Transnationalism and the Indian Elderly in the West

ROHIT BAROT ABSTRACT This chapter explores the position of the elderly from British South Asian communities. In order to highlight the issues which they face, the chapter outlines the context of colonial and postcolonial migration and settlement that takes Indians both to the outposts of the Empire as well as to metropolitan Britain. The author uses a case study in order to show how migration separates the elderly from their sons and daughters, leaving them isolated and alone. W hen their sons and daughters attempt to resettle them in metropolitan surroundings of a European society, the elderly face estrangement and loneliness that can intensify their personal suffering. The author shows that voluntary and statutory organisations in Britain have now responded to special housing need of the Indian elderly by providing them sheltered accommodation. This change shows that the ideal of protection of the elderly in a joint family home is undermined by migration and social change.

South Asian communities are well-established in Britain and there is a tradition of research and writing on their migration and settlement in the United Kingdom (Desai, R., 1963; DeWitt,J. J.;1969; Helweg, A.1986; Tambs-Lyche H, 1980; Ballard, R’,1994; Visram, R., 1986, 2002). Brij V. Lal’s recent publication The Encyclopaedia of the Indian Diaspora (2006) provides a detailed body of information about settlement of Indians in different parts of the world although the index makes no reference to either elderly or old people in global South Asian Diaspora. Dealing with migration, settlement and social organisation of different groups, these studies rarely concentrate on the effect of migration and settlement of the elderly South Asians. In contributing to this theme, the present volume provides a useful source of information on South Asian elderly in different parts of the world and this chapter examines the effect that migration, diaspora and transnationalism have on the family and elders who find themselves in a new destination after having been ‘twice migrants’ (Bhachu, P., 1985). The material for this chapter is derived from a number of case studies which the author is familiar with and supplemented with his wider personal and anthropological observations amongst the Gujarati Hindus living transnationally in Europe and America and parts of Africa including their original homeland in Gujarat. Migration and settlement in the W est brings about a radical change in the family as it increasingly fails as a tradition to provide support to the elders. This narrative is concluded with a discussion of alternatives which provide shelter to the elders but also shows that

4. MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE INDIAN ELDERLY IN THE WEST BAROT 80

family relations have changed in the course of migration and transnational settlement.

First of all, it is essential to clarify the terminology that is used in this paper. In the British social science context, the term South Asian stands for men, women and children who trace their origin and identity to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and to regions in any of these societies. They may have come to Britain from any one of the British imperial outposts in Asia and Africa. As Ballard (2001) reports in his detailed analysis, there are now 2,010,541 South Asians living in Britain and they constitute 4.00% of the population of the United Kingdom.

1,028,539 Indians are the largest South Asian minority followed by 706,752 Pakistanis and 275,250 Bangladeshis.

Age divides population in all societies into a number of different categories from childhood to old age. The expression elderly refers to men and women who are described as being old. W ho is and is not old may vary from one place to

another. At the very least it is useful to draw a distinction between institutional definition of the elderly as being different from the self-conception of those who may or may not regard themselves as being old. In the British institutional context, the elderly may refer to various states of mental and physical health associated with growing old in addition to definitions which depend on the formal age of retirement. W hile policy based institutional definition may possess certain features essential for describing who is old, self conception may or may not comply with this policy definition of old age. Be that as it may, policy based concept of the elderly combined with being old as a form of self-ascription must define both institutional and individual dimension of old age.

In order to locate the South Asian elderly in Britain, first of all it is essential to outline briefly the colonial and postcolonial South Asian migration and settlement in Britain with some comparative comments on similar migration to the United States. The settlement has to then account for both diasporic and transnational components which draw the Indian elderly in a particular orbit of social relations.

Such relations can fundamentally vary from those categories of the elderly for whom the story of life is confined to their native social, cultural and geographical milieu. For families and communities exposed to patterns of migration, the story is more complex and requires the actors to come to terms with living in different societies at different times. In a decade or so, the elderly can move their residence from one continent to the other through several different states and societies. Such transnational positioning of the elderly must become a well-recognised pattern as more and more people move from their traditional homelands to locations considered unthinkable for permanent settlement until after the end of the Second W orld W ar.

