Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume III - South Asia - D,E,F doc

Divehis are those who speak Divehi, the language of theRepublic of the Maldives.Theyoccupyall the Maldives and also the island of Maliku Minicoy on the maps tothe north,whichbelongstoInd

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ETHNONYMS: none

Althoughthisname appears intheanthropological

liter-ature, it seemsthat thereis no discreteculturalgroup

identifi-able as Dards It is true that Pliny and Ptolemyin ancient

timesboth referredtosuchapeople inhabitinga tractof the

upperIndusValleyinwhatistoday Pakistan,andinthatarea

people livingonthe leftbank of the Induswerecalled Dards

The Dards, basedon descriptionsof the Gilgit areaaround

1870,aredescribedas ahunting, herding,andfarming people

with:large, extended familiesandsomepolygyny;some

trans-humance;no extensivecerealagriculture; villagesof from 400

to1,000inhabitants; patrilocalpostmarital residence;andno

localized clans butlineagesorsibsspreading beyondasingle

community.While all of thismayhavebeentruefor the

in-habitants of Gilgit, thereisstillsome question as towhether

thoselabeled Dards are, infact, adistinctcultural entity.

Itis more appropriate tospeak of the 'Dardic branch,"a

termusedby linguiststodesignateasmallgroupoflanguages

of the Indo-Aryan Subfamily spokeninandnearthe north of

Pakistan Ofthese,Kashmiriisthemost important.Thereis

also a territory there known as Dardistan, which includes

Gilgit Valley, Hunza, Chitral, Yasin, Nagar, Panyal,

Kohis-tan,theAstoreValley,andpartof theupperIndusValley

be-tweenBunji andBatera

Seealso Kashmiri; Kohistani

Bibliography Biddulph, John (1880) Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh Calcutta:

Superintendentof Government Printing

Leitner,GotliebWilliam(1877).The Languagesand Racesof

Dardistan Lahore: Government Central Book Depot

PAUL HOCKINGS

Divehi

ETHNONYMS: Divehin, Dives, Maldivians

Orientation

Identification Divehis are those who speak Divehi, the

language of theRepublic of the Maldives.Theyoccupyall the

Maldives and also the island of Maliku (Minicoy on the

maps) tothe north,whichbelongstoIndia Thepeople call

themselves Divehi (from dive-si, meaning "island-er"), and

their country is Divehi RAjje (kingdom) The name

'Mal-dives"isprobablyfrom mdild-dfv ("garland-islands" inIndian

languages), referring to the double chain of atolls that

ap-like garland necklace The wordatol isDivehi,

origi-nally spelledwith one 1 The countrywas a nexus of Indian

Ocean shipping, and it has remained mostly independent

since ancient times

Location The Maldives stretch from 00 2' S to 7° 0' N, with Minicoyat 8° 2' Longitude is about 730 E There are

about 1,200islands, ofwhich 201 arepermanently inhabited The islandsarelow andflat, mostly lessthan akilometerlong withonly9 aslong as 2kilometers, ringing coral atolls Total landarea isonly about280squarekilometers, and nowhereis

theland more than 2 meters above sea level The Maldives extend for 867kilometers north to south and claim the

sur-roundingocean asnational territory.Maliku is thelargest is-land, 16.5 kilometers long and lying 140 kilometers north of the Maldivesproper, but it is politically cut off from other parts of thearchipelago

Demography As of 1991 there were 228,000 Divehis-220,000 Maldivians and roughly 8,000 on Maliku The first

census was in 1911 as part of the Ceylon census, and it showed 72,237 Divehison217 inhabitedislands Population waspreviously kept in check by epidemics, famine because of stormsthat interrupted imports of food, and cerebral malaria, but during recent decades the population has been shooting

uprapidly The 1990 census showed a crude birthrate of 43 per 1,000and agrowth rate of 3.5 percent a year The

govern-menthas taken little initiative onfamily planning because of the momentum of Islamic tradition Male has 57,000 people,

aquarter of all Divehis, though it is only 1.6kilometers long and the thin groundwater lens has become polluted, so the government tries to curb migration there Life expectancy is about 62 years formales and 60 for females

