Mini-India

Abstract

Chapter 4 highlights how, as a consequence of migration and place-making processes, the discourses of locality, nation, and community came to be equated with the term ‘Mini-India’. Here, three intersecting meanings of the notion of Mini-India are discussed: The first section describes how the term ‘Mini-India’ is appropriated by the state to encompass diverse ethnic and religious identifications under the nationalist slogan ‘unity in diversity’ and to declare the pluralist Andaman society as a secular example of communal harmony. The second part considers Mini-India as a subaltern consciousness, which the author calls the ‘island mentality’. From this perspective, Mini-India refers to a localized sense of belonging that can also be termed a ‘rural cosmopolitanism’. Thirdly, it is argued that the notion of Mini-India must, at the same time, be regarded as an arena of politics in which ethnic communities compete with each other for funds and recognition by the state.

Can migrants be indigenous? Affirmative action, space, and belonging in the Andaman Islands

“…76 Zehmisch, 'The invisible architects of Andaman', pp. 122 78 Zehmisch, 'The invisible architects of Andaman', pp. 122-38.…”

“…Previously, it had denoted a subaltern labour force, consisting of various Adivasi communities that were recruited in Ranchi; now, the term describes an ethnicity-in-the-making based on the transcending of ethnic division through inter-group marriage and shared living conditions when it comes to relations to the environment and cosmology, socio-economic, cultural, and political factors. 113 All these factors have come to create a strong sense of local belonging; from a geographical and ecological perspective, this sense of belonging may be understood when looking at characteristic place-making processes that emerged in multiple Ranchi villages situated on cleared forest spaces from the 1950s: reminded of the hilly landscape in Chotanagpur, the inhabitants often built their houses and gardens on elevations, while flat areas were reserved for fields and pastures. 114 One can tentatively assume that gardens, houses, fields, fences, objects, places of communal worship and ritual, but also immaterial social and religious institutions were reconstructed according to collective ideas about social aesthetics 115 and culturally learned modus operandi that were applied in the diasporic situation.…”

“…The Ranchis' sound embeddedness in the islands is further complemented by their ontological worldviews, including spirits inhabiting the forest and the sea. 122 According to some interlocutors, most spirits were souls of ancestors who had travelled along with them from the mainland to the islands. Spirits can be either 'good' or 'evil'; for example, they can be invited to assist in cultivation or be used by malevolent individuals for black magic, such as the 'evil eye'.…”