ABSTRACT
This chapter primarily focuses on the descendants of those Indians who emigrated as indentured labourers to sugar-producing colonies such as Mauritius, Trinidad, Suriname, Natal, and Fiji from the 1830s following the end of slavery in the British Empire in 1834. It traces the descendants of the free migrants who followed in their wake as traders, the 'Old Diaspora', as well as those who migrated and known in the literature as the 'New Diaspora'. Indian migration to Britain is a mid-twentieth-century phenomenon and caste remains important in structuring Gujarati society. While transnational migration has historical precedents as people have always maintained forms of contact with 'home', changes in transportation and communication, changing labour markets, and the Indian government's policy of encouraging diasporic attachment to home, have intensified transnational identities. Networks facilitate migration, and are integral to diasporas. Indian diasporic communities the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, are affected by the 9/11 attacks and the radical project of the Islamic State.
