The plot thickens. The "Oats, peas and beans" jig (or it's predecessor) was borrowed into the South Indian classical Carnatic music repertoire by one of its most revered and foundational composers Muthuswamy Dikshitar (1775-1835) for his song "Shakthi sahitha Ganapathim". There are a whole bunch of youtubes of the song, either sung by kids or performed by instrumentalists (note that sometimes the "th"'s are spelt as "t"s), a song in praise of the Hindu deity Ganesha. This was one of the first Carnatic songs I learnt (when I was around 6). I never thought about why it sounded so western and I was quite amazed when I heard La Bastringue for the first time, prompting me to do some searching. There were a whole bunch of Irish, Scottish and English fiddle tunes and band tunes which he (and other Carnatic composers) reworked into songs in this way. More details are on this wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottuswara). Shows how good tunes can cross cultures.