Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora: Origins, Memories, and Identity

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Ashutosh Kumar (Banaras Hindu University, India) Crispin Bates (University of Edinburgh)

Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora

Origins, Memories, and Identity

Ashutosh Kumar (Banaras Hindu University, India), Crispin Bates (University of Edinburgh)

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Hardback

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English

Cambridge University Press
31 July 2024

Asian history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Social & cultural history; National liberation & independence, post-colonialism; Migration, immigration & emigration

Series: Global South Asians

Many Indians journeyed out of India to supplant the loss of slave labour in the former European plantation colonies of Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, and the Caribbean from the early nineteenth century onwards. This book aims to highlight the careers of these migrants who served as vital agents in building the global society of the twenty-first century. It explores the transformative experiences of those who migrated, and the memories of those who did not return after expiration of their contracts but chose instead to stay in their respective host countries. It describes the many challenges they faced — ageing in a society far from home, the loss of their formal Indian identity after Indian independence, their efforts to preserve a sense of community in the post-independence societies of South Africa and the Caribbean, and their adapting to the new political and social realities they faced as minorities in the countries in which their ancestors had adventurously determined to settle and live.

Edited by: Ashutosh Kumar (Banaras Hindu University India), Crispin Bates (University of Edinburgh)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781009342612
ISBN 10: 1009342614
Series: Global South Asians
Pages: 260
Publication Date: 31 July 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

List of illustrations/figures; List of tables; List of abbreviations; Introduction Crispin Bates and Ashutosh Kumar; Part I. Origins: 1. 'Coolie Catching': The Recruitment of Indentured Women to Colonial Natal Kalpana Hiralal; 2. Life on the Plantations: Indentured Indians in South Africa and Fiji, 1860-1917 Archana Kumari; 3. Stories of Girmitiyas: Folklore and Socio-Cultural World of Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies Ashutosh Kumar; 4. The 'Ageing' Traces of Female Bhojpuri Migrants in Suriname Sarojini Lewis; 5. Girmityas and the Story of Salt behind the Sugar Bobby Luthra Sinha; Part II. Afterlives: 6. Sanctions for Citizenship: Indians Overseas and Imperial Reciprocity Heena Mistry; 7. 100 Years after Indenture: The Present Generation of Indo-Trinbagonians and Their Cultural Environments Satnarine Balkaransingh; 8. Emigration Against Caste and the Globalization of Castelessness Gajendran Ayyathurai; 9. Memory, Nostalgia and Reality: A Socio-historical Perspective of Culture and Education in the Grey Street Complex Tashmica Sharma; 10. Rooting History: Indian Indenture in South Africa and the Sultan of many journeys Goolam Vahed and Ashwin Desai; Index.

Ashutosh Kumar is an Associate Professor of History at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. His publications include Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2017); The Indian Labour Diaspora: A Resource Text for Students (Edinburgh University Press, 2017); Indian Soldiers in the Global Conflict: Re-visiting the First World War (Routledge, 2020) and Warfare and Society in British India, 1757-1947 (Routledge, 2022). Crispin Bates is a Professor of modern and contemporary South Asian history at the University of Edinburgh and a Research Professor at Sunway University in Malaysia. He has authored, co-authored and edited a total of 15 books including a history of South Asia from 1600 to the present entitled Subalterns and Raj: South Asia since 1600 (2007), and a series of seven volumes concerning the history of the Indian Uprising of 1857, entitled Mutiny at the Margins (2013-17).

Reviews for Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora: Origins, Memories, and Identity

'Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora takes the reader from India to Natal, Fiji, Trinidad and Surinam. Using new source material such as folklore in the vernacular languages and photographs, the 10 chapters offer bold and fresh perspectives on the transformative experience of Indians who migrated overseas to work on colonial plantations. The focus is on being and the never completed process of becoming. Particularly insightful are the chapters dealing with the recruitment of indentured women, ageing on plantations and migration as resistance to caste oppression. This is an excellent addition to the literature on indenture and migration.' Nira Wickramasinghe, Leiden University 'Bringing together leading and emerging voices in the history of indenture today and from across the globe, this crucial volume takes the field towards new concerns around memory, diaspora and identity. At a time when the legacies and after-effects of coerced labour are at the forefront of public and institutional discussions, this is a valuable intervention which foregrounds South Asian labourers and subaltern peoples. It also admirably and innovatively stretches the chronology of the story through decolonisation and to the present, working with the premise that this history continues to live on, needing interrogation and urgent and wide consideration by all of us.' Sujit Sivasundaram, University of Cambridge 'This collection of essays provides new and interesting perspectives on the study of indenture in the colonial and post-colonial eras. Untapped archival sources reveal the changing identities of the South Asian labour diaspora globally. The volume details the various difficulties encountered by indentured labourers, including growing older in a foreign society, losing their Indian identity, trying to maintain a sense of belonging in the post-colonial host nations, and adjusting to the new political and social realities and challenges they had encountered as minorities in those nations.' Brij Maharaj, University of KwaZulu-Natal 'This refreshingly readable collection of essays offers new insights into the study of indenture and its afterlives, exploring the furthest reaches of the archive and the museum for underutilized sources and excavating evolving identities in the global South Asia labour diaspora.' Marina Carter, author of Servant, Sirdars and Settlers: Indians in Mauritius, 1834–1874 'Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora combines in-depth analysis of the history of indentured migrations from India and the many impacts to societies such as Fiji, South Africa, Surinam and Trinidad. Moving beyond mere quantitative studies of numbers and dusty colonial reports, the assembled essays tackle issues of recruitment, gender, ageing, citizenship, folklore, biography and anti-caste activism in girmitiya spaces across the globe. In doing so, this collection offers numerous insights into one of the most important facets of South Asian contributions to the making of the modern world.' Neilesh Bose, University of Victoria