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Beyond indenture : agency and resistance in the colonial South Asian diaspora / edited by Crispin Bates.
- Format:
- Book
- Series:
- Global South Asians.
- Global South Asians
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Indentured servants--India--History.
- Indentured servants.
- South Asian diaspora.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (xvi, 395 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
- Edition:
- First edition.
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2024.
- Summary:
- Beyond Indenture brings together essays that reflect, as far as possible, the viewpoints and voices of indentured Indians who exercised agency, resisted and manipulated the colonial labour system to their advantage, and went on to build new lives for themselves overseas following the expiration of their contracts. Some remigrated to other colonies to earn a better wage and escape from debt and other burdens. Among those who chose to remain, women played a prominent role in the struggle for rights, freedom and opportunities, achieving them in ways which often defied or redefined South Asian customs and traditions. Post-independence, the Indian communities overseas faced newer problems, not least of which were discrimination and marginalisation. This volume studies these accounts and explores the theme of the broad alliances of diasporic Indians and Pakistani and Bangladeshi migrants.
- Contents:
- Cover
- Reviews
- Beyond Indenture
- Series
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Agency and Resistance
- Remigration
- Gender and Family
- Legacies
- Bibliography
- Part I Agency and Resistance
- 1 Negotiating Power in Colonial Natal: Indentured Migrants in Natal, 1860-1911
- Resistance and Agency
- 'Everyday Resistance'
- Confronting the System
- Being Inventive
- The Transformative Power of Indenture
- Indenture: An Assessment
- 2 Stewed Plums, Baked Porridge and Flavoured Tea: Poisoning by Indian Domestic Servants in Colonial Natal
- Dilsir Khan, the 'Milkboy'
- The Adams Family: Part One
- The Adams Family: Part Two
- Mutumah and Morning Tea
- Ramanah and the Biscuit Tin
- Conclusion
- 3 Labour Resistance in Indenture Plantations in the Assam Valley
- The Growth of the Tea Industry
- The Indentured Labour Regime
- Resistance
- Desertion
- Official Perception
- Awareness of Rights and Solidarity
- Dignity
- Cultural Traditions as Means of Resistance
- Protests during the 1920s
- The Impact of Resistance
- The Post-Indenture Period until 1947
- Exodus
- The Great Depression of 1929-1930
- Organisational Activities
- The Employers' Response
- 4 A Forgotten Narrative of the Satyagraha Campaign: The Treatment of Prisoners between 1907 and 1914
- Historical Context
- Prison Diet, Labour and Violence
- Deportations from the Transvaal
- 5 Toilers across the Seas: Racial Discrimination and Political Assertion among Sikhs in Canada
- Imperial Citizens Sharing in Opportunities
- Impulses for Migration
- Opportunities in Canada
- Local Resentment against Immigrant Sikh Labourers
- Canadian Measures to Check Immigration from India.
- The Strategy for Exclusion
- The Predicament of the Aspiring Immigrants
- The Ill-Fated Voyage of the Komagata Maru
- The Tat Khalsa Movement
- Seditious Tracts
- The Sikh Educational Conference
- The Radicalisation of Students in Canada and America
- Students' Sympathy for the Problems of the Immigrants
- Sikh Residents of Calcutta and the Suburbs
- Circulation of Seditious Materials into Punjab through the Agency of the Calcutta Sikhs
- The Working Together of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs
- Part II Remigration
- 6 The Remigration of Hindostanis from Surinam to India, 1878-1921
- A Comparison
- Return Transports and Savings
- Returning after 1921
- The Queen of Sheba
- Cessation of Indian Emigration
- 7 Not So Anchored: The Remigration of Indians within the Caribbean Region
- Overview of Indian Migration
- Remigration during Indenture
- Remigration of Indians in the Modern Period
- 8 On the Move: Remigration in the Indian Ocean, 1850-1906
- Contexts and Debates
- Role of Returnees and Two Meanings of Return
- Overlap and the Nature of Information Networks
- A Study of Passenger Logs (Réunion, Diego Garcia, Agaléga and Seychelles)
- Contingencies and Remigration
- The Late Nineteenth Century and the Early Twentieth Century: Economic Vicissitudes and the Erosion of Remigration
- Part III Gender and Family
- 9 Intimate Lives on Rubber Plantations: The Textures of Indian Coolie Relations in British Malaya
- Indian Coolie Migration to Malaya
- Textured Realities of Coolie Intimacies in Malaya
- 10 Labouring under the Law: Exploring the Agency of Indian Women under Indenture in Colonial Natal, 1860-1911
- From Slavery to Indenture: The Importance of Women.
- Ratios and Recruitment: A Perpetual Shortage of Women
- The Question of Women's Labour
- The Work of Reproduction: 'She Is About as Much Use as a Blister on a Wooden Leg'
- Deserting Estates, Deserting Homes
- Situating Marriage
- Validating Indian Marriages
- Polygyny and Colonial Law in Natal
- From Recalcitrance to Resistance
- 11 Gujarati 'Passenger Indians' in the Eastern Cape since 1900: Business, Mobility, Caste and Community
- Context and Research Process
- Understanding Mochis in South Africa
- The Shree Kshatriya Gujerati Mandal
- The Relevance of the South African Kshatriya Mahasabha
- 12 The Eurasian Female Workforce and Imperial Britain: Harnessing Domestic Labour by People of Mixed Racial Descent
- The Invisibility of Eurasian Female Domestic Migrant Labourers in Britain
- Female Migrant Labourers in Britain: Permanent and Temporary
- Definition of Ayahs, Their Duties and Responsibilities
- Eurasian Female Domestic Employees
- The Case of Kitty Johnson and Eliza Fay
- The 'Deposit System' of 1822
- Legislation Regarding Abandoned Casual Labourers
- Asserting Agency in Seeking Succor
- The Ayahs' Homes of the East End
- Pictorial Representations of Ayahs in London Homes
- Role of the Zenana Missions
- Eurasians as Ecclesiastical Ministers
- A Scheme to Bring Eurasian Domestic Labourers to Britain
- Ethnic Branding of Ayahs in Contemporary Print Media
- Part IV Legacies
- 13 After the Long March: Colonial-Era 'Relief' for Burma Indian Evacuees in Visakhapatnam District, 1942-1948
- Pre-War Indian Migrations to Burma
- War, Evacuation and Resettlement
- Evacuee Resistance
- Post-War Adjustments
- 14 Opposing the Group Areas Act and Resisting Forced Displacement in Durban, South Africa.
- Background and Context
- Opposing the Group Areas Act
- Resisting Forced Displacement
- Natal Indian Congress - Repeal the Act
- The Natal Indian Organisation's 'Situational' Approach
- Mass Action: 'All-in-Conference'
- The 1958 Proclamations and Mass Action
- 15 Indo-Fijians: From Agency to Abjection
- The Foundations to 1939
- Independence: From Agency to Acquiescence
- The 2006 Coup: Indo-Fijians between a Rock and a Hard Place
- Where to from Here?
- 16 New and Old Diasporas of South South Asia: Sri Lanka and Cyber-Nationalism in Malaysia
- Malaysia 2016: The Afterlife of Empire
- Neoliberalism and the Sense of Loss
- Conclusion: Traversing the Local and the Global
- About the Contributors
- Index.
- Notes:
- Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 01 Jan 2024).
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 1-009-37647-0
- 1-009-33981-8
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