The story of South Asian migration to Britain is now a well-known feature of the migration studies. Therefore a brief sketch is sufficient to outline the main features of this migration to the United Kingdom. It is best to differentiate between colonial and postcolonial migration as the latter is mediated much more by forces of decolonisation rather than by conventional push and pull explanation. As it is well known , the British rule in India and its global imperial manifestation has been 81

one of the most important factors in the movement of people of Indian origin (Tinker, 1974, 1976, 1977; Clarke, C., Peach, C., & Vertovec, S.1990; Twaddle 1975;’ Ghai and Ghai 1970; Tandon 1973; Dotson F & L, 1968;. Twaddle 1975).

Besides moving to far reaches of the Empire, Indians began to settle in England from the beginning of 18 th century as demonstrated by Rosina Visram in her historical study of the Indian presence in the United Kingdom (1986, 2002). There is a simple chronology of this settlement which, for the purpose of this paper can be divided into two distinctive phases which are separated by the period of Second W orld W ar.

Historical evidence suggests movement of people of Indian origin in relatively subordinate position to Britain throughout the course of 18 th, 19 th and 20 th century.

In her most recent publications Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History, Visram provides a wealth of data on Indian presence in Britain for more than 250 years (2002). There were a minority of Indians who lived for an extended period of time in the UK but movement to the UK and return to one’s homeland was a more common pattern. The later part of the 19 th century saw steady arrivals of young Indians who came to obtain higher education to Britain, Mahatma Gandhi himself being an interesting example of this pattern. The beginning of 20 th century shows a steady arrival of Indian professionals, mostly men, who, in specific instances, married English women and then settled in the UK instead of returning to India.

These middle class professional men formed the core of Indian community in Britain before the Second W orld W ar and played a decisive part in the movement for freedom of India. A Bristol based narrative of Sukhsagar Datta’s life gives an

example of permanent settlement in Bristol and active involvement in the Labour Party for freedom of India (Barot, 1988). The significant feature about such professional and middle class Indians was their close contact with white English society and their successful adaptation to living “in Rome like the Romans.”

However the Indian migration to Britain from South Asia takes a different form from the one that had occurred from the beginning of 20 th century till the end of the Second W orld W ar. As the period of decolonisation came about, it formed an interface between the colonial and post colonial realities of migration.

Decolonisation saw the formation of new South Asian states of India and Pakistan (1947) and subsequently of Bangladesh (1971). These were far reaching historical changes which affected those components of South Asian population whose association was stronger with rural and semi-rural background than with centres of privilege and power that were evolving in the newly independent nations of India and Pakistan. In Britain the M iddle Class Indians had seen themselves as Indians.

The struggle for freedom strengthened this pan-Indian identity. Once the freedom was won, with the passage of time, this Indian nationalist identity went through a pattern of differentiation that brought into play self-consciousness of regional, linguistic, religious and caste and village based identities of particular groups, a process that has been well-identified in the study of groups of South Asian origin in Britain (Ballard, 1994). The complex pattern of group formation that has taken place is relevant to explaining the position of the elderly as they have increasingly occupied a position that highlights the relationship between sending and receiving MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE INDIAN ELDERLY BAROT 82

societies and making the transnational aspect of migration and settlement an important feature of their experience. This experience marks their displacement from the orbit of their own communities to somewhat uncertain and precarious future at times with their kith and kin who have chosen to live abroad over a period of past fifty years or so. This theme of transmigration and displacement is presented here through a case study that highlights how the Indian elders become marginal as their young sons and daughters emigrate to distant destinations.

For Indians generally and Gujarati Hindus in particular, the most important social institution in their everyday life is the family. It is in the context of the patrilineal family that men, women and children occupy positions of lesser or greater authority. Both age and gender bear on the distribution of authority.

Although family members exercise authority in a way that varies widely between different families, it is fair to say that men exercise more authority than women.

