SPACE, IDENTITY AND MIGRATION: EVOLUTION OF THE ‘BAIDYAS’ AS A COMMUNITY

Migration as stated by Jagdish Bhagawati (2003) has lost its ability to be controlled and the desire to do so has increased. The concept of migration is a very multidimensional one since the process and nature of migration varies along with its causes. It may be due to economic factors, political factors, social factors, etc and not just confined to be of a stereotypical poltico-economic issue. South Asian Countries have been a home to multicultural and diverse societal structure. Migration has been a never ending process and has intensified this process of diversification tending to affect the structure of ‘space' and ‘identity' of both the sending as well receiving countries. Up until recent times there was very less watertight compartmentalization of regions on the basis of ‘borders', since the paradigm of borders have always been on a continuous shift. Within this diverse plethora of life and communities is one such community known as the “Baidya” community whose historical evidence can be traced down in the Buddhist “stups” during the time of king Ashoka. This particular community is said to have its roots in Andhra Pradesh's Vellaray. From Vellalay a group of them entered Bengal (here by Bengal it is meant the pre-partition phase where the east and the west together formed one region) and spread all over. Over the time they became associated with “bed” (pronounced as baid/vaid) and thereby earned the name as “Baidyas”. Hence the character of the community is quite diverse since it has its root in Andhra and then in the due course of migration being amalgamated and adapted the nature of the adjacent society and taking up its own form in the due process. This paper shall attempt to look at the adaptation process of this particular community trying to locate the linkage of social factor of migration in South Asia connecting the cultural landscape of the diversity of the particular community with ancient, colonial and post-colonial heritage, which has helped in the formation of this particular community, thereby connecting the lines between space and identity along with the concept of borders within the circumference of the aspect of migration.