ABSTRACT
Focussing on the literature on the Girmitiya diaspora, especially the Indo-Trinidadians, this chapter attempts to theorise the dynamics of the Indian diaspora which has been in existence for over a century and a half since its ancestors originally left the country. It makes out a case for moving beyond the persistence vs change hypotheses for explaining the experience of the socio-cultural baggage which the ancestors of the diasporic communities brought with them. These hypotheses posit an ideal typical notion of the ‘Indian’, which is presumed to have remained unchanged. Also, they leave little or no scope for the agency of the diasporic community and the diasporic imagination to adapt, adopt and innovate its social institutions and cultural practices, depending upon the internal and the external changes which it has to confront. The chapter advances the concept of metamorphosis as an analytical device for the study of the dynamics of diasporic social institutions and cultural practices.