Through their ownership and control of land, business or professional jobs, older men earn respect in their community and their family. Men, women or children tend to accord them respect that kinship and affinity strengthens and makes an enduring feature of family life and social organisation. W ords used for the elderly in Indian languages, for instance vadil in Gujarati, would have implied experience and wisdom. The elderly would ensure relative well-being of their fold and sustain cohesion that would see the family through the life cycle from birth to death and beyond. As a social organisation, social relations in the family may contain inequities of gender and age. W omen and small children, especially young girls, can be less than equally treated, but the words for family such as kutumb or parivar evoke an image of harmony and cohesion. Even if family members quarrel and fight, the normative assumption is that ultimately members of a family hang together and share joys and burdens of what they may have to go through. Family as an ideology remains influential even in the US and UK where the traditional ‘white’ family made up of husband, wife and children has steadily declined in favour of relationships which derive much more from individual choice than from continuity of traditional family system. Politicians and policy makers frequently

return to the family theme as an icon of cohesive and harmonious relations when they express deeply felt apprehension for family fragmentation of the kind where a single mother can keep her small children house-bound and go on a holiday. The unease the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has expressed recently about the loss of respect and its restoration back to communities almost invariably touches on the family as an institution of some significance.

In contrast to such themes of break down in interpersonal relationships, family among the Indians still retains a fair semblance of respect and regard for the welfare of each member of the family, especially children. The Indians who live outside the shores of their motherland are often believed to maintain close family ties and a system of interpersonal support that has become a popular image of the Indian family in media and among the service providers in Britain. Although family in different Indian communities still retains some of the basic features of Indian family life, it is apparent that migration has made a great impact on Indian family relations in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia as well as in countries like the 83

Netherlands and Sweden where Indians live. This chapter explores one particular trajectory of migration that links Gujarat to East Africa and subsequently to countries in Europe and Britain through a biographical narrative of a family that the author is familiar with. For the purpose of this historical and factual narrative, the author has chosen a general family name Patel, a surname now widely known in the UK and US as referring to an enterprising community from Gujarat and Saurashtra regions of W estern India. Mr Patel and his brother were born at the beginning of the 20 th century and lived in a small village in a relatively impoverished part of Saurashtra in India. They owned a small plot of land which had been mortgaged to redeem some family debts incurred by the seniors of an earlier generation. Mr Patel’s elder brother had decided to leave their village to try his luck in Mumbai to achieve two objectives. He wanted to work and earn enough to pay off the debt on land and support his younger brother at school so that he could get some basic education. He spent several years in Mumbai and worked as an assistant in a clothing merchant shop where his basic work was to carry heavy loads of clothing material from one shop to another. It was in the course of his work that he began to meet people from various parts of Gujarat, but especially from Charottar as they were migrating to Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and to Nyasaland, now known as Malawi. At the beginning of the 20 th century, migration to colonial Africa was very attractive to Gujarati Indians as those who went there settled well and enjoyed levels of earning which were, for ordinary Indians, hard to achieve back home. Stories of this migration and the success that it brought circulated in towns and cities all over Gujarat and in cities like Mumbai where potential migrants were most likely to find themselves. Senior Mr Patel met some of these successful traders and merchants in Mumbai. They persuaded him to accept that there was little future for shop keeping and prosperity in Mumbai’s Crawford Market and that he should head for a trading centre in Kenya or Uganda and, after initially working for an Indian merchant, should set up his own shop, make money and earn respect and get married. Senior Mr Patel went to Kenya and then to Uganda where he eventually established a small retail shop. Such shops provided a focus for trade and commerce all over East and Central Africa before the beginning of the First W orld W ar. Senior Mr Patel achieved his twin-goals of redeeming the family land and educating his younger brother, junior M r Patel.

Apart from a small segment of upper and middle caste class people, secondary school education was barely available to the masses in India. For junior M r Patel to have passed his Matriculation Examination was an outstanding success. He too followed his elder brother and spent the rest of his life in Mombasa in Kenya. Both the brothers were married and, as it was common in those days, had large families.

W hen they were poor, the brothers maintained a close relationship that was to

gradually change after their long term settlement in Kenya and Uganda spanning a period from 1920s to the end of their lives between the early sixties and early eighties. The narrative now concentrates on junior Mr Patel’s life and his wife, two sons and five daughters who were all born when Kenya was still a British colony.