Linguistic Affiliation Divehi is derived from the old Sinhala of Sri Lanka, and so it is classifiable as an Indo-Aryan language, although at the very end of the Eurasian chain of that language stock There is an underlying component of Tamil-Malayalam Since conversion to Islam, numerous Ara-bic and Persian words have been borrowed The bounds of the language are clear, but the three southern atolls and Maliku have their own dialects The script is unique, invented for Divehi threecenturies ago from a combination of Arabic and Indian principles of script It suits the language well and

is easy tolearn

History and Cultural Relations

The Maldives were known to very early Indian seafarers, such

as sailed fromGujarat in the middle of the first millennium B.c and settled inSri Lanka, and are mentioned in early works such as theBuddhistJdtaka tales and the Sri Lankan epics Early settlement was evidently from Kerala, diffused through the Lakshadvip (Laccadive) Islands by fishermen and by the kings of Kerala who made conquests by sea, according to Tamil literature of the early centuries A.D The Maldives were perhaps touched by Indonesian culture (which passed through toMadagascar) roughly at the same time, and the is-lands were well known to classical Greek geographers Per sians began trading about the seventh century The country was conqueredseveral times by Tamil and Kerala kings in medieval centuries The most significant settlement was by Sinhalas from Sri Lanka, perhaps by political exiles, which gave the Maldives their language, the old Sinhala script,

TheravadaBuddhism, andSriLankan beliefs and foods This

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76 Divehi

little civilization flourishedespeciallyinthe tenthtotwelfth

centuries, heldtogetherbyaSinhala type ofhighly

central-izedkinship.Onseveral islands thereare remnants of

Bud-dhist stupas of coral stone, describedbyH C P.Bellasbeing

ofAnuradhapurastyle Inthe twelfthcenturyanArabsaint

whoclaimed that he had powertochaseawayapowerfuljinni

by reading the Quran convinced the king to convert the

countrytoIslam and made himasultan The national

chroni-cle recordsninety-twosultans (andafewsultanas) Through

Islam,the Maldives had theadvantageof trade links allover

the Indian Ocean Ibn Battuta, the Arabchronicler,came in

1343-1344andtaughtIslamic law The Maldiveswerevisited

bythe Chineseinthe ninth and fifteenthcenturies.The

Por-tuguese ruled forfifteen yearsinthe sixteenth century The

British"protected" the country from 1887 on, buttheydid

notleave much ofacultural stamp, andthey grantedthe

Mal-divesindependencein1965 Sothe old cultureiscomprised

of three mainlayers: theTamil-Malayalamsubstratum with

its many subtle roots; old Sinhala culture and language,

whichisthe dominantelement;and thephaseof Arabic

in-fluence But the Maldives were touched by every cultural

wind that passedoverthe IndianOcean Sinceindependence

there has again been influence from Sri Lanka, throughits

teachersbroughtover to setupmodem education with

teach-ing of English Unusually rapid change has occurred in

Divehiculture in the pasttwenty-fiveyears

Settlements

The 201 inhabited islands are the larger or best fishing

is-lands Houses are made of local vegetation and thatch or

coral stones, sometimes with importediron ortile roofs

Peo-ple desire Peo-pleasant houses, and they often arrange them on

streetswith theplots markedby stick fences Theisland is the

socialand administrativeunit.Everybody has official

registra-tion onhis or her island andcannotchange it toanother

is-land without twelveyears' residence Each island comprises

an insular socialcommunity, inwhichits land, people, and

products are preferredtothose of other islands The islands

aregrouped into nineteen administrative atolls Male isthe

only city, with some multistoried buildings of coral stone

neatly whitewashedand mostly built along the straight sandy

streets Ithas a pious air, withthirty-fivemosques and many

tombs.Nearby is the airport island ofHulule,witha runway

extending on the reef Some 60 "uninhabited" islands are

nowbuilt up asprofitabletouristresorts,which especially

at-tractEuropeansinwinter,but the government tries to

mini-mize their cultural influence

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities The main

tradi-tional economic activities are trading and fishing Bonitos

and larger tuna are a mainstay of the economy, caught by

pole-and-line or trolling-line from sailboats or motorized

wooden boats Thefamous Maldivesfishis prepared by

boil-ing, dryboil-ing, andsmoking A man maximizes wealth by

acquir-ingfishingboats becausethe ownergets alarger share offish

than the fishing crew.A boat ownermight also obtain the

right from thestate toleaseuninhabited islands, mainly for

collecting coconuts There are three kinds of millets grown

and tarointhe south.Somehomes have breadfruit, mango,

papaya, and banana trees, but few vegetables areeaten Sea

trade hasalways beenavitalsourceof income, andnowthere

is amodemshippingindustry; profits fromitandtourism ac-cruemostlyto afew prominent familiesinMale.Incomeper capitafromforeign aid isrelatively high

Industrial Arts The most striking traditional craft is building woodenboats, both small andlarge ones with lateen sails, whichcanfishinthe deepseaandcarrygoodstothe

continents Sailing long distances without benefit of maps and charts is a remarkable traditional skill Maldives rope twisted fromcoconut coir was alwaysindemandby foreign

navies The islanders also make fine products such as mats

woven from local reeds and lacquer work on turned wood

Cotton weaving, silver work, stonecutting, and brass work have mostly died out

Trade Formany centuries the Maldives were famous as themain sourceofcowrieshells, usedasmoneyinBengal and Africa Divehis are skilled inrapid counting, necessary for handling cowries, coconuts, orfish The traditional method

was to count by twos to 96 and mark each unit of 192 by laying 2 coconuts onthe side; theythereby could count rap-idly to many thousands The base number was 12, which ClarenceMaloneyfinds significant inMaldives history What

is morepeculiar isthat Indo-Aryan words for 25, 50, 75, 100, and 1,000 areapplied respectively to 24, 48, 72, 96, and 960,

as the decimal system has been replacing the duodecimal Weights and measures arebased onmultiples of 4 and 12 Themainimports have been rice,wheat flour,cottontextiles, kerosene, metal products, tobacco, salt, and condiments

Nowthe whole country is a duty-free entrepot, contrasting with the controlled economies of other South Asian coun-tries, and there is modem banking

Division of Labor Men fish, whilewomen prepare and dry the fish Men grow millets, while women cultivate root crops Men conductinterisland and overseas trade, climb coconut trees, and are the artisans in cotton, silver, lacquer, and stonework, while women weave mats and do embroidery Womendo the tedious job of twisting coir into small ropes, which men then twist into thick ropes for their boats How-ever,these sex roles arenotabsolutelyfixed; there are cases of these activities being done by the other sex Women do most

of the housework and child care, but men may also do it Boat crews andleaders of Islamic ritual and law, however, are all males

Land Tenure All land belongs to the state, which leases uninhabited islands or parts of islands toprominent people for collection ofproduce, as part of its system of control All households in the Maldives, except on Male, can claim the rightto aplot of land for a house and gardenintheir island of registration In FueMulaku inthe south,residents have the right to cultivate as much taro land asthey wish

Kinship

KinGroups andDescent The Divehikinship system in originis acombination of Dravidian and Arab with elements

of North Indian kinship derived from Sri Lanka Although these three systems are sharply at variance, they are resolved

in Divehi culture The Dravidian system isbased on preferred cross-cousinmarriage, and a maleclassifies all females as ei-ther sister(unmarriageable) or female cross cousin (marriage-able) The matrilineal variant of the Dravidian system occurs

