End of a dehumanising system
Indentured labour migration was brought to an end 100 years ago, but the cost in lives and dignity must not be forgotten, writes Goolam Vahed
MARCH 2017 marked 100 years since the dehumanising system of indentured labour migration was terminated.
Following the abolition of slavery in 1833, plantation owners were faced with a labour crisis, and between 1835 and 1917, around 1.3 million migrants were sent to British, French and Dutch colonies to work on sugar plantations.
Conferences, literary festivals, film festivals, and cultural events were held in places like Fiji, Trinidad, Suriname, India, and the Netherlands, where many Indian Surinamese have settled since the 1970s, to mark the centenary of the abolition of indenture.
Sustained pressure for abolition began in the early twentieth century by Indian nationalists like Gokhale and Gandhi, and various women’s organisations in India.
Indentured labour migration to Natal ended in 1911 but continued to some other colonies. Indian nationalists calling for self-rule in India highlighted the terrible working and living conditions of indentured labourers and their descendants in various colonies and stressed the abuses to which women in particular were subject.
They wrote articles to the press and held public meetings.
One of the outstanding figures in this movement was Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, who, on March 20, 1916, gave in the Legislative Council what is regarded as one of the best-argued and most moving speeches against indenture. In it, the Pandit stated:
“Judgment is entirely against the system. It is one under which simple… village people, belonging largely to the poorest classes, are inveigled into entering into a very solemn agreement which compels them to leave their homes, to leave their kith and kin, and to go to a distant country, of the conditions of existence in which they are entirely ignorant, to work in circumstances in which they are practically at the mercy of their employers, for a continuous period of five years, to work under men who do not understand their language, custom and manners, who have no sympathy with them, under conditions in settling which they have no voice, without being informed that they will be liable to be punished criminally, the punishment extending sometimes to two or three months’ hard labour, if they fail to perform the tasks which are assigned to them, tasks in the fixing of which they have no voice, and in making complaints against which they find but little support.
“A system like that, my Lord, is an utterly unfair system. It ought not to be called by the name of a contract as the word is known to legal minds and the legislative codes of the Government of India. Under this system, these simple village people go out to distant lands, and are tied down to work there for five years. They cannot buy their freedom, because they have no means to do so.
y Lord, the evil results of this outrageous system are too easily discernible in the lives of the people… My Lord, what a horrifying record of shame and crime is unfolded here? My Lord, it has been shown that the indenture system is thoroughly indefensible. It begins, as Mr Gokhale observed, in fraud and is maintained by force… It does not benefit the labourer. It is a source of advantage to the capitalist only, who uses the labourer as a tool, and the sooner a system like this, which permits such heartless exploitation human beings, is put to an end, the better it will be for all concerned.”
Pandit Malaviya moved a resolution for the abolition of the indenture system. Lord Harding accepted the motion and announced that he had “obtained from His Majesty’s Government the promise of abolition in due course”.
Despite pressure from Indian nationalists, the end of indentured emigration did not result from legislation specifically passed for this purpose, but from the labour and military needs of the British, who were desperate for men to supply the front line and support services during World War I. Section 2 of the Defence Act of India of 1915 gave the Indian government the power to introduce any legislation to safeguard war interests.
The Secretary of State for the Colonies sent a message to the government of India on March 10, 1917, that recruitment for indenture was illegal under the Defence of India Act of 1915 since labour was needed in India itself.
On March 12, the (Indian) Imperial Legislative Council signaled its intention to suspend the movement of people out of India for unskilled work for the duration of the war and for two years afterwards.
The decision, published as Notification No 1227-ED and Gazetted on March 17, 1917, read: “No native of India shall depart by sea out of British India for the purpose of or with the intention of labouring for hire in any country beyond the limits of India.”
That, effectively, was the end of indentured emigration even though the system officially ended on January 1, 1920, as a result of Nationalists’ pressure in India.
IATTENDED the conference in Fiji. The packed programme included academic papers, documentaries, a book fair, an artefacts exhibition, and a carnival that included food stalls and music.
The conference was officially opened at the Girmit Centre in Lautoka. The idea of a centre honouring indentured migrants was mooted in 1979, during commemorations of the centenary of the arrival of the first indentured workers in Fiji.
The Fiji Girmit Council oversaw the building of the centre, which was made possible by a land grant from the Fijian government and financial assistance from the Indian government. Girmit is a corruption of the English “agreement”, which the migrants signed, and the indentured are known as “girmityas” in many countries.
Fiji’s recent history is marked by tension between Indo-Fijians and indigenous Fijians, which has resulted in large numbers of Indo-Fijians emigrating to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Indo-Fijians, who made up more than half the population in the 1980s, now comprise 35% of Fiji’s population of around 900 000.
One of Fiji’s most eminent historians, Brij V Lal, who has written extensively on indenture and is an outspoken critic of the government, is banned from the country of his birth and could not attend the conference. Yet the Fijian government gave its full support to the commemorations and what struck me was the attempt on all sides to build bridges.
A moving feature of the conference was a visit to the shipwreck of the Syria, which, with over 400 passengers on board, struck the Nasilai reef on the night of May 11, 1884 and eventually broke into pieces.
Local indigenous villagers began rescuing the passengers long before the official rescue party arrived.
About 56 indentured migrants died and 35 of them were buried by the villagers in the district of Noco, Rewa.
We were taken to the fishing village, where we were formally welcomed by the chief, served a lunch of freshly-caught fish and locally-grown coconuts, taken out to the shipwreck in fishing boats and then taken to the burial site on an adjoining island.
The warmth and hospitality of the villagers left an indelible impression on us. The British had tried to occlude the involvement of villagers in the rescue efforts, but historians have brought their role to light.
A thanksgiving plaque from the Fiji Girmit Foundation, New Zealand, presented to villagers of Nasilai on October 14, 2015, is seen by many as a way to open a new chapter in the relationship of Indo- and indigenous Fijians.
Vahed presented a paper (this is an extract) on the system of indenture in Natal at the conference in Fiji last month. The conference was held to mark the centennial of indentureship, at the Girmit Centre in Lautoka, Fiji.