Mr Patel had a white collar employment that carried a mark of respect and regard for him in the local community. His seven children grew up in an Indian MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE INDIAN ELDERLY BAROT 84

neighbourhood and reached schooling age in 1950s. His eldest daughter died after an illness leaving four sisters and two brothers who lived with their parents and went to school in Mombasa. Although the relationship between Mr Patel and his wife was unstable, the four sisters and brothers grew up with security in 1950’s and early 1960’s.

The post war period saw the decolonisation of India followed by creation of two different nations of India and Pakistan, so South Asia was itself a source of change that stimulated migration from new nations of India and Pakistan to Britain. The process of decolonisation gathered momentum that was to influence nationalist movements all over Africa, leading to the independence of Ghana in 1959 and then independence of Kenya (1963), Uganda (1962) and Tanganyika (1961) leading to further independence of Zambia and Malawi and eventual formation of an African state of Zimbabwe. Decolonisation made a major impact on the structure of threetiered African societies which consisted of white colonial power at the top, Indian minorities in the middle and African masses regarded as being at the bottom, at least in local political self consciousness. All this began to change rapidly as African leaders, now political masters of their own newly independent countries, or desperately wanted to see African advances both in politics as well as in the economy that was still largely controlled by the people of Indian origin (Ghai D.P. and Ghai Y, P., 1970). The proportion of Indians who became citizens of the state in which they were born and where they had spent a good part of their life was smaller than those who decided that their post independence insecurity was better dealt with if they held on to their British passports. It is a well-known historical fact that decolonisation as a political change made a big impact on self-awareness of Indians in all the territories of post colonial East and Central Africa. Soon after independence, the African states, began to implement the policy of Africanisation according to which one had to be a citizen of the country in order to secure certain rights, especially citizenship right which would determine the extent of freedom or constraint that would apply on the basis of citizenship (Tandon,1973).

Africanisation policy soon began to impose restrictions on Indians in new African states with expression of hostility that marked public reaction that was powerfully expressed by President Iddi Amin of Uganda who finally decided that the Indians should be expelled from the country for milking the local economy (Humphrey D. and W ard, M.,1974). Government of Kenya had imposed restrictions on noncitizen Indians and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania nationalised all property through the Arusha Declaration of mid 1960s. Indians were rapidly on the move and leaving their East African homeland, not so much to return to post-independence hardship in India but to find better and stable economic prospects and new homes in the W est.

Junior Mr Patel, who was soon to approach his retirement, had passed through a very difficult period. His children were soon to complete their secondary school education and they all faced, like thousands of Indians all over Eastern Africa, the prospects of a rather uncertain future and began to consider moving to Britain as British colonial subjects. The British feared the sudden arrival of thousands of East African Indians to the United Kingdom and rushed through measures to control the 85

flow of people. The Labour Government imposed racist immigration controls through the passage of Second Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1968, introducing descent as a feature of citizenship and distinguishing patrials and nonpatrials on this basis, primarily to prevent British Indians from East Africa from coming to the United Kingdom.

These far reaching political changes and a sense of insecurity that affected East African Indians had a very significant effect on M r Patel, his two sons and his four daughters. There were a variety of factors that affected the future of Mr Patel’s children. Mr Patel’s retirement coincided with an illness that kept his right leg heavily swollen for a long period of time. This had affected his mobility. The relationship between him and his wife had deteriorated over the years to leave little sense of togetherness between them. Mrs Patel had taken a bold step of setting up a little tea shop in the locality where they lived and invited ostracism and stigma as it was considered improper for a woman to have an independent stall such as the one that she had. It was assumed that the family would find it difficult to marry their daughters through the traditional procedure of arranged marriage. However, the girls themselves were fully aware of the precariousness of their situation and did not particularly wait for parental approval when they met suitable young Indians (or a non-Indian in one case). They went ahead to establish close personal relationship with them. As a consequence, the three daughters married and followed the footsteps of their husbands in leaving their home town for destinations further afield. One of them settled on the Eastern seaboard in the US, and two of them settled with their husbands in London and Leicester and the fourth sister eventually had a German partner with whom she has now lived for a long time. As for the two young sons, they followed what numerous young men did when they faced both exclusion and insecurity in their home town. Young people were leaving their homes as quickly as they could to reach Britain before the imposition of the 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act. Both the brothers came to London. Eventually they met Swedish girls and were persuaded to move to Sweden where they finally settled and set up their own households.

