Sylheti diaspora

Sylheti Diaspora refers to the descendants of ethnic Sylhetis who emigrated out of the Sylhet Division, Bangladesh, to a certain specific countries which have had socio-economic and political ties with Sylhet. The Sylheti diaspora numbers around one million, mainly concentrated in United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Finland and the Middle East and other European Countries. A study from 2008 shows that, Britain have the largest number of Sylheti diaspora where 500,000 people speak Sylheti, which is 95% of total number of Bangladeshi people in UK[1] According to the census of 2009 it shows the actual number is lot higher.[2] Sylhetis in Bangladesh have conversely affected by remittances send from across the world and the community has been suffering from a serious lack of government initiatives causing development inertia.[3] According to neo-classical theory, the poorest would move to the richest countries and those from densely populated areas would move to more sparsely peopled regions. This has clearly not been the case. The brain drain was a movement from core to core, purely on economic maximisation, while it was young Sylheti pioneers with access to financial resources that migrated from a severely overpopulated Bangladesh to the overcrowded streets of Spitalfields, poorest from all parts of Bangladesh migrated to Sylhet for a better life, causing a severe overcrowding and scarcity of resources in Sylhet.[4]

Etymology

Sylhet is a derivative of As-Syriat, which in turn originated from its ancient founder – Asshur, who established a kingdom in the present-day city of Sylhet and named gave his name to the kingdom. Asshur Kingdom or Kingdom of Asshur was the ancient name of Sylhet. King Asshur of Sylhet was the Biblical Asshur, who was the second son of Shem and grandson of Noah. King Asshur voyaged from the ancient Kingdom of Assyria of Mesopotamia to the ancient port of Sylhet where he founded the Kingdom of As-syriat. King Asshur of Sylhet was different from King Asura of Maheshwar mentioned in Hindu mythology and epics. In the medieval period, the prefix of ‘As’ was omitted and the Kingdom came to be known as Kingdom of Syriat or Syriat Rajya. By the end of the medieval epoch, the name of Syriat Rajya underwent a series of modification from Syriat to Sirihat and Srihat’ta. In eighteenth century, the British administration anglicised the spelling to Sylhet.[5]

Sylhetology

Sylhetology is a deductive method of studying the ancient history of Sylhet, hypothesising the tradition of oral history and comparing with written history and archaeological findings to reach a rational conclusion. Sylhetology as a form of proposed by a London-based polymath on 25 May 2015.

Sylheti Jati

Sylheti Ethnicity is also known as Sylheti Jati in popular form; it includes peoples from Barak Valley in Southern Assam, India and Surma Valley or Sylhet Division, Bangladesh. Sylheti Jati includes peoples from different religious denominations including Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Pagans and Atheists. A perception runs wild in Bangladesh that people of Sylhet are planning in connivance with India to carve out an independent state of Sylhet consisting of South Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, greater Mymensingh, greater Dhaka, greater Comilla, greater Noakhali, greater Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tracts with the epicentre at the city of Sylhet. This myth was concocted in an anonymous group or individual(s) in London and it led to consequential suppression of Sylheti Jati in Bangladesh. Sylheti Jati is gaining wider recognition and momentum outside of Bangladesh and India due to growing human conscious and prevalence of human rights in European countries, particularly in the UK, and the USA. Sylheti as a Jati is promoted by Sylhetologists and human rights activists.[6]

Origin of Sylhet

Sylheti Diaspora is regarded as an artificially Bengali because of their distinct ethnicity which is more close to North India than Bengal; although, peoples of Sylhet and Bengal are ethnically and linguistically diverse and their lineage can be traced to varied peoples of antiquity including Semitic, Dravidian and Sumerian peoples. King of Assyria voyaged to Sylhet and established his kingdom consisting of isles of Bengal and Assam. Following the collapse of Assyrian kingdom in Sylhet, Aryan speaking people made advances and founded their kingdoms along the Surma-Barak Valleys. Sumerian origin names have been abbreviated, for example, the name "Sylhet" has derived from As Syriahat, Surma is a variant of Sumer and Assam (As Sam) is corrupt of Ash Sham. Until the medieval period, Bengal and Assam were part of the Kingdom of Syriahatta, which is written as Srihatta by some writers. People of Sylhet conform to the Semitic account of the history, which confirms that Noah’s second son, Shem, had five sons: (1) Elam, (2) Asshur, (3) Arphaxad, (4) Lud, and (5) Aram Genesis 10:22.[7] Shem’s second son, Asshur founded the ancient As-Syria in Mesopotamia and later established As-Syriat in Surma Valley, which came to be known as Sirihat or Srihatta in medieval period and Sylhet in modern epoch. King Asshur has been vilified in Vedic scriptures by his arrivals, who later came to known as Aryans and they subdued the people of Assyriat Kingdom. People of the Assyriat Kingdom established a subsidiary kingdom consisting of the southern strip and it was named after the third river in the Eden Garden: Hiddekel. In medieval time, pundits have Sanskritised the name of Hiddekel Kingdom to Harikel or Harikela. To put things in historical perspective, until partition in 1947, Sylhetis were part of Assam in north-eastern British India, as it then was.[8]

