The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the... more The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the Caribbean region from post-indenture to the contemporary period. Further it will analyze the adjustment and identity of these migrants in their new environment. The article maintains that disjunctive development in Guyana and better opportunities in other areas in the Caribbean have caused Guyanese Indians to migrate. Their entry into these Caribbean Islands, however, is not without challenges for they are subjected to bouts of discrimination and marginalization. For these reasons, Guyanese Indians have retained their homeland cultural identity and have practiced segmented assimilation in their new enclave. Despite these challenges, Guyanese Indians continue to migrate and settle within the Caribbean, and more importantly, continue to contribute to their homeland as well to their new environment.
IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to th... more IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to the Caribbean to substitute for the loss of slave labour in the nineteenth century. Over 500,000 indentured East Indians arrived between 1838 and 1920. About 175,000 of the immigrants went back to India, or to some other colony, while the remainder stayed in the Caribbean. East Indians arrived in the Caribbean under an indentured contract system that varied from three to ten years. From the time that they signed indenture contracts in India, they were subjected to a barrage of carefully planned policies and procedures. From all indications, the indenture system was intended primarily to benefit the planter class. There is, to be sure, an enormous literature on Indo-Caribbean indenture written from different theoretical and thematic viewpoints by various scholars and social scientists from inside and outside of the region. The majority of these studies, in spite of differing perspectives, h...
Two white ethnic minorities, Jews and Frenchies, are rather unusual in St. Thomas, US Virgin Isla... more Two white ethnic minorities, Jews and Frenchies, are rather unusual in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. The Jews arrived during the period of slavery and participated in the economic colonialism of islands, retaining a prominent position in the Virgin Islands. The Frenchies in St. Thomas arrived from St. Barths after slavery. These white minorities have expanded connections between friends and families as well as in their departed homeland and the Virgin Islands. Their strong religious beliefs and in-group solidarity allowed them to remain in the sociological and economic comfort zones of St. Thomas. In modern times, they have branched out from their insular zones and merged their mores and folkways and their peasant and professional ways, on their gradual terms, with those of other ethnic Virgin Islanders, bringing themselves closer to Virgin Islands society as evidenced by their younger generation.
IntroductionThe majority of studies on Indo-Caribbean migration have focused on the movement of o... more IntroductionThe majority of studies on Indo-Caribbean migration have focused on the movement of over 500,000 East Indian indentured migrants (Girmitiyas) from India to the Caribbean in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 Fewer studies have dealt with the return of 150,000 or so migrants from the Caribbean (Karma Bhumil" land of work") to India (Janma BhumViand of birth").2 Unlike Europe and North America, the interest in return migration - its methods and challenges - is recent in the Caribbean. As a consequence, there are limits to our understanding of the return of East Indian migrants to their homeland. Did colonial officials pay equal attention to the return as well as to the outward voyage? Were East Indian migrants valued and subsequently treated better when they arrived in the Caribbean colonies than when they returned to India? How much savings did the migrants take back with them to India? Did the savings justify the indenture system? How were the ...
In 1838, the British and colonized Indian governments permitted sugar planters in British Guiana ... more In 1838, the British and colonized Indian governments permitted sugar planters in British Guiana to bring Indian indentured workers from India to their plantations. This labor movement was expected to satisfy a labor demand precipitated by slave emancipation. Indentured Indians were required to provide their labor services to the plantations, while the planters looked for a more permanent labor force. However, the solution to the latter was never found, and Indians continued to provide indentured labor until 1917, when the system was abolished. By the 1860s, the laborers were encouraged to re-indenture for another five years after their contracts expired. By the early 1870s, they were given a small parcel of land to settle in exchange for their entitled return passage to India. The settlement scheme was very successful, and by the 1900s, Indians had become a majority population in British Guiana. Khalil Rahman Ali situates his novel within the context of Indian indentureship in British Guiana. The story begins when a young male Muslim laborer--Mustafa Ali, from Uttar Pradesh, India--falls in love with a young Hindu woman, Chandini Sharma, from a well-to-do background in the same region. Both characters share a mutual love and respect when they meet secretly. However, when it is revealed that both characters are in love with each other, it becomes a bone of contention between the families. Social customs in nineteenth-century India very often did not allow for affection between people of different religions, and so Mustafa is forced to run away with the expectation that he will come back for Chandini. In his escape for a different life, Mustafa ends up in Calcutta where he is duped into signing a labor contract that takes him across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans for over three months to British Guiana. Mustafa is a witty individual who is able to acquire positions of leadership while on the depot, during the voyage, and on the plantation. He eventually comes in contact with almost every aspect of being indentured. He is exposed to other ethnic groups like Africans and Chinese, who are also working and living on the plantation on which Mustafa is indentured. During the first five years of indenture, Mustafa has the opportunity to meet and marry someone else but remains faithful to Chandini, even though he fails to make contact with her through letters and messages. When his contract expires he is torn between going back to India and staying in British Guiana. He eventually stays in British Guiana for another five years. While he never dismisses his love for Chandini, he marries another indentured Muslim, and together the couple has two sons. …
IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to th... more IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to the Caribbean to substitute for the loss of slave labour in the nineteenth century. Over 500,000 indentured East Indians arrived between 1838 and 1920. About 175,000 of the immigrants went back to India, or to some other colony, while the remainder stayed in the Caribbean. East Indians arrived in the Caribbean under an indentured contract system that varied from three to ten years. From the time that they signed indenture contracts in India, they were subjected to a barrage of carefully planned policies and procedures. From all indications, the indenture system was intended primarily to benefit the planter class. There is, to be sure, an enormous literature on Indo-Caribbean indenture written from different theoretical and thematic viewpoints by various scholars and social scientists from inside and outside of the region. The majority of these studies, in spite of differing perspectives, have shown the defects and abuses of the system. There can be no doubt that indentured servitude was an oppressive system.2 The same people who organized Caribbean slavery also organized indentured servitude. Dominant groups exploited the less fortunate in highly organized and regimented ways for the production of tropical staples for imperial and international markets. Everything else was simply secondary to this aim.However, arguably, colonial domination was not total; there were areas where the oppressed peoples maintained some autonomy. Moreover, imperial policies occasionally inadvertently benefited a particular subaltern group, sometimes at the expense of other subaltern groups. Lomarsh Roopnarine has argued in his book, Indo-Caribbean Indenture: Resistance and Accommodation, that there were two sides to the indenture system.3 The first is highlighted above. The second is that Indo-Caribbean indentured servants often resisted domination, reinvented their culture or adapted to their specific circumstances, while at the same time using the opportunity to better themselves individually and collectively, and in so doing turning adversity into advantage. In this article we will analyse how and why East Indians were able to become landowners in the Caribbean. We will also try to determine how much savings they took with them on their return to India. Finally, we will attempt to answer why so many East Indians were willing to come back to the Caribbean for second and even third terms. The main contention of this article is that, despite the draconian nature of the plantation system, many East Indians were able to develop some degree of material benefits, and occasionally prosperity, especially in the years after their indentureship (or period of servitude) had expired. The majority of those who stayed in the Caribbean acquired land and were better off than their countrymen in their native villages in India, and those who left the Caribbean often took with them savings that were greater, and experienced a more comfortable life, than most of those who remained in India. Caste consciousness, however, prevented a smooth transition of returnees into their respective villages. Two brief points should be made before we proceed. First, this article recognizes the repressive aspects of the colonial indenture system and does not seek to downplay the oppression that East Indians suffered for over eighty years in the Caribbean. Second, it does not claim that landownership has resolved the socioeconomic challenges of colonial and contemporary IndoCaribbean people. More than 50 per cent of Indo-Caribbean peoples still live in poverty.Reasons for LandownershipThe cornerstone of the indenture system was that East Indians would be transient workers, and during their contract they would be required to work for five years and return home with a free passage paid by the colonial state. The British colonial government in India often insisted on the return and remittances of indentured servants to India. …
Introduction Published studies on leadership roles among East Indian (hereafter Indian) women dur... more Introduction Published studies on leadership roles among East Indian (hereafter Indian) women during indenture in British Guiana (now Guyana) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are rare. Except for historian Hugh Tinker's limited focus in his book A New System of Slavery: Export of Indian Labor Overseas, 1830-1920 (1974) and Trinidadian historian Kusha Haraksingh's article "Indian leadership in the Indenture Period" (1976) about four decades ago, there appear to be no substantive published studies on any aspects of Indian leadership during indenture. Of course, there are published studies on Indian resistance during indenture, which may be seen as one aspect of leadership insofar as Indians challenged their indentured engagement for a better existence. Yet, the role leadership played in resistance is not altogether clear. Moreover, when studies do examine Indian leadership roles during indenture, the focus is overwhelmingly on men. An examination into ...
The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the... more The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the Caribbean region from post-indenture to the contemporary period. Further it will analyze the adjustment and identity of these migrants in their new environment. The article maintains that disjunctive development in Guyana and better opportunities in other areas in the Caribbean have caused Guyanese Indians to migrate. Their entry into these Caribbean Islands, however, is not without challenges for they are subjected to bouts of discrimination and marginalization. For these reasons, Guyanese Indians have retained their homeland cultural identity and have practiced segmented assimilation in their new enclave. Despite these challenges, Guyanese Indians continue to migrate and settle within the Caribbean, and more importantly, continue to contribute to their homeland as well to their new environment.
