No “holy cows” in Suriname

In this article the connections and disparities between Surinamese Hindustanis and India are centralized. We demonstrate that while identities among these Hindustanis emerged through territoriality, the process of linking with its history accompanied a conscious disassociation from contemporary developments in India. We illustrate the beginning and the end of this identification with the history of Indians in India and argue that during these somewhat contradictory processes the community emerged as an ethnic diaspora, rejecting communalist identities.