policy of colonisation of the Andaman Islands. While comparing the characteristics of the people who were imprisoned in the Andaman Islands with those Indians, who migrated to other British colonies as indentured labour, a qualitative difference is noticed. The indentured labour recruited in groups from some specific cultural area of India, carrying with them a part of their cultural and linguistic milieu, and thus they were able to develop a miniature cultural India in those British colonies. Insofar as the early migrants of Andaman Islands are concerned, they were drawn from different parts of India and not significantly in good number from any specific linguistic region and, therefore, they were unable to recreate any specific linguistic cultural form in the Andaman Islands. People of different languages, religions, castes and classes had to amalgamate themselves to create a new community, which, on the one hand, must have retained features of Indian social life, while at the same time they do not represent any specific culture area. What was the process of the formation of a new community? What is specific social form of the community? How does it resemble the parent culture from India? To what extent it differs from the culture of the mainland, especially in matters of caste and joint family-based society? What factors of unity do they show and how do they react to the other migrant inhabitants of that place? These are some of the issues, which have found place in the present book." |
Contents
Historical Development as a Penal Settlement | 1 |
Theoretical Exposition and Methodology | 23 |
XV | 84 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
according administrative agriculture analyse Andaman and Nicobar Andaman Islands Andamanese average banishment barat Bengal Bhantu Bombay Born Association boy's Brahmin bride bridegroom British caste system Cellular Jail Census of India census report cent Christians cent Hindu cent Muslims ceremony colony considered cultural data collection Delhi divorce early emigrant society economic family members father girl girl's given Government of India high caste Hindi Home Department Ibid income Jail joint family Kerala kheer Kshatriya labour large number linguistic live low caste mainland India male mandap Marital marriageable age married Mathur Mopala Mopala Muslims mother Muslims Nicobar Islands nikah parents party pattern penal settlement performed political population Port Blair town priest Progs Public Branch Publishing House Rakshabandhan Ranchi Religion-wise religions religious researcher respondents rituals self-supporter sent settled sex ratio Sikh social change status Table Total unmarried Urdu West Bengal widow wife woman women