Roma

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Identity

Lepselter concluded from her analysis of mid-20th-century gypsilorism that the Gypsies are both "the 'heart' of Europe and radically 'other' to it" (31). The debate this anomaly naturally provokes has centered around the "real" identity of the Romani people, both in terms of genetic descent and in terms of our status as "Europeans." The most succinct statement describing this two-sided identity is found in a recent Project on Ethnic Relations report:

Another serious problem is raised by the concept of the Romani diaspora itself. It goes beyond the borderlines of Europe, since Romani communities are found in the Middle East, Central Asia, both Americas, and Australia. Thus, why do the Roma have to be recognized as a �European�, or even a �truly European� minority (as in the Brussels Declaration of 1966)? Some Romani intellectuals and leaders recall the Roma�s Indian origins and heritage as a basis for their political status and identity, while others eagerly affirm their European roots and heritage and consider their Indian past as irrelevant to the current Romani causes and claims (32).

The Indian Origin

Although the Indian origin of the Romani people is beyond dispute, not only on the basis of linguistic but also of cultural and serological evidence, this remains largely the concern of the academic. While early Romani populations on their arrival in Europe were able to say that they had come from India, this fact has become lost in time, and is still generally not known to the vast majority of Roma, many of whom have internalized instead the notion of an origin in Egypt. And those who learn about the Indian connection and put it to the test by comparing their Romani with the Hindi, Sindhi or Punjabi of the ubiquitous Indian convenience-store managers in the United States find this interesting, but little else. From Hungary, Michael Stewart reported the same response:

.... the fact is most nonintellectual Rom do not seem to care where their ancestors are from. In all the time I have spent in Harangos, I have never once heard a spontaneous conversation about the geographica1 or historical roots of their own people

A recent observation by a Vlax Rrom is more explicit:

Just suppose the entire Gypsy population of the world had returned to an already overpopulated India. India can hardly handle the education and heath issues of its own population. Plus the fact of the matter is we Gypsies consider even Indians gujze (non-Gypsies). Even the Gypsies of India themselves who are called Banjarra call all other Indians gujze (gadj?.

Though Gypsies come from India there is a distinct difference between Hindus and Gypsies. For example, there is the Kama Sutra, which is the book of lovemaking and which is considered by Hindus to be holy, while Gypsies all over the world consider the art of lovemaking as taboo, (and) sexuality is kept secret. So even if you were to place all Gypsies in India, it would be no different from placing them in Germany, They would still be considered outsiders by the Indians and the Gypsies would feel no differently (34).

For very particular reasons, I have been among the most vocal in insisting that Rroma are a composite people who originated in Asia. I take the position of the sociolinguist, who sees language as the vehicle of culture, and we speak a language and maintain a culture whose core of direct retention is directly traceable to India. I believe that the acknowledgment of this position is essential, because the alternative is to create a fictitious history and to have, again, our identity in the hands of non-Romani policy-makers and scholars. They are defensible scientifically because they are supported by current academic research, and they are defensible practically because Madame Indira Gandhi openly acknowledged Rroma as an Indian population outside of India and it was the Indian government which was instrumental in helping our people achieve representation in the United Nations, and in creating our First World Romani Congress, and which is now supporting our claims for return of the gold and other possessions taken from Romani Holocaust victims and currently on deposit in Swiss banks. Without the backing of such a national government, the Romani voice would have been carried away by the wind, and these things would probably not even have happened. Those who minimize the Indian connection are not linguists or historians, although they frequently feel entirely qualified to make linguistic and historiographical pronouncements (35). Sandland (36) says that "notwithstanding the best attempts of the so-called Gypsyologists or gypsy lorists, however, the Indian connection has only been posited linguistically and it remains, to say the least, vague" � ignoring the serological and cultural evidence, and basing his position solely on a second-hand acquaintance with the Traveller population in Britain. While such scholars dismiss the arguments, they offer no evidence to support their dismissal. The most elementary cultural/linguistic evidence, such as the fact that the Romani word for "cross" (trushul) originally meant "Shiva's trident," is left unaddressed. It is hard to reconcile facts such as these with the "indigenous origin" argument that Romani language and culture were passed like a relay-runner�s baton from population to population along trade routes, rather than being brought with one migrating people.