Coolies of the Empire
Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920

This book unfolds the story of the indenture system within the British Empire, with India as the 'mother country' of coolies.

Ashutosh Kumar (Author)

9781107147959, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 September 2017

338 pages
23.8 x 16.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.63 kg

This book studies Indian overseas labour migration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which involved millions of Indians traversing the globe in the age of empire, subsequent to the abolition of slavery in 1833. This migration led to the presence of Indians and their culture being felt all over the world. This study delves deep into the lives of these indentured workers from India who called themselves girmitiyas; it is a narrative of their experiences in India and in the sugar colonies abroad. It foregrounds the alternative world view of the girmitiyas, and their socio-cultural and religious life in the colonies. In this book, the author has developed highly original insights into the experience of colonial indentured migrant labour, describing the ways in which migrants managed to survive and even flourish within the interstices of the indentured labour system and how considerably the experience of migration changed over time.

List of figures and maps
List of tables
Preface
Abbreviations
1. Introduction: indentured emigrants in the literature
2. Naukari, network and indenture
3. Regulating indenture
4. The journey
5. Agriculture and culture between two worlds
6. Writing the girmitiya experience
7. The end of the indenture system
8. Conclusion
Appendices
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Sociology: work & labour [JHBL], Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ]