Identity Crisis of the Diaspora

The Indian diaspora is "one of the most important demographic dislocations of modern times'. In the old classical sense, the term diaspora is used collectively for" the dispersed genes after the Babylonian captivity, and also in the apostolic age for the genes living outside of Palestine." (Chamberer's Twentieth Century Dictionary,356). Etymologically speaking, connotatively, in Greek the term means to disperse and signifies a "voluntary or forcible movements of the peoples from their homelands into new regions." William Safran suggests that the concept of the Diaspora can be applied to the expatriate minority communities whose members share some of the following characteristics: (1) either the ancestors or they themselves, have been dispersed from a fixed original 'centre' or two or more 'peripheral 'or' foreign locations; (2) they keep in their minds a collective vision myth or memory about their actual homeland-its geographical and physical location, history and achievements; (3) they always retain the fact that they are not—and perhaps can never be-fully accepted by their host society and therefore feel partly alienated and insulated from it; (4) they consider their ancestral homeland as their original, true and ideal home and as the place where they or their descendants eventually return (when the circumstances would be appropriate); (5) they believe that they should together be committed to the wellbeing, safety and prosperity of their homeland; (6) they always continue to relate, personally and collectively to that homeland in one way or another and their ethno-communal consciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by the existence of such a relationship