The Siddi People (pronounced [sɪdːiː ]), also known as the Sheedi, Sidi, or Siddhi, or Habshi are an ethnic group inhabiting India and Pakistan. They are primarily descended from the Bantu peoples of the Zanj coast in Southeast Africa and Ethiopia, who were merchants, sailors, indentured servants, slaves and mercenaries. The Siddi population is currently estimated at around 850,000 individuals, with Karnataka, Gujarat and Hyderabad in India and Makran and Karachi in Pakistan serving as the main population centres. Siddis are primarily Muslims, although some are Hindus and others belong to the Catholic Church.

Although often economically and socially marginalised as a community today, Siddis have played large roles in the politics of the subcontinent. The most famous Siddi, Malik Ambar, effectively controlled the Ahmadnagar Sultanate in the Deccan. He played a major role, politically and militarily, in Indian history by limiting the penetration of the Mughal power into the Deccan Plateau

There are conflicting hypotheses on the origin of the name Siddi. One theory is that the word derives from sahibi, an Arabic term of respect in North Africa, similar to the word sahib in modern India and Pakistan. A second theory is that the term Siddi is derived from the title borne by the captains of the Arab vessels that first brought Siddi settlers to India; these captains were known as Sayyid.

Similarly, another term for Siddis, habshi, is held to be derived from Al-Habash, Arabic for Abyssinia, whence came the ships that first delivered Siddi slaves to the subcontinent. Siddis are also sometimes referred to as Afro-Indians. Siddis were referred to as Zanji by Arabs; in China, various transcriptions of this Arabic word were used, including Xinji (辛吉) and Jinzhi (津芝).

Siddi People History

The first Siddis are thought to have arrived in India in 628 AD at the Bharuch port. Several others followed with the first Arab Islamic conquest of the subcontinent in 712 AD. The latter group are believed to have been soldiers with Muhammad bin Qasim’s Arab army, and were called Zanjis.

Some Siddis escaped slavery to establish communities in forested areas, and some also established the small Siddi principalities of Janjira State on Janjira Island and Jafarabad State in Kathiawar as early as the twelfth century. A former alternative name of Janjira was Habshan (i.e., land of the Habshis). In the Delhi Sultanate period prior to the rise of the Mughals in India, Jamal-ud-Din Yaqut was a prominent former Siddi slave who was appointed by Razia Sultana (1235–1240 CE) as master of the royal stables. It is speculated that he may also have been her lover, but the contemporary sources provide no evidence of this. Siddis for brief period ruled Bengal as the Habshi dynasty of the Bengal Sultanate.

Siddis were also brought as slaves by the Deccan Sultanates. Several former slaves rose to high ranks in the military and administration, the most prominent of which was Malik Ambar.

Later, the Siddi population was increased by Bantu peoples from Southeast Africa who were brought to the Indian subcontinent as slaves by the Portuguese. Most of these migrants were or else became Muslims, while a small minority became Hindu. The Nizam of Hyderabad also employed African-origin guards and soldiers.

In the period spanning the seventh through to the twentieth century, Arab vessels brought significant numbers of trafficked Africans into South Asia as part of the system of Indian Ocean slavery. At its peak, as many as ten thousand enslaved Africans were transported from Africa to Asia via the Red Sea each year, with many being sold along trade routes into India.

Known by various names, Islamic records note the presence of enslaved Ethiopians known as ‘Habshis’ in India as early as the thirteenth century and European sources tell us that some Goan households held up to one hundred enslaved Africans known as ‘Kaffirs’ by the end of the seventeenth century. These enslaved Africans remained in India after they were emancipated, and their descendants can be found there today.

The approximately 25,000 people of African descent currently living in India are most commonly referred to as ‘Siddis’ (alternatively spelt ‘Sidi’, ‘Seedi’, ‘Seedee’) and their most concentrated communities can be found in the regions of Janjira, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, and Karnataka.

Even though the majority of these Africans were brought into the subcontinent against their will, it is important not to overlook the reality that Africans had some agency in their own migration and settlement. The surviving source record tells us that the majority of freed Africans did not desire to return home after they had been emancipated and that a smaller number of Africans also arrived in the subcontinent on a voluntary basis as sailors, merchants, mercenaries, bodyguards, and household servants. A number of African troops from British colonies in West and East Africa were also temporarily stationed in British India during the Second World War.