As a consequence of these almost inevitable changes, what Mr and M rs Patel saw was a departure of their children to lands from where they were less likely to visit their parents. A pattern that is common in such migratory narrative is for parents to join their sons (rather than their daughters, following the patrilineal norm of sons looking after their parents) to reconstitute the family unit marked by dependence of parents on their children. The most cursory observations show that if children have gone away to the UK or to the US, parents begin to spend some time with them on a regular basis and much more so after birth of a grandchild.

Then sons and daughters require support from their parents who look after their grandchildren. Although the brothers had their own children, Mr Patel or Mrs Patel did not go to visit them. Some years before Mr Patel died at the age of 84, he came and visited his daughters’ families in Britain (but not in the US) but was unable to visit his sons in Sweden. After having experienced cold climate and somewhat harsh social surroundings which tended to intensify his isolation, he had felt that he was better off where he was in warm Kenya. After this visit, he never MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE INDIAN ELDERLY BAROT 86

came back to Britain. He lived on a small pension that had decreased in value and he may have grown poorer. Eventually he became very ill and passed away.

Although he and Mrs Patel had a long conflictual relationship, she suddenly found that although she had friendly support in the local community, she had no kin to support her and to look after her in Mombasa. Her daughters in Britain and one of the sons in Sweden were worried about her situation. This anxiety about their mother prompted them to organise her settlement in the UK if possible or still

better near her eldest son in Sweden. As a dependent of someone who had settled in Britain or in Sweden, she was unlikely to face any exclusion based on strict immigration controls in the UK or in Sweden. Eventually she came to Britain and initially stayed with her daughter in Leicester. However, the situation was extremely difficult for her daughter whose husband resented his mother-in-law staying with them especially when he had to look after his own parents although they were not in a difficult situation of the kind that his mother-in-law faced.

Pressure was brought to bear on Mrs Patel’s son in Sweden to make arrangements for her to settle there.

In the arrangements that her son made for her, there was one dimension which was at least crystal clear to her son and it was that his mother was never going to live with him, his wife of a M iddle Eastern origin and their two daughters. Their own dwelling was much too small to leave any space for an elderly woman who may need regular support to get around. Contrary to traditional Indian expectations, the son told his mother that it was going to be impossible for her to share accommodation with him and his family. W hat he did was somewhat unconventional from the point of view of his mother. He consulted Swedish Social Services and W elfare Departments to find her a protected accommodation. After an assessment of her case, the Social Services in Sweden provided her a suitable place to live and also arranged for some home help to be administered by Swedish and English speaking staff. After all arrangements were confirmed, Mrs Patel travelled to Sweden to live in the same town where her son lived but she was to live in a separate place provided and supported by the welfare state. From the accounts from those who often met her, this experience of living by herself without any companionship or regular contact with someone she could speak to her in her own language made her very unhappy and sad. Although I was aware of her plight, it was impossible for me to meet her and to grasp fully the magnitude of her distress, anguish and suffering. She had to cope with the realisation that after the death of her husband, not only was she all alone but also that no one was going to care for her in her old age when she was unable to look after herself. Her stay in Sweden lasted for a very short time, as she decided that all she wanted to do was to return to M ombasa where people she had known for most of her life, unrelated to her through ethnicity or culture, would look after her. She returned to live there and depended on the local community till her health began to fail and she died far away from her sons and daughters and her grandchildren, with whom she had no opportunity to establish close and lasting ties. One of her daughters and the son from Sweden travelled across to M ombasa to witness her cremation that was shrouded in deep sorrow and, ultimately marked almost total marginalisation of 87

Mrs Patel from her natal community which could not rescue her from poverty and destitution that she had to live with.

In concluding this chapter based on a this biographical narrative, it is essential to offer some important provisional remarks. The main purpose of this case study is to indicate that migration makes a significant impact on family solidarity as members of a family face the prospect of migration in their rapidly changing circumstances. It is doubtless that ideology of family solidarity and respect for one’s father and mother remains an iconic norm in diasporic Indian communities.