Early History

Sylheti diaspora emerged due to a need for an economic sustenance, young men searching for better employment elsewhere led to the foundation of Sylheti Diaspora. In the heyday of the British Raj, when young men from the land of Sylhet worked as lascars in the British merchants marine, some jumping the ship in London in search of better life and others found alternative routes to enter the motherland, causing chain migration and eventual settlement in working-class neighbourhoods of London’s East End. Many of the Sylheti men moved on and found better working conditions in industrial cities and towns such as Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Oldham and so on.[9] Sylhet is a seafaring nation; going to the sea is in the blood of all Sylheti and it was a daredevil adventure for Sylheti young men until the land reform forced upon them by the British Raj in 1793 CE as part of the Permanent Settlement Act of 1793, which altered the entire social, political and economic landscape of the country and going to the sea became a necessity. Young men from Sylhet boarded ships mainly at Kolkata, Mumbai and Singapore. Some of these early Sylheti seamen visited Britain and America and sought employment; although by virtue of Magna Carta Libertatum, there were no legal restriction on them to enter and leave Britain freely, some authors have played the ship jumping rather disproportionately without realising that the Sylheti seamen knew they could visit the motherland without making any declaration of intent, which was required to enter the USA. The early recorded history indicates a strong connection between Sylheti Diaspora and the Sylheti seamen.[10]

Caste and Class

People of Sylhet are socially stratified into four caste, which is called chaturvarna and three social classes. Caste system derived from Hindu system of varna ‘colour’ and jati ‘ethnicity’, which divides people into four colours: White, Red, Yellow and Black. White people are Brahmans, who are destined to be priests, teachers and preachers; Red people are Kshatriyas, who are destined to be kings, governors, warriors and soldiers; Yellow people are Vyasas, who are born to be cattle herders, ploughmen, artisans and merchants; and Black people are Shudras, who are born to be labourers and servants to the people of twice born caste.[11][12] People from all caste denominations exist among Hindus in Sylhet.

Class system among Muslims evolved during the halcyon days of the Mughal Empire and it is divided into three layers: Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal. Ashraf is the noble class destined to be priests, teachers, preachers, kings, governors, warriors and soldiers; Ajlaf is the middle class destined to be cattle herders, ploughmen, artisans and merchants; and Arzal is the working class destined to labour and provide services to all others.[13][14] People belonging to Arzal social class do not have family names or surnames; Arzal men usually use names of Islamic heroes or honorific as their last name, which are about a dozen of the last names commonly used by Arzals and they names are as follows:

Women of Arzal social class use about half a dozen of names as their last names and examples are given below:

Many Arzal men are given one of the ninety nine attributions of Allah and these attributions are required to have prefix of servant to make a distinction between the Creator and creation. The prefix is usually Abdul and examples are as follows:

Notables

References

  1. ↑ Benjamin Zeitlyn (September 2008). "Challenging Language in the Diaspora" (PDF). Bangla Journal. 6 (14): 126–140. Retrieved 2015-08-13.
  2. ↑ Neighbourhood Statistics (2007). "Lead View Trend". neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk. Retrieved 2015-08-13.
  3. ↑ Yong, T.T.; Rahman, M.M. (2013). Diaspora Engagement and Development in South Asia. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 108. ISBN 9781137334459. Retrieved 2015-08-13.
  4. ↑ Anne Kershen, Strangers, Aliens and Asians – Huguenots, Jews and Bangladesh in Spitalsfields 1660-2000, p.19 (2004)
  5. ↑ History of Sylhet, Syed Mortuja Ali
  6. ↑ Jagaran Patrika, P.16, London (1984)
  7. ↑ https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+10%3A22&version=KJV
  8. ↑ Zia Haider Rahman, A Community Without Aspirations, The Guardian, 2 May 2007, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/may/02/yesterdaysawthepublication,
  9. ↑ Claire Alexander, Joya Chaterji and Annu Jalais, The Bengal Diaspora: Rethinking Muslim Migration, p.2, Routledge (2015) London.
  10. ↑ Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers: Life Stories of Pioneer Sylheti Settlers in Britain, Caroline Adams, Tassaduq Ahmed and Dan Jones, THAP (1987), London, ISBN 978-0906698143
  11. ↑ Mahabharata (12.181)
  12. ↑ Hiltebeitel, Alf (2011). Dharma : its early history in law, religion, and narrative. Oxford University Press. pp. 529–531.ISBN 978-0-19-539423-8
  13. ↑ Habib, Mohammed (1358), The Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate
  14. ↑ Asghar Ali Engineer. "On reservation for Muslims". The Milli Gazette. Pharos Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd,. Retrieved 2004-09-01
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