EYE ON THE DIASPORA

Francis C. Assisi tracks down Steven Raymer, former photographer for the National Geographic magazine and presently a professor at Indiana University, who is in the process of completing his book, “Images of the Indian Diaspora,” that took him to 15 countries.

Convinced that the Indian Diaspora “has changed the way the world sees Indians – and hence India,” photojournalist Steve Raymer, a former National Geographic magazine photographer and Indiana University professor, has embarked on an ambitious project: what he claims is “the first worldwide photographic account of the Indian Diaspora.”

In the process of putting the final touches on his latest endeavor, Raymer hopes to document the professional, cultural, and political contributions of the Indian Diaspora, or People of Indian Origin living outside of India, in a photographic book. The photography and reporting has taken him to 15 countries between 2003 and 2005. And, like the Diaspora itself, Raymer’s “Images of the Indian Diaspora” promises to be “a visually rich story that celebrates Indians on a global scale.”

Raymer has a straightforward rationale for his most recent project. “The Indian Diaspora is unquestionably one of the largest and most successful migrations in human history; it is thus a worthy subject for a major photographic book,” he says. “In a nutshell, this is a photographic documentary about the struggle of Indian immigrants to survive and succeed in more than 100 countries over the past 200 years.”

Raymer is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at the Bloomington, Indiana-based university, and was named by the National Press Photographers Association as “Magazine Photographer of the Year,” one of photojournalism’s most coveted awards. He says the honor was bestowed on him “for a long story on the world hunger crisis in National Geographic in 1974-75.” However, he says the assignments that are most challenging for him have to do with “wars and conflict.”

Besides wars in Vietnam and Cambodia (where he was wounded), Raymer has covered the first Gulf War, as well as the humanitarian work of the International Red Cross in 13 war zones around the world.

Clearly, this is one professor who doesn’t quite fit the “ivory tower” label associated with academicians.

During his travels as a National Geographic staff photographer, Raymer observed that unlike other mass migrations, the Indian Diaspora maintains far-reaching cultural ties with the motherland. Indians do not so much assimilate the culture of their adopted lands, he explains, but instead bring the culture of India to the 110 countries in which they live. Thus, the Indian way of life is no longer confined to the Indian subcontinent, but can be found on the streets of New York and in small towns across America, as well as in such far-flung countries as Trinidad, South Africa, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Canada, and Great Britain – all places Raymer has visited for the publication.

Throughout the project, says Raymer, his ambition has been to explore the Indian Diaspora by projecting its human face. Indeed, it is a face about which, over the past two years, he has written and provided photographs for two features on two extremes of the Indian Diaspora – about Indian unskilled laborers in the Gulf, and Indian physicians in the U.S. – which have appeared in Yale Global Online.

For example, in his article, “Dubai’s Kerala Connection,” the photojournalist points out that hidden behind the Gulf State’s development are Indian “foot soldiers of globalization.” He observes, “Largely hidden behind the glitz of the shopping malls and fancy resorts are hundreds of thousands of unskilled South Asian workers who toil in the hope their labor will benefit home and family.” He notes that four decades of their sacrifices have been trickling down to Kerala, where remittances from workers in the Middle East account for more than 20 percent of the state’s income.

Raymer reports that human rights groups view the blue-collar Indian workers in the UAE, including Dubai, as being an exploited underclass with no rights, no unions, and no stake in the country’s burgeoning wealth.

Writing in Yale Global Online, Raymer says, “In neighboring Saudi Arabia, a recent Human Rights Watch report says many of the country’s more than one million Indian migrants live in “conditions resembling slavery.” The document highlights the widespread practice of forced, around-the-clock confinement of Indian maids, often in unsafe conditions. And a U.S. State Department report on worldwide human trafficking faults the UAE and other Gulf states for commonplace labor abuses like withholding pay and passports.

The pictures Raymer has accumulated run the gamut from Indian stockbrokers in Singapore and software engineers in Silicon Valley to working-class Sikhs in Edinburgh and construction workers in Dubai. Says Raymer: “I have interviewed Gandhi’s descendants in South Africa, worked the graveyard shift with Indian doctors at Bellevue Hospital in New York, and shared curries with Punjabi Sikh farmers – the first Indian immigrants to North America – in the blistering summer heat of the Sacramento River Valley. Media superstars like Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN, filmmaker Mira Nair, and Newsweek [international] editor Fareed Zakaria have given me an intimate look at their rarified worlds, while Indian families of modest means have welcomed me into their homes from Trinidad to Yuba City, California.”

The Reverse Diaspora

According to Raymer, his biggest hurdle in all of this has been convincing publishers that there was a market for his book. Many publishers questioned whether there was a market for his work because, justified or not, they see the Indian communities in the U.S. and the U.K. as reluctant to pay $45 or $50 for a book.

Raymer says that his words and pictures from Bangalore will serve as one bookend for a story that begins in the 19th century with Britain’s need for cheap labor, skilled managers, and English-speaking teachers across the empire.

“Today the Diaspora has redrawn the demographic map of the Commonwealth from Trinidad and South Africa to Singapore and Australia,” he explains. “And it has transformed the mother country, as I have seen in London neighborhoods and the ‘rust belt’ cities of the English Midlands. Moreover, the Diaspora now reaches into the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, drives Silicon Valley, and has changed the face of medicine in the United States, where one in every 20 doctors is of Indian origin. In fact, the prominence of prime ministers, diplomats, scholars, scientists, and business executives of Indian origin has changed the way the world sees Indians – and hence India.”

Raymer admits that, like his previous books on St. Petersburg (Russia), Vietnam, and the Muslims of Southeast Asia, and, like many of his assignments over a long career at National Geographic magazine, this too is a picture-driven documentary with words serving as a counterpoint to the images.

Raymer, who claims he is “more or less self-taught” as a photojournalist, grew up in a newspaper family, his father being the editor of a medium-sized newspaper in Wisconsin. After working at his high school newspaper, Raymer earned B.S. and M.A. degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied Soviet and Russian affairs at Stanford University as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow.

In between degrees, Raymer became a lieutenant in the U.S. Army and escorted correspondents covering the Vietnam War. Later, he worked for the Associated Press and The Wisconsin State Journal.

Then at the age of 25, after winning several national awards and, oddly enough, never having taken a color photograph for publication, he was offered a job by National Geographic.

There, of course, he received a lot of on-the-job training. “So my background in photojournalism is really very much about learning techniques on the job as a tool for telling stories,” explains Raymer.

“This is also the approach I take with the students at Indiana University School of Journalism. We can teach people the mechanics pretty easily, but it is much harder to teach people to see and to have the initiative to find stories and pursue them through this medium. The mechanics of photography are not really hard these days; what is much more challenging is telling a compelling story.”

Raymer admits that he was led to the Diaspora project through a circuitous route. “I have been to enough wars, I have seen enough dead people, I have witnessed three famines (which is in a way worse than witnessing a war). It is just too much to bear, which is probably why I am interested in finding something different now.”

He adds, “It is very important for me now to try and find some beauty in ritual, in ceremony, in family. Some of this, I think, is also related to my training at National Geographic where we were all taught to paint with light and color and film. And, of course, you do want something slightly different in a book than what you can get in a newspaper or magazine article.”

Professor Raymer teaches photojournalism, media ethics, and international newsgathering at Indiana University. He joined the staff of National Geographic in 1972, launching a career that has taken him to more than 85 countries. From famines in Bangladesh and Ethiopia to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Raymer’s photographs have illustrated some 30 National Geographic articles. From 1991 to 1995, Raymer also was the director of the National Geographic Society News Service, a joint venture with The New York Times and the Associated Press.