The African diaspora have made India their home, but they constitute one of the most marginalised communities in Indian society today and are still fighting to be recognised as equal citizens. Only in recent years have a small number of scholars and social justice groups taken interest in the lives and histories of people of African heritage living in South Asia.

Aside from the exceptional instances in which African slaves rose to royalty within early modern Indian society, enslaved Africans were generally ascribed a lowly status as hereditary ‘outcastes’ and continued to face social stigmatisation even after they had been freed. These enslaved Africans were grouped together on account of their skin colour, yet they had been captured from an array of locations across East Africa and the Horn of Africa and often did not share a language or culture with one another.

African diaspora have made a notable contribution to Indian culture. In the medieval to early modern period, a number of enslaved Africans rose to high-ranking positions in the courts of the sultans as trusted commanders of large armies, whilst others became the founders of dynasties.

Most famously, history books tell of the ‘African slave oligarchy’ of Janjira. In the 1490s, Ethiopian military leaders overthrew the Bengal sultanate and established what later became the independent princely state of Janjira in the early eighteenth century, which played a significant role in coastal and hinterland politics and existed until 1947 despite various attacks from the Marathas, Mughals, and the British. Between 1791 and 1947, the princely state of Sachin was also under the control of an African heritage ruling class.

Wealthy Africans and their descendants were the patrons of various mosques, tombs, and monuments. In Islamic society, it was not uncommon for enslaved Abyssinians to rise to prominent ranks within the army, with particular opportunity arising in the seventeenth century when Abyssinian war captives were employed as ‘military slaves’ in India.

In mainstream Indian history, the names of several men of Abyssinian heritage who rose to fame have been remembered. These include Siddi Yakub Khan, Ikhlas Khan, and, most notoriously, the Oromu boy called Chapu who rose to dominate the Deccan Kingdom of Ahmednagar as the notorious Malik Ambar, a military leader who is known for taking on the powerful leaders of the Mughal Empire. As Regent Minister of Ahmednagar (1600-1626), Malik Ambar reinforced his African identity by recruiting 10,000 Ethiopian soldiers within his army, which at its peak consisted of approximately 40,000 men.

The majority of enslaved Africans in India were not treated favourably, however. African women were enslaved as ‘concubines’, a euphemistic term for sexual slavery.  Europeans fuelled this demand for sexualised slavery in some regions, such as by publishing newspaper adverts for ‘female slaves wanted for sexual services’.  The Europeans gained a reputation for treating Africans with particular cruelty. The Portuguese fidalgos (noblemen) in Gujarat province chained up ‘slaves’ for auction, for example, and branded their flesh with hot irons.

It is vital to recognise that European empires promoted anti-black prejudices in the colonies in more vigorous and systematic ways and introduced colonial racial structures to the system of slavery in the Indian Ocean. In this way, Europeans racialised the slave trade and exacerbated the perceived differences between Asians and Africans in colonial South Asia.

The Dutch, for instance, insisted that Asian slaves were more hygienic than African slaves, who they also stereotyped as more ‘suited’ to hard physical labour. Jan Hugyen Van Linschoten, a protestant merchant who travelled in Goa in the sixteenth century described his mixed feelings of aversion and fascination for the dark-skinned ‘Kaffirs’ – who he compared to ‘beasts’.

British rule in India further heightened racial tensions between Black people and Asians within the Raj. In a report to the British government, Sir Richard Burton stereotyped the Siddi as having ‘thievish’, ‘drunken’, and ‘fighting’ properties.

In 1877, moreover, Burton characterised the African commanders of Janjira as mere ‘pirates’ and ‘sea thugs’, despite the fact that they were the strongest power on the Konkan coast in the seventeenth century (stronger than the British trading nations).

the one hand, some members of the African diaspora, such as the Habshis of the Deccan, have become integrated into local Indian society through generations of intermarriage. On the other hand, however, many people of African descent living in India today exist as distinctly self-contained African-Asian populations and practice endogamy (marriage within their own community).

