Indians In India Research Articles

A Comparative Study of Mate Selection Criteria among Indians in India and the United States

A Comparative Study of Mate Selection Criteria among Indians in India and the United States

A Comparative Study of Mate Selection Criteria among Indians in India and the United States

This study investigated the effects of the modernization process upon the mate selection criteria used by a sample of Indian immigrants in the U.S.A. and a sample of their counterparts in India. The research was based upon a content analysis of matrimonial advertisements in India Abroad, an English weekly newspaper published in New York City, and in four major daily English newspapers published in India, each representing a major region of that country. The major findings were that occupation was not an important criterion in mate selection in either of the two samples and that personal income, religion and caste were more significant in mate selection in India than in the U.S.A.

Eight-year experience with 3392 endoscopically proven duodenal ulcers in Durban, 1972-79. Rise and fall of duodenal ulcers and a theory of changing dietary and social factors.

From 1972 to 1979, a total of 3392 patients with endoscopically proven ulcers were seen, in six ethnic groups. The distribution was as follows: Africans 456 males, 182 females; Muslim Gujerati Indians 206 males, 60 females; Hindu Hindi 433 males; total North Indians 639 males, 195 females; Hindu Tamils 593 males, 184 females; Hindu Telegu 179 males, 46 females; total South Indians 872 males, 230 females, and Whites 465 males, 303 females. In the continent of India, it is predominantly the South Indians who suffer from duodenal ulcer. In Durban, the number of North Indians with duodenal ulcers approximates that of those from the South (North: South ratio 0.83). The first question raised by this study is that the protective factors in North Indians in India are not genetic, and are lost when they emigrate to Natal. This may be due to changes in diet. A seasonal analysis indicates that, for females, there is a striking Autumn and Winter predominance in all Indian groups, reaching 80% in Muslims and Telegus but not in African females (52.7%). The second question raised by this study is that protective factors must be sought which operate in Indian females in the Spring and Summer months. The third question emanating from this study is that duodenal ulcers (and ischaemic heart disease) appear to increase in times of dietary and social change. This occurred in the West from 1890 to 1960, and is still occurring in the Third World. The restoration of dietary fibre and unsaturated fat, and the possible adjustment to stress in the West since 1960, has been accompanied by a fall in the incidence of these diseases. A 'changing factors' theory of duodenal ulcers and ischaemic heart disease is proposed. These conditions fall when a 'plateau situation' is reached.

Cancer in East African Indians.

AbstractAn analysis of 586 cases of cancer occurring in Indians resident in East Africa is presented and compared with proportional rates found in Indians in India and Durban. The proportion of carcinoma of the breast is much higher in East Africa than in India or South Africa, particularly among Muslim women. The high rate of gastric and bronchial neoplasms seen in Durban is not found in East Africa. Indians in East Africa and Durban both show a markedly lower proportion of buccal neoplasms than that which pertains in India. Reasons for these variations are discussed, most of which are explicable in terms of differences in the environment.

Cultural Crossings from Africa to India: Select Travel Narratives of Indian South Africans from Durban and Cape Town, 1940s to 1990s

This article focuses on cultural encounters by Indian South Africans from Durban and Cape Town, uniquely positioning travel accounts from autobiographies, biographies, and memoirs together with oral histories. A study of individual movements from South Africa to India provides new dimensions to a historiography which has prioritised immigration from India to South Africa and to travel literatures focused on movement from the metropole to the periphery. The narratives are read for what they reveal about identity and the impact of travel. The article argues that there are perceptible differences in masculine and feminine tellings with the latter paying more attention to the domestic and the personal. There is also a difference in the accounts of those who moved by choice and those who were forced into exile. The encounters with India vary from strong identification to isolation and discomfort. Travel sharpened an awareness of being from Africa in India, thereby providing a new definition of self. The narratives are suggestive of how Indians in India respond to the diaspora. Oral histories about dance and music point to how relocation in an Indian group area led to greater cultural activity. These draw Cape Town more closely into twentieth-century Indian Ocean cultural circuits.

Menstruation in Europeans, Eurasians and East Indians in India.

Menstruation in Europeans, Eurasians and East Indians in India.