Stories of the Indian descendants as revolutionaries in Vietnam

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Indian descendants who are acknowledged in mainstream records as contributors to national and democratic revolutionaries. Relying on archival documents and ethnographic notes collected from the author’s research at National Archival Centre II, the Archive Centre of Ho Chi Minh city People’s Committee, and at the Indian temples and mosques in Ho Chi Minh city in the years from 2013 to 2014, this paper constructs narratives of the Indians’ personal experience about Vietnamese revolutionaries. Rather than aiming at a comprehensive description of these Indian individuals with heroic details, this paper includes fragments of their life stories, which are diverse and temporary, as collected largely from the author’s ethnographic research and sometimes from journalistic and administrative writings. The way of telling specific and particular experiences of the Indian descendants supporting Vietnamese nation-building is significant in bringing up vivid and particular portrayals of this population. That potentially forms lively, immediate indicators of historical and cultural connections between India and Vietnam.