ABSTRACT
Migrants from India find their roots deep down. In the past few decades Indians migrating abroad have gradually been increasing. Today the European as well as the American continents hosts some of the biggest Indian diasporas in the world. Well known is the fact that when migrant communities move to foreign lands, they either decide to assimilate or choose to integrate with the host society. It is interesting then to know what values and identities shape their living. How do they relate themselves? This chapter focuses on exploring the identity issues that the Indian migrant communities in Europe are faced with. How ‘Indian’ are the Indian communities that have spent most of their life in Europe? India is a land of diversity where regional and ethnic identities have always been placed at the supreme level, to be followed closely by the Indian identity. Which identity then becomes dominant? having been always at the crossroads, how did they unite as an Indian group and gave up their heterogeneous multi-regional, linguistic, religious and cultural identities in Europe? What led to them developing self-maintained organised associations? Is it food, language or simply the love for cricket that binds Indian identity together?
