Habshis and Sidis in India
Habshis and Sidis in India
- Omar H. AliOmar H. AliLloyd International Honors College, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Summary
Africans and their descendants in India are variously referred to as “Habshi” and “Sidi,” as in much of South Asia. The Afro–South Asian communities that formed in India have origins that date back at least two millennia. There is evidence from at least the 1st century ce of systematic trade between Ethiopia and India. Over the course of the following two millennia, tens of thousands of Africans would arrive in a range of capacities in different parts of South Asia—India, Pakistan, Bengal, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Prior to the 20th century, most Africans were taken as slaves via the Indian Ocean slave trade, serving as soldiers in the case of men and, in smaller numbers, domestic workers and concubines in the case of women. Many, however, came on their own volition as merchants, sailors, scholars, or explorers, while still others worked as mercenaries or as musicians—sometimes both, as with the African Cavalry Guards of the Nizam of Hyderabad, in what is now the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.
Some Habshis and Sidis rose to significant positions of authority through the military and as court officials, such as Malik Ambar, the 17th-century general and regent minister of Ahmednagar in India’s Deccan. Others became rulers of their own dynasties, such as the Nawabs of Janjira along the western coast of India. Most people of African descent in the region, however, lived their lives like most South Asians, poor and politically marginalized, yet with their own creativity and community. The contributions of Africans and their descendants—in terms of their labor, languages, religion, art, music, dance, cuisine, and stories—form part of the complex, vibrant, and overlapping cultures and societies that comprise India and the region as a whole.
Subjects
- African Diaspora
- East Africa and Indian Ocean