Once the family members leave their homeland to settle further afield, the reality begins to change. Mrs. Patel’s experience of finding out that she could not live on a permanent basis with either one of her daughters in Britain or with her son in Sweden highlights the kind of suffering that the elderly might experience when they find themselves entangled in having to choose between ‘the devil and the deep blue sea’ in that their comfort, safety and well being are increasingly at risk whether they live with their children or not. Relocation is a possibility that is fraught with all sorts of problems which the young can manage more easily than

those who are old and less adaptable to new circumstances. Their sense of loss is inevitable in the options they have before themselves. However, the purpose of this narrative is not to suggest that such a bleak choice is what Indian elders are likely to face in many cases. W hile narratives of emotional trauma, despair and suffering are significant, it is perfectly possible to show that many families bring about a successful and happy restoration of their relations after they have left their home grounds and regrouped themselves in a specific place after their initial dispersal from their normal habitat. It should be emphasised that many young Indian families enable their parents to settle with them and support them in the final phase of their life. However, it is important to note that changes in relationship between the generations draw our attention to social changes and the emergence of patterns which seem to put the elderly at a disadvantage when they join their children for permanent settlement. Both in Britain and North America, marginalisation of the Indian elderly seems to be a notable fact. Last quarter of a century in the UK shows that a remarkable change is happening in the way in which the younger generation may now view their older parents.

At least traditionally, perhaps less than fifty to sixty years ago, as Cecile Joaquin-Yasay has noted recently,’ The elderly used to be a term of endearment among a very large youthful population. The numbers of the elderly have increased and shall continue to increase; as life spans increase, the elderly are now older than the 60-yearolds of yesteryears; they are getting poorer and marginalized; and they are being called the aged, a term connoting a type of burden to present-day family life (Cecil Joaquin-Yasay, 1996).

It is worth dwelling on Yasay’s significant comments in order to grasp the nature of social change that is emerging as a factor in migration and formation of diasporic communities. Although Bollywood films, Zee TV and Sony Asia soaps transmitted from India to its diasporic audiences in the UK and USA, continue to MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE INDIAN ELDERLY BAROT 88

show reverence for the old and their influence in social life , marginality of the elderly appears to be a distinctive feature of the migration context of their lives when they have retired. As Yasay notes, once upon a time, the elderly enjoyed a special position of regard and respect for providing guidance and support to their sons and daughters in their old homes as well as in their new diasporic domestic life. Although not in all cases, but in a significant number of cases the author has noted that “who will look after the elderly father or mother” has become a contentious issue for the modern urbanised Indian family as it seeks to identify itself as an autonomous social entity without having to cope with those who belong to an earlier generation. In historical and ethnographic accounts of Indians living in diaspora, the elderly seem to receive much less attention than the new generation and its progress, prosperity and success. In her interesting comparative study of Indian diaspora in Britain and the US, Sandhya Shukla focuses on many different aspects of diaspora life, especially the way the younger generation is forging a new and hybrid identity. It is clear that the family and its changing relationship and increasing marginality and exclusion of the elderly has no place in her narrative (Shukla, 2003).

However, Pravin Sheth (2001), a political scientist who taught in Gujarat and joined the family of his sons in Georgia and California has a remarkable chapter on the position of the elderly in the US in his book about the Indians in America.

According to his account, it is evident that Yasay’s comments on the elderly as a burden is most appropriate for those circumstances in which they live in isolation in a suburban home and may suffer denigration and humiliation, with a growing cultural gap between them and the family of their sons. There are a variety of

socio-cultural conflicts which occur in those diasporic families where the elderly parents may have joined their son or daughter from India or from the location of their settlement in any one of the ex-colonial society like Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania or other far flung places. The parents may be sensitive enough to recognise that they no longer have the authority to influence family of their sons or daughters and the authority may reside with the son or daughter depending on the nature of specific circumstances. In such instances, the realisation that that they hardly have any say in matters affecting the family may come as a painful realisation to the elderly as they may have to comply with norms brought into practice by their sons or daughters. Especially if they have grandchildren, complexities may arise to unsettle the grandparents. Even when they can communicate in English (not always the case), difficulties in communication can occur between the grandparents and grandchildren as well as between parents and their offspring. Although Indian communities both in the US and in UK have taken steps to preserve their linguistic heritage through their own voluntary associations and language classes, the teaching of language in the US or UK occurs in a linguistic framework that assumes predominance of English as a medium of communication. The process of adaptation in UK and US and limited contexts for using Gujarati effectively may make Gujarati a rather rudimentary and symbolic form of communication. Though grandchildren may still understand what is being said in Gujarati, they may respond in English which the grandparents may or may 89

