IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/indqtr/v78y2022i4p654-670.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Place Called Home: The Sense of Belonging of the Afghan Hindu and Sikh Diaspora in India

Author

Listed:
  • Anwesha Ghosh

    (Anwesha Ghosh is a Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi. She has taught at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt, Germany, as a Lecturer while conducting her post-doctoral research. She holds a doctoral degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Erfurt, an MPhil from the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies, Kolkata, and double Master’s in History and Development Studies from the University of Calcutta and the University of Rome, La Sapienza, respectively. Ghosh has several publications to her credit, including four single-authored books, and she writes regularly for reputed newspapers and journals.)

Abstract

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the country that triggered en masse exodus of a new wave of Afghan refugees desperate to flee the clutches of the Taliban. Although Pakistan and Iran had traditionally been the two main destinations of refuge for Afghans, yet for some Afghans—especially for the non-Muslim minority communities of Afghanistan, namely the Afghan Hindus and Sikhs—India has always been the foremost destination for refuge. The article aims to understand the experiences of the mentioned communities, as they moved from pre-conflict, to conflict, displacement and finally to the settlement phase in India. Thus, the article throws light on the experiences of Afghan Hindus and Sikhs both in their home and host countries and, in the process, engages with various aspects of the negotiations and marginalisation endured by them. It then strives to explore their sense of belonging at the scales of state, individual and community by discussing the significance and impact of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, specifically for the members of Afghan Hindu and Sikh diaspora in India. A plethora of research has been produced that focuses on various aspects of India’s relation with Afghanistan, but the issues of the Afghan religious minorities in India remained a neglected topic of scholarly research. This article attempts to remedy this lack of literature by examining the unexplored dimension of India’s engagement and support for Afghan Sikhs and Hindus.

Suggested Citation

  • Anwesha Ghosh, 2022. "A Place Called Home: The Sense of Belonging of the Afghan Hindu and Sikh Diaspora in India," India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, , vol. 78(4), pages 654-670, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:indqtr:v:78:y:2022:i:4:p:654-670
    DOI: 10.1177/09749284221128668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09749284221128668
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09749284221128668?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:indqtr:v:78:y:2022:i:4:p:654-670. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.