The Siddis of Gujarat and Karnataka have preserved elements of their African cultures – most notably evidenced in their music, instruments, dances, rituals, and partial usage of Kiswahili and other Bantu languages. These same communities nevertheless self-identify as ‘Indian’, speak local dialects (i.e. Gujarati in Gujarat, Kannada in South India, and Urdu in Pakistan and Hyderabad), and have adopted local religions.

Genetic studies have confirmed that a notable degree of interracial sex has taken place between Siddis and Indians (and Europeans) over the past eight generations, with one 2013 study finding that the Siddi on average had 67% African ancestry. When it comes to intermarriage with local Indians, however, religion has proved an influential factor.

Whilst some members of the Siddi community in the hills of North Kanara have become assimilated into local Hindu society, for instance, Christian and Muslim Siddis in the same region remain ostracised within their respective religious circles. The Hindu Siddi in the Bilki and Yellapur districts of Karnataka have intermarried with the local community to a great degree and have successfully carved out their own caste status within the religious social order; this community only socialise with those of equal or higher status and continue to subordinate the ‘Bandhis’ and ‘Namadaris’ who rank lower than them in the pecking order.

Class has been an equally influential factor when it comes to assimilation. The Siddi rulers of Janjira intermarried with other princely families, nobility, and upper-class Muslims. Whereas chiefs among the Siddis of Sachin had the opportunity to form marital ties with Arabs and Pathans, poorer Africans were socially excluded from Indian society at large and thus forced to marry amongst themselves.

The Siddi population in Maratha, however, are the descendants of escaped African male slaves who had intermarried with lower class Indian women in Karnara. Free African men also co-habited with lower caste and tribal women in Makran and Gujarat. Across the Indian Ocean World more generally, Muslim slave soldiers, who were usually freed after a period of service, assimilated into their host societies through marriage to local Muslim women.

Surveys have found that the Siddi people have dissociated themselves from the African continent on the grounds that it is an ‘undeveloped region’. This is perhaps unsurprising given that anti-black feelings are widespread across India – there is virtually a non-existence of positive representations of Africans in popular South Asian culture and blackface persists in Bollywood. South Asian prejudices against dark skin can be dated back many centuries in fact, with colourism being rooted in caste ideology.

Anti-black sentiments pervade ancient Sanskrit epics such as the Mahabharata, in which the terrifying Fever (the personified embodiment of all ills on earth) is described as ‘hideous, dark-complexioned’. Anti-blackness was similarly expressed in ancient Buddhist ideology. Influential Buddhist thinkers Purana Kassapa and Makkhali Gosala in the sixth and fifth centuries BC had reiterated beliefs that humanity included a ‘black species’, who incidentally had the ‘darkest skin’ and belonged to the ‘lowest caste’. Colourism has had an enduring legacy in South Asian society and in 2013 it was reported that skin-lightening products were a $200 million industry in India.

Anti-blackness was also reinforced and given new legitimacy by the European colonial power structure. Across the British Empire, South Asians were privileged above Africans, whom they believed they were ‘racially superior’ to. Most notoriously, in reference to South Africa, Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi described the ‘Negroes’ as ‘a simple and unsophisticated race’, just as fellow Indian activist V.S. Srinivasa Sastri had declared in 1923 that ‘the natives of Africa are, as everybody knows, not quite civilised’.

South Asians who immigrated to East Africa around the same time concurred that native Africans were also ‘of immature mind’ and ‘without brain’. In the wake of World War One, many South Asians campaigned to make Kenya and Tanganyika sub-colonies of India on the grounds that they were the ones who had been responsible for bringing ‘civilisation’ to the natives, who they referred to as ‘bloodythirsty indigenes’ and ‘man-eating demons’.

People of African heritage constitute some of the most economically marginalised groups in Indian society today. The Siddi in the forests of Gir and Western Ghat live in abject poverty. The approximately 8,000 Siddi who live in the Junagarh district of Gujarat, moreover (who are the descendants of the male kennel keepers and female maidens of the harem employed by the last Nawab of Junagarh), also live in deprivation; they have in fact been identified as a Scheduled Tribe on the grounds that they are one of the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India.