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mostclearlyintheLakshadvipIslands off thecoastofKerala,

from which Tamil-Malayalam culture would have extended

toform thecultural substratuminthe Maldives Thiscomes

throughclearlyinDivehikinship terminology,thehistoryof

queens, remnants of girls' menstruation ceremonies, and

other features tracedout inMaloney'sreconstructionof the

culture history Sinhala settlers toobrought a form of

Dra-vidian kinship, modified by features derived from North

India.The present Divehi systemisheavilyinfluencedbyIs

lamic law, so a man can marry anycousinbutnot asibling's

daughter, afoster sister, or astepdaughter.Therearefew

lat-eralkinship ties andnolineage depth exceptinafew

promi-nentfamilies;someDivehis donot evenrecall their

grandpar-ents' names

KinshipTerminology Divehi kinterms arefew,of mixed

Sinhala, Arabic, and Dravidian origin Theterms

"grandfa-ther" (kafa) and "grandmother" (mama), and "father"

(bappa) and"mother" (mamma) may be appliedtootherkin

of their generation The terms "elderbrother" (bibe) and

"elder sister" datat) are extended to elder cousins Terms

one uses for one's juniors, as "younger sibling" (kokko),

"child" (dari), and "child-in-law" (danbi), donotdistinguish

sex Asforin-laws, all malesarecoveredbyone term(liyanu,

ofMalayalam origin) and females by another (fahari).In Fua

Mulaku atoll there is aword for"mother's brother," maber, to

whom a male may have a special relationship, a Dravidian

remnant There are no terms or marriagerules about cousins,

any of whom can marry, asinIslam There are hardly any

rit-ualrelationships with one'sownchildren,andnonewith

sib-lings or otherkin.In this sparse system, most of the special

kin relationshipsinthe threeunderlyingsystemshistorically

canceled each other out, compatible with the extreme

fre-quencyof divorce and remarriage

Marriage and Family

Marriage There is a tendency toward preferential island

endogamy, because people don't like other islands andit is

difficult to move The wedding ceremony consists only of the

elemental Islamic rituals Awoman does not appear ather

ownwedding, but her prior consent is obtained by the katibu

who officiates Every woman has a male guardian who signs

for her marriage, and all marriages and divorces are

meticu-louslyrecorded Divorce andremarriage are remarkably

com-mon; someonemight divorce and marryaneighbor, thenre

marry the original partner or another neighbor, while the

children remain nearby Marriage and divorce areaccording

toIslamic law, interpretedso as toallowfrequent remarriages

A man can divorce his wife by asingle pronouncement, and if

a woman wants adivorce shecanbehaveinsuchawaythat

she gets it It is common tomeetpeoplewhohave been

di-vorced and remarried a dozen times; there are people who

have married even 80 or 90times in life, often to previous

partners The marriagerate inthe Maldivesis34.4 per 1,000

persons per year (compared with 9.7 inUnited States, and

7.9 in Sri Lanka where divorceisrare).This isbyfar the

high-est rate oflegal marriage and divorce of any country listedin

United Nations statistics But divorce does not induce

traumain achild,because the parent whodepartsthe home

will be a close neighbor, and the parents might remarry.So a

child grows up with aspecial feeling toward all thecitizensof hisorherisland, whoareall related and tendtoforma marry-ing unit

Domestic Unit Thefamilyisusually nuclear andis afluid

unit.Often a woman owns thehouse, andindivorce the chil-dren may stay with her.Descentcanbe classifiedasbilateral and residence mostly as ambilocalorneolocal, or in afew places duolocal People try to build houses of several rooms andakitchen, with a fenced garden, and usually keep them tidy.Oldpeopleare notautomatically entitledtospecial

re-spect,especially if they cannot earn; they live either witha

child or alone By law, anaged person should be supported equallyby all his grown children

