Remembering Girmitiyas: tracing the past of indentured migrants in their homeland

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at the reminiscence of the family members of girmitiyas from north Indian villages who, in post-slavery circumstances, were transported under an indenture contract to overseas plantation colonies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the memories and experiences of the departed migrants are extensively chronicled in history writing, historians have rarely looked into the memories of the family members who were left behind. This essay tries to address this gap in historical literature, by examining the memories documented in the colonial reports, as well as songs and narratives of the families of indentured Indians in their home communities. The paper makes the argument that the acute sense of loss and pain of family members recorded during the nineteenth century, no longer persists in the form of ‘communicative’ memory, but has instead become ‘cultural’ memory as time passed, and that the descendants now view this past differently.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant labour
• North India
• Girmitiya
• indentured Indians
• memory

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of the South Asian Diaspora for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, also known as Overseas Indian Day, is a celebration held on January 9 by the Republic of India since 2003 to honour the contributions made by the Overseas Indian population to the country’s progress. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was decided to be observed in compliance with the suggestions made by the government of India’s High Level Committee (HLC) on the Indian Diaspora, which was presided over by L. M. Singhvi.

2 When he returned to Bihar, he also performed his Natak in villages of north India which gained tremendous popularity.

3 Translation from Hindi to English is mine.

4 Interview with Umakant, Pilui Village, Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2017.

5 Interview with Dwarkanath Pandey, Tengari, Buxar, Bihar, India, 2017.

6 Gramophone Recordings from the Linguistic Survey of India, South Asia Digital Library, available at: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6591AK.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Trans-Disciplinary Research Project of IoE, SRICC, Banaras Hindu University.

Notes on contributors

Archana Kumar

Archana Kumar is a professor of English at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. She has published many book chapters and articles in international peer-reviewed journals.

Ashutosh Kumar

Ashutosh Kumar is an associate professor of history at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He has published many books, and articles in international peer-reviewed journals. His publications include Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830-1920,’ Cambridge University Press, 2017; and ‘Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora: Origins, Memories and Identity’ (edited with Professor Crispin Bates) from Cambridge University Press, 2024. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6086-5792