Forgotten Abandoned Enslaved - Indians In Europe

During Renaissance and The Age Of Enlightenment

In Europe, kidnapping children was considered legal for most of 1500AD-1750AD. On one condition - you had to kidnap Roma Gypsy children! More than 25,000 children kidnapped. No problem. Everybody sleeps peacefully at night. Switzerland was doing this 1973!

Roughly, between 1500 to 1750, it was legal in Europe to hunt human beings. Yes! Just like hunting for deer in India, or hunting buffalo in Africa or fox-hunting in Britain. Yes! You could hunt human beings. As long as the humans you hunted were Roma Gypsies.

In Europe you could be hung to death if you committed the crime of being born - between 1500AD-1750AD! Born as a Roma Gypsy!

Europeans, in the their age of Enlightenment and Renaissance, (1500-1750) could just pick up human slaves - yes, own them like cattle and furniture, if you found one! As long as they were Roma Gypsies. Later you could also sell them for profit!

Ship owners and captains in Europe’s Golden age, (1500-1750) could arrange galley slaves for free. No wages, no salary. You just had to feed them. Use them, abuse them, flog them, kill them, drown them. You could do anything - as long as they were Roma Gypsies.

20th Century Europe

Hitler’s Germany killed 60 lakh Jews in various concentration camps - a broadly accepted figure. Other figures range between 50,00,000-1,00,00,000. This is today estimated at about 50% of the Jewish population.

These concentration camps (first used by Spaniards in Cuba) were discovered by Allied troops as they drove back German troops. All concentration camp commanders were tried at Nuremberg trials - and sentenced.

Sixty Years Later

60 years later, the Jews have still not let any of the participants and accessories
forget the crime. Swiss banks, the Vatican and various Nazi officials in hiding have been hunted and prosecuted. To make up for this holocaust, guilt laden post-WW2 European and American Governments, gave the Jews a country of their own - Israel. Films have been made on these concentration camps and killings. Elie Wiesel and Menachem Begin have got Nobel Prizes for post WW2 problem management.

Sharing the concentration camps with the Jews were a fringe European group - Roma Gypsies. 80% of the Romany Gypsy population - a greater percentage of Roma Gypsies died than the Jews. The world has little sympathy - and no intention of doing anything about this holocaust. One out of three in a concentration camps were Jews - the rest were Roma Gypsies and others (Jehovah’s Witnesses Spanish Republicans, and ordinary criminals). Estimates of Roma Gypsy deaths in the Nazi holocaust vary and are contradictory - between 2 lakhs to 15 lakhs. A weighted median figure seems to be 5 lakhs - and better figures are difficult as Roma Gypsies were considered unfit for inclusion in various census operations.

In 1984, 40 years after the German defeat, Simon Wiesenthal wrote to Elie Wiesel about “the Gypsies had been murdered [in a proportion] similar to the Jews, about 80% of them in the area of the countries which were occupied by the Nazis”. It is now speculated that his espousal of the Gypsy cause cost him the Nobel Prize - and was meant to show Elie Wiesel in poor light. Elie Wiesel supporters claim, allegedly, he was more interested in discrediting Elie Wiesel and less bothered about Romany Gypsy deaths.

After more than 40 years to acknowledge their co-victims, on 16 September 1986, as Elie Wiesel addressed a wide range of audience in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, he stated “I confess that I feel somewhat guilty towards our Roma friends. We have not done enough to listen to your voice of anguish. We have not done enough to make other people listen to your voice of sadness. I can promise you we shall do whatever we can from now on to listen better” (Tanner 1997). Elie Wiesel confirms that he feels only somewhat guilty and will do his best to listen - just like Europe and the world does once in a while and complete indifference rest of the time.

Who Are The Roma Gypsies

Till 1867, Roma gypsies were part of European slave population. Their crime - a different language, a different religion and they looked different. After living in Europe for 1000 years, they were considered ‘outsiders’ - and did not mix much with ‘native’ Europeans. It is the same Roma Gypsies who have contributed to the Spanish cultural icon - Flamenco!

Where did Roma Gypsies come from - they claimed they came from India. But no one was quite sure. Recent DNA mapping done has confirmed what they always claimed - they were from India.

What are we doing about these “lost Indian tribe”. Sweet nothing at all!

Difficult Issue?

What makes handling Roma Gypsy society difficult is a difficult history. Is Roma Gypsy crime a result of systematic deprivation of opportunity or a cause of their value system. Is their lack of professional accomplishment due to disinclination or due to barriers?

How is it that no Indian group causes the problems that Europeans accuse Roma Gypsies of? Indians in every corner of the world have prospered - but not Roma Gypsies in Europe! If white European allegations have any truth, the truth also is that Roma Gypsy character has been perverted in Europe.

Europeans need to do more to understand the Roma Gypsies - and provide the much deserved climate and structure for Roma Gypsies to prosper.

Indian Role

If India wants an international role, other countries will judge us by how we treat our own people first. Other countries are unlikely to let India have an international role, if our (Indian) national role is indifferent and dubious. If Indian professionals want to play an international role, they must be in a position to take up international issues. If Indian media wants to be be on world stage, they must take up issues that others in the world are not taking up!

PS - I did find one lonely Indian, Daisy Grewal who empathises with these lost Romani Gypsies Indians.