Inheritance Islamic inheritance is observed, inwhich a daughtergetshalf the share of a son But some people will all their property to one child in return for old-age support.A

womantends to inherit the house and a man the boats When

awomandies, the first share of her property goes to her legal guardian (usually her father) and then in turn to husband, sons, and daughters Because of the frequency of divorce, married couples have separate ownership of all movable and immovable property Inheritance is settled by the Islamic judge (qazi)

Socialization Children are mostly raised benevolently, with emphasis on absence of violence and control of emo-tion.Aggressiveplay among children is not acceptable, and in the society there is hardly any physical aggression, violence,

or murder Boys may swim, play on boats, climb trees, fly kites,or walk on stilts.Girlsdo not do these things, but they play hopscotch, shell games, or"kitchens."Children's play is not encouraged On most islands there islittle that is new to explore, no new personalities, and no real schooling Mothers teach children to read and write Divehi, using chalk on little slate boards, for Islamic teaching, and many islands have lit-tle schools attached to the mosques, so almost all Divehis become literate Many children learn to intone Arabic letters

in order to "read" the Quran, although without any understanding

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization In the old society there were three ranks, mostly in Male and the large southern islands, and though descendants of the old elite class still hold most polit-icalpower and property, they have no hereditary privileges or titles now Rank today is determined mostly by wealth Divehis comprise a single tight sociopolitical system with no significant ethnic minorities, though there are minor cultural differences among the atolls, particularly the three southern atolls The people ofMaliku have been under separate admin-istration for two centuries, and there is little outside knowl-edge of the society because India does notallow foreigners to

visitthere India administersitalongwiththe Lakshadvip Is-lands and expects the people to go to school in Malayalam, though they still speak Divehi In the Maldives, just one castelike group has been described This group is the Girivaru, Aborigines who formerly ruled Male They lived on

aneroding island, so the government moved them to Hulule, theairport island, from where they have again been displaced; nowthey have again been partly absorbed by another island community They have consciously retained differences in

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78 Divehi

dress, have claimed that unlike the other Divehisthey hadno

divorce or widow remarriage, and have said their ancestors

wereTamils, thoughtheyhave noknowledgeof suchpeople

and have nevertraveled outside their atoll They have also

claimedtobestrictly endogamous Other Divehis

tradition-ally have thought of the Girivaru asdirty, while theyhave

thought of other Divehis asmorallycorrupt

Political Organization The oldaristocraticfamilies from

the time of the sultanatearestill dominant in Male Since

in-dependencein1965the countryhas been called arepublic.It

is governed by a president, who maintains tight authority

through theministries ofreligionandlaw,thesystemof

ap-pointed atolland island chiefs, and finances from thetourist

and shipping industries.Intheory, he governs atthewill of

the national assembly, the Majlis, whichisjustnow

begin-ning to assume amodern legislative role

Social Control Control is throughthe island offices and

atolloffices, inwhich religious lawispart of thetightstate

ap-paratus Alllargerislands and atoll offices have aqizi, who

performs marriages,adjudicates disputes and inheritance,

ex-aminestheaccused,and enforcesSharia law asinterpretedby

theattorney-general The atollcourthas separate sectionsto

deal with religious, criminal, and political violations The

court maypunishanaccusedby givinganorder forsocial

boy-cott orby banishment to some island fora yearor for life

Atoll and island headmen study Islamic religious law, and

there are a few experts trainedin Egypt

Conflict Divehisareextremelyreticent toshow aggression

or tomakethreats, and thereishardly any murder.Butthere

are serious contests to seize nationalpolitical power, and a

loser maybe banishedtoanisland for many years Thereis a

historic tendency for the southern atolls to claimautonomy,

but thistendency is notovertnow, and thereis noother

or-ganized or open conflictin the society Divehis on small

is-lands may havehardly any knowledge of the outside world,

and theyoften fearstrangers

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs All Divehis are Sunni Muslims, ofthe

