There is no chronological systematic origin of the arrival of Africans in India, because earlier before the Omani Arabs started the slave trade, they were voluntarily here as merchants or sailors and traders. So, in fact, many came as entertainers midwives. So, there has been trade and commerce, an extensive network of trade and commerce that goes back to the first century AD. And so, there are pockets of settlements everywhere from that time, but right now the communities that are being studied by scholars are contemporary communities who are not necessarily descendants and directly linked to those communities. There is such a vast dispersal of Africans, you know, from Ethiopia, from the east coast of Africa. It is very varied and diverse, but contemporaries in these are traced back to British boats that were capturing slave ships. And those were brought, especially in Gujarat, they were brought to Surat or Bombay and somewhere absorbed in the military or the police, some became domestic workers, many were left to fend for themselves. So, creatively they have adapted to their environments and anchored themselves into various communities in different parts of Gujarat. In Karnata, yes, the Portuguese brought them to work as slaves. And many Portuguese, some of them were very brutal, so many were runaways. The Portuguese had treaties with neighboring Rajas that if they were captured, they had to be returned or the Rajas had to pay. So, I am not sure how many were returned and how many just fled. So, those fled to the hills of Karnata and lived in the forests and contemporary communities still continue to live in the forests in Karnata. So, that is the narrative in Karnata. In Andhra Pradesh, the Raja of Wana Parthi gifted his soldiers to the Nizam because there was going to be a little rebellion in his Samasthans. There were Samasthans around Hyderabad. So, there was a question of succession and the Africans considered themselves as the successors. So, he very quickly negotiated with the Nizam and gifted them to the Nizam. So, they became the African cavalry guard and today the descendants of that African cavalry guard struggling because the Nizam gave them free housing but the land is prime property as you know in Bancara Hills. So, there is an eye on their land and many are struggling economically there. First of all, the Shadyu Al-Trad status has been given to Siddhis and Saurashtra and Siddhis of South Gujarat have been left out. So, there is an arbitrary way in which the state has designated one group of Siddhis Shadyu Al-Trad. Another group of Siddhis hanging somewhere. In Karnata too, they had to fight to get Shadyu Al-Trad status and it was a protracted prolonged fight in which you know the Siddhis have asserted a lot of agency that they did demonstrations on the street, they did street plays, they did all kinds of assertive work and then the government finally gave them that status. Now, what that means for them is the next question because you have to go through a series of bureaucracy, fill out forms and applications where do they have the literacy? The same in Saurashtra though in Saurashtra many went into the post office to work as the level of punes or to work in the railways or any kind of government agency. So, some have benefited but now with the whole ST also such a contested territory and so invested with political ambition. So, these are once again struggling. Now, what is happening in Saurashtra is that other communities are claiming Siddhi status and they are displacing Siddhi's from government jobs and this is what I've heard from interviews, I extensive interviews I have done in that area, Jam Nagar, Junagar. So, they still do not have enough resources to come together as a group and fight for their rights. The numbers are small. I think they are a certain agency in various ways. For example, I know a young couple in Bombay who have migrated from Karnataka. He was a former athlete in the special area games that was started in the 80s, the 80s programs in Karnataka and in Goodrat. Several of them through the special area games got jobs in the railway arm forces or this young man as an athlete he got a job with the employees provident fund. So, those jobs were openings for them and now based in Bombay, he and his wife who is also Siddhi have started a casting agency. So, they are working with the flourishing advertising agency in Bombay. A young man from Goodrat plays the keyboard and he is working in a club somewhere and earning a living. So, they have definitely created new jobs and are opening up new forms of employment but clearly many are still working in the domestic area. Dance I think will always stay part of their cultural lives. It is very very much part of how in Goodrat they came together to form a community and actually as dispersed slaves this was one element music was one element of healing and today in South Africa even today there are institutions of healing or cults of affliction as they are called by the scholar John Janssen where they are called Goma and that is the words Siddhi's in Goodrat use Goma. They also use the word Damal for their dance. Now these cults of affliction in Africa are actually meant for healing dispersed in South Africa for example when the white people took over the farms and diamond mines and made African servants and slaves they needed that kind of collective healing. So, when these when you John Janssen studied these cults he saw how they were adapted to the circumstances of that environment and that they still are fluid categories. Goma means song dance drum those memories Siddhi's carried over to Goodrat and those memories they have retained. So dancing is very much connected to spirit possession and healing.