Decolonising the diaspora: neo-colonial performances of Indian history in East Africa

Governments are increasingly engaging with their diasporas as a means of managing their national economies. Nevertheless, analyses of government diaspora strategies have not adequately accounted for the complexities of diasporic affiliations and identities, especially those not easily brought into the purview of economic governance. Drawing on performative understandings of how national polities are realised, this paper argues that incorporating diasporic populations entails more than managing material flows: it also involves an engagement with the histories that tie diasporas to particular nations. Using a discourse analysis of the textual narratives of the Indian Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), I examine their representations of East African Asians’ history of migration and settlement. Though the MOIA ‘decolonises’ their historical associations with the ambiguous space of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, it also ironically deploys colonial modes of thought in rewriting their history as Indian. This analysis suggests there is a need to re-examine how diasporas are valued by governments to take account of their multiple historical and contemporary significances.