Shafi tradition, and will remain so because a non-Muslim

cannot marryorsettle there Every island hasitsmosque with

the katibuincharge, who ispaid by the government Most

menattend Friday prayers and give tocharity.Women

per-haps more thanmenpray fivetimes aday and read scripture

The ethos of Islamappears to be very strong, but some feel it

tends to consist only of perfunctory fasting and prayers

Is-lamic mysticism andSufiideasare officially disapproved of as

leading to emotionalism rather than to Sunni legal

obser-vance Islam overlies an earlier religious system having many

deities andspirits-originally Hindu, Buddhist, orJain

dei-ties and local ghosts-but people now think of them asjinnis

anddealwith themby Islamic strategies Theoutside worldis

unknown and fearsome, and people are concerned about

strange lights on the ocean There is a system ofreligious

practice calledfandita,which is used to chaseaway jinnisand

fearsomelights, catchfish,healdisease,increasefertility,

fa-cilitate divination, make aperson give up his or herspouse,

cast out a spirit,orsolve any probleminlife.When a newboat

is launched there is a fandita ritual combined with Arabic

prayers for its goodperformance Fandita is performed at

sev-eral stagesingrowingataro ormillet crop Black magicisalso known,butit isprohibited by law Fandita has many elements similartovillage religioninsouth India and Sri Lanka Pre-Muslim concepts of the evil eye andpollution have been ab-sorbed into Islamic values Menstrual pollution is strongly observed

Religious Practitioners Thekatibu of an islandpreaches Friday sermons, settles disputes, reports behavior deviations

tothe atolloffice, and also runs the island office He is as-sistedbyafunctionary to care for the mosque, make calls to prayer, andbury the dead Fandita practitioners were at one time licensedby the state Fandita men and womenseldom

go intotrance, whichtheythink Islam disapproves of; their purpose is tohelp othersindifficult life situations Larger

is-lands also have astrologers

Ceremonies Divehis know five calendrical systems: a

naksatra orzodiacalsystem from India; an Indian solar calen-dar; anArabic solar calendar; the Arabic religious calendar; which is ten days shorter than the solar year; and now the

"English" calendar Weather is keenly observed, along with fishing seasons and agricultural festivals, according to the naksatra(nakai) system Other festivals are observed accord-ing to their respective calendrical systems, but thenew-moon festival that came from Sri Lanka has now almost disap-peared Divehis are assiduous about observing the Ramzan holiday, enforced by the state But at night in Ramzan the food is abundant The two id festivals are important,and the Prophet's birthday is celebrated by special foods Personal ceremonies includegiving a name about a week after birth, circumcisionofboys at age 6 or 8, symbolic circumcision of baby girls (which may be declining), and girls' puberty cere-mony as a carryover from Sri Lanka and south India.Marriage

isless important as a life ceremony

Arts The arts are very poorly developed because ofthe iso-lated and scattered population Divehi music is mono-rhythmic and infrequently heard; Radio Maldives tends to play Hindi cinema songs Dancing has been disfavored by Islam There is some artistry in living crafts such as lace mak-ing, lacquer work, and mat weaving

Medicine Most people seek healing from fandita which uses both mantrasinvoking Allah's power and factual advice Thediverse medical systems of India are not developed, but there are a fewpractitioners of the Islamic system of Unani There is a government hospital in Male providingscientific medicine, and donors have funded the beginning of a health-care system

Death and Afterlife The death ritual is important The katibu is informed and a conch shell is blown Then the body

is washed, tied, andshrouded as specified in Islam and laid in

a coffin or in a leafbox The grave is dug by family members

or friends, and then the corpse is laid in with the face toward Mecca, while passages from the Quran are read Death is not greeted with much emotion, and questions about life after death are not of much concern

Bibliography Bell, H C.P (1940) The Maldive Islands: Monograph on the History, Archaeology, and Epigraphy Colombo: Government Press

