For a country which has a full-fledged ministry dedicated to its expatriates around the world, and also conducts an ostentatious Pravasi Bharatiya Divas with considerable sound and fury, it is rather astounding and lamentable that the government is yet to speak out against the persecution of the oldest Indian diaspora population – the Roma – in Europe.
France has deported around 1,000 Roma to Bulgaria and Romania since August and has been accused by Amnesty International of "stigmatising" the community. French President Nicolas Sarkozy referred to irregular camps inhabited by Roma as "sources of criminality" at a meeting in July. Since then, several camps have been dismantled and the Roma hounded out with 300 Euros in their pockets. The rightwing government of Sarkozy has vowed to continue the deportations despite trenchant criticism both at home and from the European Union.
Last week, the European parliament passed a resolution by 337-245 votes calling on France to "immediately suspend”all expulsions of Roma, saying it "amounted to discrimination". The MEPs admitted this was not legally binding, but said mass expulsions were prohibited under EU law "since they amount to discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity."
Thousands of Roma are citizens of France, but the ones in question are about 15,000 who came from Eastern Europe after the Iron Curtain came down. Hundreds of them camp out on the outskirts of villages and cities, and most eke out a living as farm hands. After the July clashes between the Roma and the police in Grenoble and Saint-Aignan, Sarkozy said it was time to deport them. The decision, though widely condemned, has had its takers. Opinion polls show that a large majority of the French people favours sending the "traveling people" back home. A nationalistic boost is what Sarkozy needed at a time when his popularity has been on the downswing especially in the face of controversial reforms, spending cuts, and strikes.
The anti-Roma campaign has been going on a while. According to official figures, 11,000 Roma were also expelled from France last year – in other words almost as many, month by month – without anyone much noticing. It is only now that Sarkozy made it a nationalistic spectatcle.
A similar aggression has been carried out by the government of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy since 2008. Following the brutal murder of a woman in Rome at the hands of a young man from a local Roma camp, the Berlusconi government declared that the Roma population represented a national security risk and that swift action was required to address the emergenza nomadi (nomad emergency). The Roma were held responsible for rising crime rates in urban areas.
Both in France and in Italy, the governments have stereotyped the Roma and embarked on targeted persecution drives reminiscent of the Medieval Era. And as Amnesty International says, “Ethnic profiling of this kind has no place in the EU.” This falls on deaf ears.
The cries have not been heard by the Indian government either. Even an obscure rightwing Hindu group in the United States has read the papers and felt the need to speak out against the persecution of the Roma in France. The Indian government, however, has remained silent.
The Manmohan Singh government probably is eagerly waiting to play host to Sarkozy in November and is in no mood to antagonise its guest-to-be. India and France have been negotiating the upgrade of 56 multi-role Mirage-2000s, which were first inducted into IAF combat fleet in the mid-1980s. The Indian government is patiently waiting for the inking of this deal worth more than $2 billion. Money matters probably explain the Indian hush.
Today, the Roma, also known as gypsies, number around 10-16 million primarily in Eastern and Central Europe, with other sub-groups in North and South America and Australia. Most still speak the Romani language, but the Roma trace their roots back to medieval India.
Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates the Roma people originated from the Indian subcontinent, migrating towards the northwest around the 11th century. These people are believed to have come from central India, possibly in the modern state of Rajasthan, migrating to the Punjab region around 250 BC. They moved further westward around 500- 1000. Historians believe the bulk of the migration took place in the backdrop of the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni. The defeated soldiers moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire. Other accounts say that the Roma were captured by the Afghan warlord and traded in Persia. The Persians, in turn, sold them off as slaves in what is today Eastern Europe.
In 15th century Western Europe, the Roma were seen as spies of the Turks, triggering off a violent history of persecution. The maltreatment peaked during World War II in the Porajmis, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazi Germany and Croatia. In 1935, the Nuremberg laws stripped the Roma people living in Germany of their citizenship, after which they were subjected to imprisonment in concentration camps and later genocide in extermination camps. Since no census figures ever existed, the toll estimates vary from a moderate 220,000-500,000 to a rather high 1-1.5 million. In Central Europe, the extermination in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was so thorough that the Bohemian Romani language became extinct.
The Roma’s is also a history of forced assimilation. In the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria in the 17th century, they were banned from marrying within their community. The wearing of traditional Romani clothing was prohibited, and the use of the Romani language became punishable by flogging. In Spain, the use of the language was prohibited, the men and women were sent to separate workhouses, and their children packed off to orphanages. Czechoslovakia carried out a policy of sterilisation of Romani women starting in 1973. Shockingly, this carried out even after the Velvet Revolution and is said to have ended only in this century.
The Roma have been known to be an adaptable lot. Migrant populations have adopted the dominant religion of their country of residence, while often preserving aspects of older belief systems and forms of worship. Despite this admirable trait, the Roma have been misrepresented and persecuted over time and across cultures. It continues till this day.
Many worldwide are speaking out for them. But those in the land of their origin are not.