The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the... more The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the Caribbean region from post-indenture to the contemporary period. Further it will analyze the adjustment and identity of these migrants in their new environment. The article maintains that disjunctive development in Guyana and better opportunities in other areas in the Caribbean have caused Guyanese Indians to migrate. Their entry into these Caribbean Islands, however, is not without challenges for they are subjected to bouts of discrimination and marginalization. For these reasons, Guyanese Indians have retained their homeland cultural identity and have practiced segmented assimilation in their new enclave. Despite these challenges, Guyanese Indians continue to migrate and settle within the Caribbean, and more importantly, continue to contribute to their homeland as well to their new environment.
IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to th... more IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to the Caribbean to substitute for the loss of slave labour in the nineteenth century. Over 500,000 indentured East Indians arrived between 1838 and 1920. About 175,000 of the immigrants went back to India, or to some other colony, while the remainder stayed in the Caribbean. East Indians arrived in the Caribbean under an indentured contract system that varied from three to ten years. From the time that they signed indenture contracts in India, they were subjected to a barrage of carefully planned policies and procedures. From all indications, the indenture system was intended primarily to benefit the planter class. There is, to be sure, an enormous literature on Indo-Caribbean indenture written from different theoretical and thematic viewpoints by various scholars and social scientists from inside and outside of the region. The majority of these studies, in spite of differing perspectives, h...
Two white ethnic minorities, Jews and Frenchies, are rather unusual in St. Thomas, US Virgin Isla... more Two white ethnic minorities, Jews and Frenchies, are rather unusual in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. The Jews arrived during the period of slavery and participated in the economic colonialism of islands, retaining a prominent position in the Virgin Islands. The Frenchies in St. Thomas arrived from St. Barths after slavery. These white minorities have expanded connections between friends and families as well as in their departed homeland and the Virgin Islands. Their strong religious beliefs and in-group solidarity allowed them to remain in the sociological and economic comfort zones of St. Thomas. In modern times, they have branched out from their insular zones and merged their mores and folkways and their peasant and professional ways, on their gradual terms, with those of other ethnic Virgin Islanders, bringing themselves closer to Virgin Islands society as evidenced by their younger generation.
IntroductionThe majority of studies on Indo-Caribbean migration have focused on the movement of o... more IntroductionThe majority of studies on Indo-Caribbean migration have focused on the movement of over 500,000 East Indian indentured migrants (Girmitiyas) from India to the Caribbean in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 Fewer studies have dealt with the return of 150,000 or so migrants from the Caribbean (Karma Bhumil" land of work") to India (Janma BhumViand of birth").2 Unlike Europe and North America, the interest in return migration - its methods and challenges - is recent in the Caribbean. As a consequence, there are limits to our understanding of the return of East Indian migrants to their homeland. Did colonial officials pay equal attention to the return as well as to the outward voyage? Were East Indian migrants valued and subsequently treated better when they arrived in the Caribbean colonies than when they returned to India? How much savings did the migrants take back with them to India? Did the savings justify the indenture system? How were the ...
In 1838, the British and colonized Indian governments permitted sugar planters in British Guiana ... more In 1838, the British and colonized Indian governments permitted sugar planters in British Guiana to bring Indian indentured workers from India to their plantations. This labor movement was expected to satisfy a labor demand precipitated by slave emancipation. Indentured Indians were required to provide their labor services to the plantations, while the planters looked for a more permanent labor force. However, the solution to the latter was never found, and Indians continued to provide indentured labor until 1917, when the system was abolished. By the 1860s, the laborers were encouraged to re-indenture for another five years after their contracts expired. By the early 1870s, they were given a small parcel of land to settle in exchange for their entitled return passage to India. The settlement scheme was very successful, and by the 1900s, Indians had become a majority population in British Guiana. Khalil Rahman Ali situates his novel within the context of Indian indentureship in British Guiana. The story begins when a young male Muslim laborer--Mustafa Ali, from Uttar Pradesh, India--falls in love with a young Hindu woman, Chandini Sharma, from a well-to-do background in the same region. Both characters share a mutual love and respect when they meet secretly. However, when it is revealed that both characters are in love with each other, it becomes a bone of contention between the families. Social customs in nineteenth-century India very often did not allow for affection between people of different religions, and so Mustafa is forced to run away with the expectation that he will come back for Chandini. In his escape for a different life, Mustafa ends up in Calcutta where he is duped into signing a labor contract that takes him across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans for over three months to British Guiana. Mustafa is a witty individual who is able to acquire positions of leadership while on the depot, during the voyage, and on the plantation. He eventually comes in contact with almost every aspect of being indentured. He is exposed to other ethnic groups like Africans and Chinese, who are also working and living on the plantation on which Mustafa is indentured. During the first five years of indenture, Mustafa has the opportunity to meet and marry someone else but remains faithful to Chandini, even though he fails to make contact with her through letters and messages. When his contract expires he is torn between going back to India and staying in British Guiana. He eventually stays in British Guiana for another five years. While he never dismisses his love for Chandini, he marries another indentured Muslim, and together the couple has two sons. …
IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to th... more IntroductionThe British, Dutch, Danish and French imperial governments brought East Indians to the Caribbean to substitute for the loss of slave labour in the nineteenth century. Over 500,000 indentured East Indians arrived between 1838 and 1920. About 175,000 of the immigrants went back to India, or to some other colony, while the remainder stayed in the Caribbean. East Indians arrived in the Caribbean under an indentured contract system that varied from three to ten years. From the time that they signed indenture contracts in India, they were subjected to a barrage of carefully planned policies and procedures. From all indications, the indenture system was intended primarily to benefit the planter class. There is, to be sure, an enormous literature on Indo-Caribbean indenture written from different theoretical and thematic viewpoints by various scholars and social scientists from inside and outside of the region. The majority of these studies, in spite of differing perspectives, have shown the defects and abuses of the system. There can be no doubt that indentured servitude was an oppressive system.2 The same people who organized Caribbean slavery also organized indentured servitude. Dominant groups exploited the less fortunate in highly organized and regimented ways for the production of tropical staples for imperial and international markets. Everything else was simply secondary to this aim.However, arguably, colonial domination was not total; there were areas where the oppressed peoples maintained some autonomy. Moreover, imperial policies occasionally inadvertently benefited a particular subaltern group, sometimes at the expense of other subaltern groups. Lomarsh Roopnarine has argued in his book, Indo-Caribbean Indenture: Resistance and Accommodation, that there were two sides to the indenture system.3 The first is highlighted above. The second is that Indo-Caribbean indentured servants often resisted domination, reinvented their culture or adapted to their specific circumstances, while at the same time using the opportunity to better themselves individually and collectively, and in so doing turning adversity into advantage. In this article we will analyse how and why East Indians were able to become landowners in the Caribbean. We will also try to determine how much savings they took with them on their return to India. Finally, we will attempt to answer why so many East Indians were willing to come back to the Caribbean for second and even third terms. The main contention of this article is that, despite the draconian nature of the plantation system, many East Indians were able to develop some degree of material benefits, and occasionally prosperity, especially in the years after their indentureship (or period of servitude) had expired. The majority of those who stayed in the Caribbean acquired land and were better off than their countrymen in their native villages in India, and those who left the Caribbean often took with them savings that were greater, and experienced a more comfortable life, than most of those who remained in India. Caste consciousness, however, prevented a smooth transition of returnees into their respective villages. Two brief points should be made before we proceed. First, this article recognizes the repressive aspects of the colonial indenture system and does not seek to downplay the oppression that East Indians suffered for over eighty years in the Caribbean. Second, it does not claim that landownership has resolved the socioeconomic challenges of colonial and contemporary IndoCaribbean people. More than 50 per cent of Indo-Caribbean peoples still live in poverty.Reasons for LandownershipThe cornerstone of the indenture system was that East Indians would be transient workers, and during their contract they would be required to work for five years and return home with a free passage paid by the colonial state. The British colonial government in India often insisted on the return and remittances of indentured servants to India. …
Introduction Published studies on leadership roles among East Indian (hereafter Indian) women dur... more Introduction Published studies on leadership roles among East Indian (hereafter Indian) women during indenture in British Guiana (now Guyana) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are rare. Except for historian Hugh Tinker's limited focus in his book A New System of Slavery: Export of Indian Labor Overseas, 1830-1920 (1974) and Trinidadian historian Kusha Haraksingh's article "Indian leadership in the Indenture Period" (1976) about four decades ago, there appear to be no substantive published studies on any aspects of Indian leadership during indenture. Of course, there are published studies on Indian resistance during indenture, which may be seen as one aspect of leadership insofar as Indians challenged their indentured engagement for a better existence. Yet, the role leadership played in resistance is not altogether clear. Moreover, when studies do examine Indian leadership roles during indenture, the focus is overwhelmingly on men. An examination into ...
The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the... more The present article examines the migration and formation of a Guyanese Indian Diaspora within the Caribbean region from post-indenture to the contemporary period. Further it will analyze the adjustment and identity of these migrants in their new environment. The article maintains that disjunctive development in Guyana and better opportunities in other areas in the Caribbean have caused Guyanese Indians to migrate. Their entry into these Caribbean Islands, however, is not without challenges for they are subjected to bouts of discrimination and marginalization. For these reasons, Guyanese Indians have retained their homeland cultural identity and have practiced segmented assimilation in their new enclave. Despite these challenges, Guyanese Indians continue to migrate and settle within the Caribbean, and more importantly, continue to contribute to their homeland as well to their new environment.
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