Baine Maara-Indu Mama-Siddi Dhamal: Interwoven Performances of Epistemic Justice and Cognitive Freedom by the Siddis of Karnataka, India

The Siddis were brought to India from the southern and eastern parts of Africa by the Arab and Portuguese colonisers. At present, the Siddis in India can be found in parts of Gujarat (a state located in western India), Hyderabad (a state located in southeastern India) and Karnataka (a state located in southwestern India). They are habitually subjected to colonially reconfigured violence of epistemic and cognitive injustices by the mainstream colonial/modern governing institutions in India through dehumanising their cultural practices, racially invalidating their food habits, preventing them from receiving education, practising racial suppression at workplaces, etc. To counter such violence of the colonial/modern governing institutions, the Siddis interweave narratives of epistemic justice and cognitive freedom through performing their Indigenous traditional socio-cultural practices of hunting, cooking, eating, singing and dancing. The interesting aspect of these socio-cultural practices is that they are socially, culturally, thematically and contextually interlinked to each other. The title of this article is a synecdochic representation of the interwovenness of Siddi histories and cultures. With respect to these arguments, the research article will argue how these socio-cultural practices function as Indigenous performances of epistemic justice and cognitive freedom for the Siddis of Karnataka.