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The plantation Tamils of Ceylon / Patrick Peebles.
Van Pelt Library DS489.25.T3 P384 2001
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Peebles, Patrick.
- Series:
- New historical perspectives on migration
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Tamil (Indic people)--Sri Lanka--History.
- Tamil (Indic people).
- Plantation workers.
- Sri Lanka.
- History.
- Plantation workers--Sri Lanka.
- Sri Lanka--Economic conditions.
- Economic conditions.
- Sri Lanka--Social conditions.
- Social conditions.
- Physical Description:
- x, 252 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- London ; New York : Leicester University Press, 2001.
- Summary:
- In The Plantation Tamils of Ceylon, Patrick Peebles studies and redefines the history of a people over the course of a century (1840 to 1940). The Plantation Tamils, the descendants of people who came from India to grow the plantation crops on which the colonial economy was based, suffered generations of discrimination and political repression before they became citizens in the 1980s. As this work shows, they had become a distinct Sri Lankan community long before this time. Other scholars have screened out some of the biases in the records, but they also have reinforced biases that suit their own agendas. This book investigates more carefully how knowledge of the Plantation Tamils was produced and in doing so dispels some of the more persistent myths about the Plantation Laborers. The result is not a complete narrative history of the Plantation Tamils, but it should make such a history less difficult to write in the future.
- Contents:
- Identity formation in colonial Ceylon 4
- Migration in Sri Lankan history 5
- Terminological confusion 7
- Plantation Tamil identity: cases 11
- Historiographical questions 17
- 2 Aliens and Resident Strangers 24
- The role of the kanganies 34
- Plantation Tamil society 38
- Plantation Tamil population 43
- 3 A New Kind of Slave 53
- Coffee-plantation era 55
- Tea-plantation era 58
- The tundu system 61
- Ceylon Labour Commission 63
- Changing role of the kanganies 71
- 4 Seasonal Laborers 80
- The myth of seasonal labor 81
- Origins of government policy 84
- Master and Servant Laws 86
- Mortality 91
- Tea-plantation era 97
- 5 People of Indian Origin 106
- The First World War and the abolition of indenture 107
- Unindentured emigration 109
- Indian concern for Plantation Tamils 114
- Immigration reform in Ceylon 115
- Impact of the Emigration Act 120
- 6 An Indian Protectorate 129
- Recruitment of labor 132
- Wages 137
- 'Medical wants' 142
- Indian protection under the Donoughmore Constitution 145
- 7 Undomiciled Immigrants 152
- The 'franchise question' 154
- Domicile and residence 160
- Anti-Indian politics 164
- 8 The Non-Ceylonese 175
- Labor recruitment 175
- Plantation Tamils under a Sinhalese government 183
- Political reforms 188
- Labor unions 190
- Demographic changes 192
- 9 The Stateless 202
- Indians in government employment 202
- Emigration ban 206
- State Council debates 208
- The Exploratory Conference of November 1940 213
- Indian delegation's counterproposals 216
- Plantation conditions 220.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-243) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0718501543
- OCLC:
- 44818355
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