The Siddi of India are frequently subjected to racial abuse and continue to fight for their rights as Indian citizens. Passport authorities often refuse to believe that the Siddi are Indian and they are treated as tourists when they visit urban areas. The Siddi are often referred to as ‘chimpanzees’; ‘kaliya’ meaning dark; and ‘jungli’ in Pakistan which means ‘wild’ or ‘savage’.

Racial stereotypes about people of African descent are encapsulated in popular sayings such as ‘Even if a Siddi bathes using a hundred tons of soap they will remain black in colour’ and ‘Habshis have big noses’. In popular culture, the Siddi are reduced to a basic racial stereotype and only make a conspicuous appearance in Indian society when they are paraded as goma dancers at national holiday events.

In anthropological surveys conducted by the Government of India in the 1950s through to the 1990s, the Siddi continued to be categorised as ‘outsiders’ with their presence being characterised as the ‘negroid infiltration into India’. In Gujarat, school textbooks have reinforced these stereotypes through describing the Siddi as people who reside in the forests because they came from Africa (in reality, only a small percentage of the Siddi population live in the forest regions of Gir and Karnataka).

The discrimination that the Siddi have faced is multi-layered, nevertheless, and they also face ostracisation on account of their lack of formal education and economic backwardness.

Within the Siddi people’s founding narratives, there is no reference to their former slave status. It is only in recent years, following the rise of scholarly and political interest in their communities, that the Siddi have begun to re-identify with their African identity and develop what might be referred to as a pan-Siddi cause. For example, the Siddi communities of India expressed a great deal of support for Barack Obama when he won the US Presidential election in 2008 on the grounds that he was a ‘fellow African’.

In 1987, the Sports Authority of India established a Special Area Games (SAG) program which attempted to harness the Siddi people’s ‘African athleticism’ in order to improve India’s performance in Track and Field at the Olympic Games. The sporting opportunity brought Siddi people from across the country together and it was the first time the Indian population at large learnt about the African presence in their country. Although the Siddi athletes brought their nation great prestige on the world stage and thus were given good publicity at home, they continued to experience racial discrimination. The Siddi people ultimately felt extremely let down by the government when the SAG programme was cancelled withouT warning in 1993.

Although voluntary African emigration into South Asia has been relatively low in the past 50 years, there has been a rise in West African students studying tertiary education in India since the 1990s, especially in the technology sector. The twenty-first century has witnessed many violent mob attacks against African immigrants in India, however, and racist stereotypes about Black cannibalism still pervade the Indian imagination.

India

Harris (1971) provides a historical survey of the eastward dispersal of slaves from Southeast Africa to places like India. Hamilton (1990) argues that Siddis in South India are a significant social group whose histories, experiences, cultures, and expressions are integral to the African Diaspora and thus, help better understand the dynamics of dispersed peoples. More recent focused scholarship argues that although Siddis are numerically a minority, their historic presence in India for over five hundred years, as well as their self-perception, and how the broader Indian society relates to them, make them a distinct Bantu/Indian. Historically, Siddis have not existed only within binary relations to the nation state and imperial forces. They did not simply succumb to the ideologies and structures of imperial forces, nor did they simply rebel against imperial rule. The Siddi are recognized as a scheduled tribe in 3 states and 1 union territory: Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Daman and Diu

Hyderabad

In the 18th century, a Siddi community was established in Hyderabad State by the Arab Siddi diaspora, who have frequently served as cavalry guards to the Asif Jahi Nizam of Hyderabad’s army. The Asif Jahi rulers patronised them with rewards and the traditional Marfa music gained popularity and would be performed during official celebrations and ceremonies. The Siddis of Hyderabad have traditionally resided in the A.C. Guards (African Cavalry Guards) area near Masjid Rahmania, known locally as Siddi Risala in the city Hyderabad.

Gujarat

Supposedly presented as slaves by the Portuguese to the local Prince, Nawab of Junagadh, the Siddis also live around Gir Forest National Park and Wildlife sanctuary. On the way to Deva-dungar is the village of Sirvan, inhabited entirely by Siddis. They were brought 300 years ago from Portuguese colonial territories for the Nawab of Junagadh. Today, they follow very few of their original customs, with a few exceptions like the traditional Dhamal dance.

