PIOs have chance to search ancestral lineage

Their ancestors crossed the seas to work in alien lands more than a couple of centuries ago.

Now, their descendants have a chance to locate the place of origin of their forefathers and even meet their relatives in India.

When people belonging to the Indian Diaspora come to participate in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to be held from January 7 to 9, they can avail of a special programme to retrace their roots.

Coinciding with the PBD, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts is organising a five-day cultural event, as part of which it will set up kiosks where the Diaspora representatives can submit any details about their ancestors, such as their name, the date when they left the Indian shores and which part of the world they went to.

"Using these details, we will go through documents such as ship registers, immigration records and estate registers that will help us locate the place of origin of the people who were taken by our colonial rulers to distant lands to work as indentured labourers," Suresh Pillai, coordinator of the event, said.

For example, he said, if a resident of Bihar went abroad as an indentured labourer in 1916, he or she must have gone via Kolkata, and ship registers from that time can give details such as the name of the village the person belonged to.

Under the project, entitled 'Ancestral Search Programme', forms will be given out to the People of Indian Origin who will come visiting, which they can fill, giving details about their ancestors that will be then used to trace their ancestral town or village.

"We will take some time going through the records. But they have a very good chance of locating their families here and meeting them," Pillai said.

The project is also aimed at giving the people of Indian origin who will come visiting an idea of the circumstances the place and events in which their ancestors left the country.

"Even if we are not able to locate their families here, at least we can give them a lot of information about the place they originally belong to," Pillai said.

The records that will be used to retrace the roots of the PIOs have been sourced from Europe, America and India, he said.

The January 5 to 9 event at the IGNCA will also comprise an exhibition where the PIOs will put on display articles belonging to their ancestors such as clothing or a book or an artwork.

Their colonial masters took Indians to countries ranging from Sri Lanka in South Asia to Suriname in South America, where they went through a lot of struggle to retain their Indian cultural values.