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Maloney, Clarence (1984) -Divehi." In MuslimPeoples: A

WorldEthnographicSurvey,Vol 1, 232-236 Rev.ed.,edited

by RichardWeekes Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press

Maloney, Clarence (1980) Peopleofthe Maldive Islands

Ma-dras: Orient Longman

Ottovar, Annagrethe, and Nils Finn Munch-Petersen

(1980) Maldiverneoet 0samfund i det Indiske Ocean (The Maldivian Island communityinthe IndianOcean)

Copen-hagen: Kunstindustrimuseet

CLARENCE MALONEY AND NILS FINN MUNCH-PETERSEN

Munch-Petersen, NilsFinn(1982).'Maldives:History,Daily

Life, andArtHandicraft." BulletinduC.E.M.O.I (Brussels)

1:74-103

ETHNONYMS: Ferangi (from

Memsahib; child: Chhota Sahib

"Franks"), Sahib (fem.:

Whilethe impact ofEuropeonthe South Asian

subcon-tinent has been immeasurable and dates back long before

Vascoda Gama's exploratoryvisit in1498,the number of

Eu-ropeansresidentinthearea now ismerelyafewtensof

thou-sands (Theymoveaboutsomuch thatacloseestimate is

dif-ficult.) Buteven inthe heyday of British imperialism there

were only about 167,000 Europeans in all of South Asia

(1931 census)

Leaving aside from this discussion the Anglo-Indians

and Luso-Indians of the South Asian mainland, and the

Burghers of SriLanka, whoareallinfact local people of

part-European ancestry, we canidentify the followingcategoriesof

Europeans asbeing residentinSouth Asiatoday

(1) Diplomats and journalists Found onlyinthe capital

cities and other consularposts.

(2) Development workers, etc. Technicalspecialists from

the World Health Organization, other United Nations

agen-cies,the U.S Peace Corps,etc areregularly encounteredin

mostSouth Asiancountries. Students ofanthropology,

lin-guistics, andsomeothersubjects maybe found almost

any-where,though never in greatnumbers Some teaand coffee

plantationsinIndia still have Europeanmanagersandindeed

are ownedby British companies.

(3) RetiredBritishresidents Asmallnumber ofvery eld-erlypeoplewho retired inIndiaor SriLankaatabout thetime

ofindependencearestillthere (Most,however, left the sub-continent to retire in Britain,the ChannelIslands, Cyprus, or

Australia.) (4) Christian missionaries While the South Asian churches areessentiallyself-governing, several hundred Euro-pean and American missionaries and Catholic priests and nunsmaystill beencountered intheregion.They are still of someimportance ineducation, aswellas infunneling

West-emaid to theirparishioners

(5) Religiousseekers At any given time there are some

thousands ofAustralian,European, or American people,

usu-allyfairlyyoung,who arewandering aroundIndia, Nepal, and

elsewhere in search of religious enlightenment within the

broad tradition ofHindu spirituality Some of these people

have beenloosely classedas"hippies."Frenchpeople are par-ticularly attracted to Pondicherry and the nearby religious center ofAuroville, while others have been especially at-tracted to specific ashrams, to Rishikesh and other Hima-layansites, or to the Theosophical Center in Madras City (6) Tourists The region has an enormous tourist

poten-tial, which has been slowly developed sinceindependence,

andin 1991 India,SriLanka,Nepal, and theMaldiveshave a thriving tourist industry Unlike the religious seekers men-tioned above, whomay stay for many months, ordinary West-ern touristsusually visit for just two orthreeweeks.The great majority of these tourists are from western Europe and

Australasia (Manyof India's tourists, ontheother hand,are non-Europeans from otherSouth Asian countries.)