Although Gujarati Siddis have adopted the language and many customs of their surrounding populations, some of their Bantu traditions have been preserved. These include the Goma music and dance form, which is sometimes called Dhamaal (Gujarati: ધમાલ, fun). The term is believed to be derived from the Ngoma drumming and traditional dance forms of the Bantu people inhabiting Central, East and Southern Africa. The Goma also has a spiritual significance and, at the climax of the dance, some dancers are believed to be vehicles for the presence of Siddi saints of the past.

Goma music comes from the Kiswahili word “ngoma”, which means a drum or drums. It also denotes any dancing occasion where traditional drums are principally used.

The majority of the Siddis in Gujarat are Muslims (98.7%), with very few following Hinduism (1%).

Maharashtra

In Marathi, the state language of Maharashtra, the word habshi (हाबशी) is used to denote people of African (typically Ethiopian) origin. The powerful naval presence of Siddi Johar (Zoher) in Murud, Raigad district, is evidence of their presence. This is exemplified by the sea-fort of Murud-Janjira, and the Khokha tombs of the Siddis also stand as evidence of a past glory. Additional relics are near Junnar, where the so-called Habshi mahal (palace) ruins still stand

Karnataka

The Siddis of Karnataka (also spelled Siddhis) are an ethnic group of mainly Bantu descent that has made Karnataka their home for the last 400 years. There is a 50,000-strong Siddhi population across India, of which more than a third live in Karnataka. In Karnataka, they are concentrated around Yellapur, Haliyal, Ankola, Joida, Mundgod and Sirsi taluks of Uttara Kannada and in Khanapur of Belgaum and Kalaghatagi of Dharwad district. Many members of the Siddis community of Karnataka had migrated to Pakistan after independence and have settled in Karachi, Sindh. It has been reported that these Siddis believe that Barack Obama shares their genepool. They wished to gift him and honour him on his visit to India in 2010.

A plurality of the Siddis in Karnataka follow Hinduism (41.8%), followed by Islam (30.6%) and Christianity (27.4%).

Pakistan

In Pakistan, locals of Bantu descent are called “Sheedi”. They live primarily along the Makran in Balochistan, and lower Sindh. The estimated population of Sheedis in Pakistan is 250,000. In the city of Karachi, the main Sheedi centre is the area of Lyari and other nearby coastal areas. Technically, the Sheedi are a brotherhood or a subdivision of the Siddi. The Sheedis are divided into four clans, or houses: Kharadar Makan, Hyderabad Makan, Lassi Makan and Belaro Makan. The Sufi saint Pir Mangho is regarded by many as an important Wali of the Sheedis, and the annual Sheedi Mela festival, is the key event in the Sheedi community’s cultural calendar. Some glimpses of the rituals at Sidi/Sheedi Festival 2010 include visit to sacred alligators at Mangho pir, playing music and dance. Clearly, the instrument, songs and dance appear to be derived from Africa.

In Sindh, the Sheedis have traditionally intermarried only with people such as the Mallaahs (fisherpeople), Khaskheli (laborers), Khatri (dyeing community) and Kori (clothmakers). Most Sheedis today are of mixed heritage and can be found in Sindh where the main language is Sindhi.

Famous Sheedis include the historic Sindhi army leader Hoshu Sheedi and Urdu poet Noon Meem Danish. Sheedis are also well known for their excellence in sports, especially in football and boxing. Qasim Umer is one cricketer who played for Pakistan in 80s. The musical anthem of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, “Bija Teer”, is a Balochi song in the musical style of the Sheedis with African style rhythm and drums. Younis Jani is a popular Sheedi singer famous for singing an Urdu version of the reggaeton song “Papi chulo… (te traigo el mmmm…).”

Sindh

Sheedis are largely populated in different towns and villages in lower Sindh. They are very active in cultural activities and organise annual festivals, like, Habash Festival, with the support of several community organisations. In the local culture, when there is a dance it is not performed by some selected few and watched idly by others but it is participated by all the people present there, ending difference between the performers and the audience.

