The Siddi, India’s People of African Descent

Scattered in pockets across Gujarat, Karnataka, and around Hyderabad live the Siddi, one of the most remarkable communities of India: a people of African descent, rooted for centuries in the Indian Ocean world. Descended from Africans who came to the subcontinent as sailors, soldiers, merchants, and, in a grievous chapter, as enslaved people, they are an African diaspora that became an Indian people, yet keeps alive, in its drums and dances, the memory of Africa.

From the African commanders who rose to rule the island fortress of Janjira to the humble farmers and forest-dwellers of the Gir and the Western Ghats, from the Sufi devotion to the saint Bava Gor to the vigorous Goma dance with its African rhythms, the Siddi carry a heritage unlike any other in India. This article traces their origins, language, homeland, society, religion, and traditions, and the extraordinary story of India’s Africans.