Along the way, they lost their language, their culture and knowledge of their native land. But they retained their music and their dance. They are the African Sufis of Gujarat, whose musical group, the Sidi Goma, made a historic visit to their ancestral land of Africa last month.
Their history is rooted in the slave trade of the 13th century and beyond, when many Africans arrived in India as slaves to the Maharajahs and Nawabs of the day, while others came as merchants, navigators and sailors. They settled mostly in the western kingdoms of India, long before the first slave ships started supplying African labour to the cotton plantations and sugar estates of the Americas.
Unlike their trans-Atlantic brothers and sisters, the African slaves of India remained racially intact, choosing to marry only among themselves, and living in communities that were mostly homogenous.
Yunus Mohammed Sidi, one of the leaders of the Sidi Goma group, explained: "We don’t encourage inter-marriage because we want to retain our racial purity."
The group was invited to perform at the Zanzibar International Film Festival this year as part of a tour organised by Busara Promotions, a cultural non-governmental organisation based in Zanzibar.
At some stage, the African Sufis also converted to Islam and adopted the Sufi tradition of praying through song and dance.
Today, the 25,000 or so Sidis, as they call themselves, are to be found largely in the Indian state of Gujarat, where they have adopted the local language and culture, but retain some aspects of their African heritage, mostly in their music. Their musical group, Sidi Goma, which was first "discovered" by the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi some 20 years ago, celebrates an African Sufi saint known as Baba Gor, originally called Sidi Mubarak Nobi, suggesting possible Nubian origins.
Their performance centres around a dance called zikr (discourse) which comprises intoxicating drum beats that rhythmically support the dance, whose climax involves throwing a coconut in the air and breaking it with one’s head. Although most of their instruments are Indian, the Sidi Goma use one African instrument, the "malunga," resembling the East African "zeze." And instead of ostrich feathers, they decorate most of their instruments with peacock feathers.
No one quite knows which part of Africa the Sidis came from, but their musical and dance style suggest that it was probably the East African coast, possibly Zanzibar.
The Zanzibar leg of their East African tour was, therefore, an emotional one for the group members. "When I was a child, someone asked me what I would do if I had a lot of money," said Yunus. "I told them I would go to Africa. Now my dream has come true."
Even though the general population in India treats the Sidis as Africans foreigners who somehow landed on Indian shores the Sidis have adopted the language and culture of their hosts to such an extent that they would find it difficult to integrate into African society. When I asked Yunus if he would like to come back to Africa for good some day, he hesitated, and then answered, "No, I don’t think I could because I have assimilated Indian culture. It would be difficult me to survive here as an African."
The question of the Sidis’ dual identity became apparent to them when they arrived at the Bombay international airport, en route to Zanzibar. The immigration officer almost didn’t let them board the plane when he saw their Indian passports. "It was amusing," recalls Yunus. "We looked like Africans, but we had Indian passports, and we only spoke Hindi and Gujarati and a bit of English. He was stumped."
The reception in Zanzibar, however, was a little more welcoming. The Zanzibaris were so touched by the Sidi’s homecoming, most shopkeepers refused to take any money from them.
One of the shopkeepers told the group he could not let them pay for anything because they had "finally come home after 700 years."
Sidi Goma (above and above left) performing at the Zanzibar International Film Festival. No one quite knows which part of Africa the Sidis came from, but their musical and dance style suggest that it was probably the East African coast, possibly Zanzibar Pictures: Busara Promotions