Amit Shankar Saha
Diaspora formation involves not only the migration of human beings but also ideas, opinions, perceptions and prejudices. Often ingrained biases travel across continents in the guise of ethnic markers and cultural peculiarities. A migrating individual carries the stereotypical notions that he/she harbors. Members of the Indian diaspora, especially of the first generation, display evidence of this phenomenon. This often leads to generational conflicts within diasporic families.
There are many categories of biases prevalent in the migrant Indian population, one being the pedagogical bias. In this category the bias is against Humanities study. With the demise of meta-narratives and grand theories in a postmodern world, the position of eminence that Liberal Arts and Humanities occupied is compromised. In India Humanities education is popularly perceived as second grade education when compared with science education.
The Indian diaspora in the US, where Liberal Arts and Humanities education has found traditional backing and encouragement, has been populated primarily by individuals with science, technology or management backgrounds. The prejudice against Humanities often prevail despite the change in location, society, culture and economic sustainability. The question of sustainability of Humanities education in a world of dwindling economy, where funding is shrinking, makes the bias even harder to dispel.
The second generation Indians in the Us, who are born and bred there, do not harbor this prejudice because their ethnic Indian self and their social American self counteract each other. So in an Indian family in the US, a second generation individual, with an inclination for Humanities, will likely to find opposition in its pursuit from within the family leading to inter-generational conflicts.
Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth has examples to illustrate the point. In the title story Baba always wanted Ruma to study biology instead of history, which was Ruma’s preference. In “A Choice of Accommodation” Amit is forced to join Columbia Medical School, which he eventually leaves without getting his degree and takes up writing in a medical journal. In
“Hell-Heaven” Pranab, a scientist in MIT, is miffed that seven-year-old Usha is not yet taught square roots and the concept of Pi, without acknowledging her accomplishments in other subjects.