not comprehend. It is possible that grandparents may not know enough English to communicate effectively with their grandchildren and if they can, the grandchildren may regard their spoken English as being comic and funny, thus intensifying a feeling of hurt and humiliation experienced by the grandparents. In addition, sons and their wives as well as grandchildren may regard the elderly as being quaint and funny and thus fail to offer them respect that the grandparents may expect both from their own children and their grandchildren. Excluded from the mainstream conversation in the household and confined to themselves or to a television set, it is possible for the elderly to experience both displacement, marginality, despair and depression. Although in sadness and humiliation, the elderly may still prefer to live uneasily with their sons and daughters rather than by themselves. The scenario which is worse than living in humiliation with their son or daughter is when their son or daughter states categorically that they do not wish their parents to stay with them. W hatever the circumstances and justification by sons and daughters for such a decision, it comes as great shock to the elderly as they feel that their deeply felt ties to their children are being eroded. This is precisely what Mrs Patel experienced when she was invited to stay in the UK or Sweden. Mrs Patel decided that it was better for her to return to her modest arrangement in her home town in Kenya. At least she had a place to return to. In instances where the elderly parents may have left their homeland for good in the hope that they will live permanently with their children, the future may turn out to be bleak if they feel more or less imprisoned in unfriendly diasporic spaces. Pravin Sheth has documented such an incident from his observations in the United States.

In one of the shocking examples that Sheth noted, concerned parents had joined their son and his wife. The young couple were so unwilling to look after the husband’s parents that they dropped them in a large shopping mall and hoped that they would somehow never come back. Shopping mall security helped the elders to contact their friends who reprimanded the son and his wife and put them to ‘shame’ in their community to ensure that they did not treat their parents with heart-breaking insensitivity.

J. Redelinghuys and A. Shah (1997) note that population of ethnic elders has increased from 1% to 3% of all ethnic minority individuals between 1981 and 1991 in the UK (Office of Population Census and Surveys (OPCS), 1982, 1993). They

also confirm that the composition of the ethnic elderly group included 41% of Indian subcontinent origin. W ith the rising population of the elders among the UK Indians, who should the parents finally stay with has emerged as a serious welfare issue for the elders. For instance, in order to save heating costs, a settled young couple may encourage the parents to leave home with them when they go to work so that they can be dropped at a public library. They would stay there for much of the day before being collected in the evening.

In view of growing pressure on the elderly parents, the stereotypical view that the ‘Indians always look after their own kind’ has failed to have much substance.

W hat was regarded as unthinkable and unacceptable, that is for the elders to break away from the family of their sons and to live alone, has become much more of a reality. In all the major British cities, various local authorities and voluntary MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE INDIAN ELDERLY BAROT 90

organisations have responded and supported homes for the elderlies from Indian communities. As their website shows http://www.sanctuary-housing.co.uk/ homepage.html, ASRA Midlands Housing Association was founded in 1979 to respond to elderly Asians becoming homeless, living in isolated conditions and suffering from physical and verbal harassment. The word ASRA means shelter or refuge in Hindi and Urdu. The initiative arose from the jointly-held belief that Local Authority provision for the needs of the South Asians was often non-existent and, where it did occur, it could not deal with the group’s particular linguistic, cultural, dietary and religious needs in a satisfactory manner. ASRA achieved this aim by acquiring and converting some larger properties in the Highfields and Belgrave areas of Leicester from the late seventies. Now ASRA works in 8 local authority areas in the M idlands region and ASRA Midlands manages 900 homes.

