Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 23:37:05 +0500 (GMT+0500) From: PROF DR B R SHYAMALA DEVI RATHORE <brsdevi-AT-hd1.vsnl.net.in> Subject: [Romnet] Review of Professor Devi's Documentary Film on Ghor and Roma (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 23:41:43 -0000 From: "Trehan,N" <N.Trehan-AT-lse.ac.uk> Reply-To: romnet-l-AT-smtp.teleport.com To: "'romnet-l-AT-teleport.com'" <romnet-l-AT-teleport.com> Subject: [Romnet] Review of Professor Devi's Documentary Film on Ghor and Roma New Documentary Film on Roma and Ghor, =93We Are Everywhere=94, by Professor Shymala Devi Rathore, economist, Kakatiya University, Andhra Pradesh, India =93SKINHEADS=94 and =93MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS=94 are two words you will not hear used in this new documentary film. This is because these words (and concepts) were carefully censored from the film=92s text by the visual anthropologist who assisted Professor Shymala Devi Rathore with her film. The 33 minutes of at times amateur footage (Professor Devi readily concedes that she is not a professional film-maker) compiled in both India and Europe testify to her perseverance to see the production of the film to fruition, despite the opposition she has had to =93get her message across=94. And her provocative message is loud and clear, Roma and Ghor (also known as Banjaras or Lambadas in India) are =93One People=94, part of the same diaspora of Indic peoples who share a common cultural heritage, and who today, occupy similar socio-economic positions within diverse societies. Throughout her travels in Western Europe, in Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and the U.K., she visited numerous Romani communities and activists and became convinced through linguistic and cultural similarities that the Roma/Sinti of Europe share a common ancestry with her people in India. She posits something like this: if we subscribe to the Muslim invasion-dispersion theory of Romani migration westward, then surely, not all of the ancestors of the Roma went westward. In other words, there must have been a southward and eastward migration as well. Professor Devi asserts that her people, the Ghor in South India (who incidentally speak a North Indian language called =91Ghorboli=92) are related to the Romani diaspora. She estimates that the total population of Roma/Ghor worldwide is approximately 40 million, and that, her people who are living all over India, make up about half that figure. The film begins with India, where Professor Devi has taken footage of the way that most Ghor make their living: either through physical labour in the agricultural or construction industries or through hawking, artisanry, petty trading, and rickshaw-driving in larger towns and cities. The emphasis on the economic contributions of Indian Ghor is one of the shining strengths of the film. One scene, in particular, where she discusses the price of bangles made by the Ghor with a Dutch shopkeeper in Amsterdam sends a disturbing message: the price mark-up is over 20-fold. The same theme of economic exploitation is repeated earlier when she highlights the plight of Ghor labourers who become trapped into poverty through the loan-debt cycle in the agricultural sector. As an Indian-born researcher, perhaps the most powerful revelation for me was to realize that Hinduism, at least to some Ghor, is an alien religion, and those practicing it are generally represented by the land-owning classes comprising the non-Ghor, who are seen as the =91oppressors=92. One poignant scene at a Holocaust Memorial ceremony at the site of the former Westerbroek camp in the Netherlands is linked to the Telangana Arms Struggle in Andhra Pradesh in the 1940s under the Nizam (Muslim) regime, where many Ghor were burned alive in hay bundles which were set on fire by the land-owning classes. In another scene, during the marriage of a young Ghor woman, the narrator reveals that the wedding is in the Hindu tradition and that this Ghor family has assimilated Hindu practices. The implication is that once you peel off the layer of Hindu practices, you will uncover those of the Ghor. Which brings me to the most important contribution of this film: to emphasize the dearth of academic research (linguistic, cultural, economic, historical) to either support or disprove Professor Devi=92s hypothesis. Much, much more research needs to be done to divine the links between the two groups, and I hope her film will spark some action in this direction. Like Professor Ian Hancock and other Romani intellectuals who are calling for a recognition of Romani history, I think it is time that serious research is undertaken in India itself, by both Indian and Romani scholars. =93We Are Everywhere=94 has two distinct sets of target audiences: governments, policy makers, social workers, and NGOs making up the first set, and Roma and Ghor making up the second. The ultimate message for her non-Gypsy target audience is to emphasize the socio-economic discrimination that Roma/Ghor face in Europe as well as in India, while for the Roma/Ghor audience she hopes that they will =93recognise their relatives in far-off lands=94 and seek to create a community consciousness in order to work together to overcome oppression. As a young girl in post-colonial India, Professor Devi attended a missionary school similar to the one depicted in her film. Admitted to Osmania University in Andhra Pradesh, she then went on to one of India=92s most prestigious universities, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi to become a development economist. As Bubbles Brazil, a British Gypsy from Abbeywoods site in England says in the film, =93She=92s a Gypsy, you know, she=92s one of us...no matter what country you come from, we=92re one race of people=94. ---Nidhi Trehan, December 1998 To obtain a copy of the video, please contact Professor Devi directly. Cheers to all for a great holiday season!!!!! --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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