Opinion | How India’s Gujarat was shaped by East African music and culture: the Siddi influence

Africans first arrived in India about 800 years ago; today Muslim Siddis – Afro-Indians – are mostly found in the west and southwest, practising a mix of the two cultures

Music and dance performances – Dhamaals – key to this ‘creolisation’, with various instruments, sometimes frenzied movements, and foot thumping

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A Siddi man performs in a traditional festival. Siddis came to India from Africa centuries ago. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 5:00am, 8 Feb 2023Updated: 1:26pm, 8 Feb 2023

The term Siddi refers to Afro-Indians – Africans who mixed with Indians through marriage and relationships. Africans crossed the Indian Ocean and arrived in India during the 1200s and the two centuries afterwards. They were transported by Islamic invaders and Portuguese colonisers as enslaved people, palace guards, army chiefs, harem keepers, spiritual leaders, singers, dancers and treasurers.

Today, most Siddis are found in the west and southwest of India, in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana states. As they settled, they preserved and practised their African ancestral sociocultural traditions – and also adopted local Indian traditions.

This interweaving of African and Indian cultural values gave birth to various creolised (mixed) food, music and spiritual practices.

As a diversity studies scholar, I have been researching Siddi culture for some time. Working within this community in Gujarat and Karnataka, I found that their cultural practices emerged as a resistance to colonisation, racialisation and victimisation in postcolonial India.

My most recent research – seen in a new documentary, Afro-Indian Creole Rhythms: Siddi Dhamaals of Gujarat – has focused on the music and dance performances, called Dhamaals, of the Siddi community in Gujarat.

The story of these performance traditions reveals the rich and complex mixing of cultures in a world shaped by human movement and history.