Indentureship abolition
The month of March marks the centenary of the end of Indian indentureship. It was temporarily suspended first on March 12, 1917, although around two weeks later on March 27, this interim decision was confirmed. The movement which brought an end to Indian indenture did not really have its origins locally, neither was there any group campaigning for its termination in the UK. It came about because of pressure applied to the British authorities by the Indian nationalists in India itself. They had been converted by Mahatma Gandhi and his crusade against indentureship arising out of his experience in Natal, South Africa. The First World War was in progress at the time, of course, and that was an additional factor playing into the decision of the British to accede to nationalist demands, first temporarily, as said above, and then on a permanent basis.
The local planters unsurprisingly, were distinctly unhappy about this development, and along with others from territories like Trinidad, came up with various proposals for the continuation of the supply of Indian labour. They had no success, however, and in any case, by this time the nationalists were taking aim at the indenture contracts which remained extant. While no more Indian labourers had been shipped out of India after March 12, 1917, there were still some who had arrived in the colonies before that date but who had not as yet worked out their contracts. According to Trinidadian historian, Dr Radica Mahase, Gandhi threatened to go on hunger strike if these remaining contracts were not cancelled, and the British Parliament duly capitulated, voiding all contracts on January 1, 1920.
The end of indentureship was the last of the three major transformations which contributed over an extended period to creating a society of citizens out of an aggregation of bondspeople. The first was the Dutch abrogation of Amerindian slavery in 1793, the second was the Abolition Act of 1834 which led four years later to the emancipation of Africans, and the final one was the termination of indentureship, freeing the last remaining bonded Indians. Of course, even after that stage had been reached, this was still not in any sense a free society in so far as it remained under colonial domination, but the end of indenture made possible the social and political evolution which in due course set us on the path to self-determination.