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80 Europeans in South Asia

The British Impact

The culturaland politicalimpactofthe British over the past

two centuries inSouthAsiahas beenvastandextremely

per-vasive Numeroushistories of the "British period"testify to

this, andit is aninfluence referred to in the Introduction to

this volume Spacedoesnotpermiteven abriefreviewof the

administrative, legal, religious, educational, public health,

military, agricultural, industrial, sporting, and

communica-tionaldevelopmentsthat occurredduringtheperiodof

Brit-ish administration ofmostof the subcontinent

Wemayinsteadhighlightthe contribution ofEuropeans

from Indiato the arts Best known ofcourse is theliterary

contribution ofRudyard Kipling (1865-1936), one oftwo

Indian-bomwriters to receive the NobelPrizeforLiterature

(the otherwas RabindranathTagore) Ofnumerous

profes-sionalartists toworkinIndia,themostoutstandingwasthe

Anglo-GermanpainterJohn Zoffany,who worked there from

1783to1790 Theartisticimpactof the BritishonIndian

ar-chitecture wasvast, and well documented: witnessonlythe

officialbuildings ofNewDelhi Lessrecognizedduring the

present century has been the impactofthis relatively small

ethnic group on the British film industry Julie Christie,

Vivien Leigh, Margaret Lockwood, Merle Oberon, and

sev-eral other actors, aswell asthe director Lindsay Anderson,

wereall bornand at least partly brought up in British India

Onemightwonder whether theubiquityof schoolplaysand

amateurdramaticsocieties inthaterahadsomething todo

with these careers

See also Anglo-Indian; French of India; Indian

Christian

Bibliography Ballhatchet, Kenneth (1980) Race, Sex and Class under the

Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and TheirCritics,

1793-1905 NewYork: St Martin's Press

Barr, Pat (1976) The Memsahibs: The Womenof Victorian

India London: Secker &Warburg

Hervey, H J A (1913) The European in India London:

Stanley Paul & Co

Hockings, Paul (1989) 'British Society in the Company,

Crown, and Congress Eras." Blue Mountains: The

Ethnogra-phy and BiogeograEthnogra-phy of a South Indian Region, editedby Paul

Edward Hockings, 334-359 New Delhi: Oxford University

Press

Kincaid, Dennis (1938) British Social Life in India,

1608-1937 London: George Routledge & Sons

Moorhouse, Geoffrey (1983) India Britannica New York:

Harper & Row

French of India

ETHNONYMS: French Tamils, Pondicheriens, Pondicherry (name of townand territory)

There were 12,864 French nationals residing in India in

1988.Nearlyallare intheUnionTerritory ofPondicherryin

southeastern India (11,726 in 1988), with much smaller numbers inKaraikal (695 individuals), Mahe (50), Yanam

(46), and 342 elsewhereinIndia (Thesewerecoastal

pock-ets belonging to the former French Empire.) While legally still citizens ofFranceand resident aliens inIndia, theyare

ethnically Indian, about90percentbeing ethnic Tamils

Al-mostunaccountably, theyvote inthe Frenchconstituency of

Nice.They formasmall minority, accounting for less than3

percent of the presentpopulation of Pondicherry

The French in India are an artifact of theFrench

pres-encethere, which began in 1673 with theestablishment of French India and continued until1962when the French ter-ritorywasformally transferredtoIndia The French presence was always small and minor compared with theBritish pres-ence andthe French in India were generally ignored Today, the majority of these FrenchareHindusorChristians of local

or mixed family origin, and less than 50 percent of them speak French.Atthe same time,however, French istaught in schools attendedby French Indian children and adult French classesarewellattended, reflectingan interest inmaintaining ties andanallegiance to France or in finding jobs with French companies The French Indians are the wealthiest group in Pondicherry (aside from those running the Aurobindo Ashram), derivingmuch of theirincomefrom pension(some

20 percent are retirees), social security, welfare, and other programs of the French government.They arealso entitled to emigrate to France, although few do so and theFrench gov-ernmentdoes not encourage the practice

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