Besides supporting the elders from South Asian groups, it also supports housing schemes for women fleeing domestic violence, and accommodation for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities. ASRA Midlands is unique in that it understands that the provision of homes for people with an Asian lifestyle requires a pragmatic and sensitive approach to issues ranging from the management of sheltered schemes to their geographical location; the latter being essential in order to create an environment in which tenants are happy, able to access established community support networks and which meets their cultural, spiritual and linguistic needs. For example the Association provides a 24 hour multi-lingual emergency Control Centre for older residents living in sheltered housing schemes. It also provides lifeline services for people who require reassurance and support but also wish to retain their independence whilst living in the comfort of their own homes. This scheme has been a great solace to elders from the South Asian community. It is an effective and successful project that has enabled the elders from South Asian background to free themselves from oppression and abuse by their daughters and sons. W hile this voluntary effort is worthy of merit, it should be noted that the traditional community organizations, especially the caste organizations, may step in to offer care for their elders when the care is partially funded by the local authorities. Oshwal Elderly W elfare Association Supporting Independence Team in London assists older people to make more effective use of services provided to help them to live as independently and as comfortably as possible. This can be achieved by reducing the number of enquiries that an older person needs to make in order to access services.

Undoubtedly, such alternative provision enables the elders to live in comfort and security for the duration of their life time without oppression, despair and humiliation. Such developments in nearly every major city in Britain illustrates that migration and diasporic settlement in advanced industrial societies has created a necessity for institutions which can and do look after elders from South Asian

communities.

REFERENCES Ballard, R. (2001). Current demographic characteristics of the South Asian presence in Britain: An analysis of the results of 2001 census. http://www.art.man.ac.uk/CASAS/pdfpapers/sasians2001.pdf.

91 Ballard, R. (Ed.). (1994). Desh pardesh: The South Asian presence in Britain. London: Hurst & Co. Barot, R. (1988). Bristol and the Indian independence movement. Bristol: University of Bristol Historical Association.

Bhachu, P. (1985). Twice migrants: East African Sikh settlers in Britain. London, New York: Tavistock Publications.

Cecile Joaquin-Yasay. (1996). Creating awareness of the issues and problems of the elderly among planners and policy makers. In the local community Asian population studies series No. 145, implications of Asia’s population future for older people in the family (Asian Population Studies Series, No.145, p. 131).

Clarke, C., Peach, C., & Vertovec, S. (Eds.). (1990). South Asians overseas: Migration and ethnicity.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Desai, R. (1963). Indian immigrants in Britain. London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations.

DeWitt, J. J. (1969). Indian workers associations in Britain. London: Oxford University Press.

Dotson, F. L. (1968). The Indian Minority of Zambia, Rhodesia and Malawi. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ghai, D. P., & Ghai, Y. P. (1970). Portrait of a Minority: Asians in East Africa. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.

Helweg, A. W. (1986). Sikhs in England. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Humphrey, D., & Ward, M. (1974). Passports and politics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Lal, B. V., Reeves, P., & Rai, R. (2006). The encyclopaedia of the Indian Diaspora. Editions Didier Millet Oxford University Press.

Redlinghuys, J., & Shah, A. (1997). The characteristics of ethnic elders from Indian subcontinent suing a geriatric psychiatry service in West London. Aging and Mental Health, 1(3): 243–247.

Sheth, P. (2001). The elderly generation: Kaleidoscopic pattern, in Indians in America: One stream, two waves, three generations (Chapter 2). Jaipur: Rawat Publications.

Shukla, S. (2003). India abroad: Diasporic cultures of post-war America and Britain. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Tambs-Lyche, H. (1980). London Patidars: A case study in urban ethnicity. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Tandon, Y. (1973). Problems of a displaced minority: The new position of East African Asians (Report No.16). London: Minority Rights Group.

Tinker, H. (1977). The Banyan Tree: Overseas emigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Oxford: Oxford University.

Tinker, H. (1976). Separate and unequal: India and the Indians in the British Commonwealth 1920– 1950. London: C. Hurst & Co. Tinker, H. (1974). A new system of slavery: The export of Indian labour overseas 1830–1920. London: Oxford University Press.

Twaddle, M. (Ed.). (1975). Expulsion of a minority: Essays on Ugandan Asians. London: The Athlone Press, University of London.

Visram, R. (2002). Asians in Britain: 400 years of history. London: Pluto Press.

Visram, R. (1986). Ayahs, lascars and princes. London: Pluto Press.