Sheedis in Sindh also proudly call themselves the Qambranis, in reverence to Qambar, the freed slave of Ali, the fourth Rashid Caliph. Tanzeela Qambrani became the first Sheedi woman to be elected as the member of Provincial Assembly of Sindh in 2018 Pakistani general election.

Bengal

Although there are no records of a Siddi community in Bengal today, the population was known to have inhabited the country historically where they were referred to as Habshi by the Bengalis. As eunuchs, they gained influential positions under the Bengal Sultanate, most prominently as paiks and palace-guards during the reign of Sultan Jalaluddin Fateh Shah. This Sultan was later assassinated under a coup led by the Habshi commander of the palace-guards, who seized control of Bengal as Shahzada Barbak, and began a seven-year Habshi occupation in Bengal. Barbak only ruled for several months, being replaced by another Habshi, Malik Andil, who was the army commander of the former dynasty. Andil took the name Saifuddin Firuz Shah and became the most prominent Habshi Sultan of Bengal, by patronising architecture and calligraphy. It is said that Sidi Badr had over 5000 Habshis in his army. In 1494, his wazir (chief minister) Sayyid Husain led a rebellion in which Sidi Badr was killed. He subsequently removed all Habshis from administrative posts, ending Habshi rule in Bengal. Many Habshis eventually migrated to Gujarat and the Deccan.

The Habshi community can be seen to have flourished as late as the colonial period. In Chittagong, a Habshi slave-boy known as Zamor was captured by British slave traders in 1773, who trafficked him into France via Madagascar and sold him to King Louis XV of France. Mansur Ali Khan, the final Nawab of Bengal, married a former Habshi slave girl, Mehr Lekha Begum Sahiba (Guiti Afroz Mahal, Hasina Khanum). They had several children including Hassan Ali Mirza (first Nawab of Murshidabad) and Wahid Ali Mirza. She died in Murshidabad on 30 May 1855 and was buried at the Jafarganj Cemetery.

Genetics

Recent advances in genetic analyses have helped shed some light on the ethnogenesis of the Siddi. Genetic genealogy, although a novel tool that uses the genes of modern populations to trace their ethnic and geographic origins, has also helped clarify the possible background of the modern Siddi.

Y DNA

A Y-chromosome study by Shah et al. (2011) tested Siddi individuals in India for paternal lineages. The authors observed the E1b1a1-M2 haplogroup, which is frequent among Bantu peoples, in about 42% and 34% of Siddis from Karnataka and Gujarat, respectively. Around 14% of Siddis from Karnataka and 35% of Siddis from Gujarat also belonged to the Sub-Saharan B-M60. The remaining Siddis had Indian associated or Near Eastern-linked clades, including haplogroups P, H, R1a-M17, J2 and L-M20.^[57]

Thangaraj (2009) observed similar, mainly Bantu-linked paternal affinities amongst the Siddi.

Qamar et al. (2002) analysed Makrani Sheedis in Pakistan and found that they instead predominantly carried Indian-associated or Near Eastern-linked haplogroups. R1a1a-M17 (30.30%), J2 (18.18%) and R2 (18.18%) were their most common male lineages. Only around 12% carried Africa-derived clades, which mainly consisted of the archaic haplogroup B-M60, of which they bore the highest frequency of any Pakistani population Underhill et al. (2009) likewise detected a relatively high frequency of R1a1a-M17 (25%) subclade among Makrani Sheedis.

mtDNA

According to an mtDNA study by Shah et al. (2011), the maternal ancestry of the Siddi consists of a mixture of Bantu-associated haplogroups and Indian-associated haplogroups, reflecting substantial female gene flow from neighbouring Indian populations. About 53% of the Siddis from Gujarat and 24% of the Siddis from Karnataka belonged to various Bantu-derived macro-haplogroup L subclades. The latter mainly consisted of L0 and L2a sublineages associated with Bantu women. The remainder possessed Indian-specific subclades of the Eurasian haplogroups M and N, which points to recent admixture with autochthonous Indian groups.

Autosomal DNA

Narang et al. (2011) examined the autosomal DNA of Siddis in India. According to the researchers, about 58% of the Siddis’ ancestry is derived from Bantu peoples. The remainder is associated with locals North and Northwest Indian populations, due to recent admixture events.

Similarly, Shah et al. (2011) observed that Siddis in Gujarat derive 66.90%–70.50% of their ancestry from Bantu forebears, while the Siddis in Karnataka possess 64.80%–74.40% such Southeast African ancestry. The remaining autosomal DNA components in the studied Siddi were mainly associated with local South Asian populations. According to the authors, gene flow between the Siddis’ Bantu ancestors and local Indian populations was also largely unidirectional. They estimate this admixture episode’s time of occurrence at within the past 200 years or eight generations.

However, Guha et al. (2012) observed few genetic differences between the Makrani of Pakistan and adjacent populations. According to the authors, the genome-wide ancestry of the Makrani was essentially the same as that of the neighboring Indo-European speaking Balochi and Dravidian-speaking Brahui.

Culture

The culture of the Siddi is indicative of both the length of time they have been in India and their East African origins. While they have assimilated in many ways to the dominant culture, they have also kept some ancestral practices especially in music and dance. Like other ethnic groups separated by geography, there are both differences and similarities in cultural practices among the Siddi.

Generally, the Siddi primarily associate and marry members of their own communities. It is rare for the Siddi to marry outside of their communities although in Pakistan a growing number of the Sheedi intermarry as a way to dilute their African lineage and reduce racial discrimination and prejudice.

Siddi communities, although classified as a tribe by the Indian government (in order to receive benefits), primarily live in agricultural communities where men are responsible for the farming and women are responsible for the home and children. Outside of their communities, men also tend to be employed as farm hands, drivers, manual laborers, and security guards.

When it comes to dress, women and men dress in typical Indian fashion. Siddi women wear the garments predominant in their locale, which can be colorful saris accessorised with bindis. Men wear what is generally appropriate for men in their communities.

As in other aspects of life, the Siddi have adopted the common dietary practices of the dominant society. An example of a staple meal would be a large portions of rice with dal and pickles.

Athletics has been an important part of the Siddi community and has been a means to uplift youth and a means of escape from poverty and discrimination.

Notable Siddi/Sheedi people

• Jamal-ud-Din Yaqut (died 1240), confidante of Razia Sultana
• Yakut Khan (died 1733), naval admiral
• Hoshu Sheedi (1801-1843), Siddi commander
• Muhammad Siddique Musafir (1879-1961, Tando Bago, Sindh) Siddi Poet and Teacher
• Noon Meem Danish (born 1958), Urdu poet
• Abdul Rashid Qambrani (born 1975), Pakistani boxer
• Malik Ambar (1548-1626), regent of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate
• Tanzeela Qambrani (born 1979, Tando Bago, Sindh), Pakistani politician, member of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh
• Zamor (1762-1820), Jacobite French revolutionary of possibly Siddi origin from Bengal.^[71] He, as a boy of 11, was taken from Chittagong, Bengal Subah, Mughal Empire (now Bangladesh) by slave traders.
• Shantaram Siddi, member of the Karnataka Legislative Council.
• Girija Siddi, Hindustani Classical Singer, in Karnataka.

Films and books

• From Africa…To Indian Subcontinent: Sidi Music in the Indian Ocean Diaspora (2003) by Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy, in close collaboration with Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy and the Sidi community.
• Mon petit diable (My Little Devil) (1999) was directed by Gopi Desai. Om Puri, Pooja Batra, Rushabh Patni, Satyajit Sharma.
• Razia Sultan (1983), an Indian Urdu film directed by Kamal Amrohi, is based on the life of Razia Sultan (played by Hema Malini) (1205–1240), the only female Sultan of Delhi (1236–1240), and her speculated love affair with the Abyssinian slave Jamal-ud-Din Yakut (played by Dharmendra). He was referred to in the movie as a habshee.
• A Certain Grace: The Sidi, Indians of African Descent by Ketaki Sheth, Photolink, 2013.
• Shaping Membership, Defining Nation: The Cultural Politics of African Indians in South Asia (2007) by Pashington Obeng.
• Inside a Lost African Tribe Still Living in India Today (2018) by Asha Stuart

Resources

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