Prof. Shahid Alam on Zionism, Gypsies and Colonial India
Prof. M. Shahid Alam
Professor Muhammad Shahid Alam teaches Economics at the Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He is author of the book 'Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism' (Macmillan, 2009) where he explains the reasons behind the success of the Zionist project for a Jewish state. This is an excerpt from the book in which Shahid Alam states that the British Empire might have had a strategic interest in creating a "buffer Gypsy state" between India, Russia and Iran. However, unlike the Zionists, the Roma elites could never develop such an agenda due to the lack of resources to persuade the Great Powers.
"Finally, consider for a moment the fate of a hypothetical colonial project, similar to Zionism, but without its resources and persuasion. If Europe’s Gypsies had wanted to colonize a province of India – on the claim of historical links to that country – they too might have relied on two forces. On the one hand European countries with a Gypsy presence would have been eager to support a colonial scheme that promised to rid their countries of a population they had always regarded as unwanted aliens. In addition, during the early twentieth century, when Indian demands for independence were growing louder, the British might well have been persuaded that a colonial Gypsy state – in say, Sind or Baluchistan – could serve important strategic interests. A Gypsy state on India’s western borders could serve as a buffer – a more effective buffer than Afghanistan – between their Indian possessions and Russian ambitions; such a state could also be used to project British power over Iran. A Gypsy colonial project, however, had little chance of being adopted by the British or any other Western power. The Gypsies lacked the cultural, intellectual, and financial resources to advance their project in Western political discourse. A Gypsy “restoration” could have never gotten off the ground."
Map of British Indian Empire, 1909