Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora
248
Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora
248Hardcover(First Edition, 1)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781843310037 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Anthem Press |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2002 |
| Series: | Anthem Southeast Asian Studies |
| Edition description: | First Edition, 1 |
| Pages: | 248 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Marina Carter has worked and studied for many years in Mauritius, where she founded a pioneering NGO called the Centre for Research on Indian Ocean Societies (CRIOS). She was recently appointed as Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh.
Khal Torabully completed his PhD in Lyon in 1976. His interest in mosaic identity brought forward an innovative book, 'Cale d'étoiles-coolitude', the founding text of the coolie migration viewed from the sea voyage, as space of identity construction/deconstruction in the post-modernist sense.
Read an Excerpt
Coolitude
An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora
By Marina Carter, Khal Torabully
Wimbledon Publishing Company
Copyright © 2002 Marina Carter and Khal TorabullyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84331-367-0
CHAPTER 1
The Coolie Odyssey: A Voyage in Time and Space
'The Beyond is, first of all, for the coolie who settles, a confused poetics, pregnant with silence, looks, unsaid words. This last-comer was forced to situate himself in this new cultural challenge where the other is an ambiguous figure, bearer of signs of reconnaissance and annihilation, and capable of wrecking symbols. The game of anomy based on the absence of social landmarks, pushed the coolie to the bottom of the ladder, out of speech.'
K Torabully, Coolitude, 1996, p. 59.
The metaphor of the voyage was played out throughout the coolie's life. From the first crossing of the kala pani – that forbidden sea journey – the migrant was cast in the dual role of adventurer and victim. Coolitude explores the concept of the ocean as a nodal moment of migration, a space for destruction of identity, yet also one of regeneration, when an aesthetics of migration was created. This chapter revisits the recruitment of the coolie and the experience of sea-crossing, detailing the expectations and experiences of the overseas migrant, the raw emotion of transition and upheaval, of uncertainty and struggle, the evolution of another identity beyond India.
The Moment of Departure Coolie Choices and Voices
The testimonies of migrants frequently bear witness to a pre-existing decision to look for work away from their native village, to join the armies of rural Indians tramping the roads looking for seasonal employment, before the fateful meeting with a recruiter that was to lead them much further afield, to a distant colony. Ekhadosee reported having left his home in Midnapur to look for work at Calcutta when he met a man who promised him a monthly wage of ten rupees. The man lodged him at Bam Bazar for a week before tutoring him as to how to pass the registration: 'I was taken to a Saheb but before that was tutored to say that I was going of my own free will and accord – six rupees was given to me, out of this two was taken by the Duffadours, who for two rupees purchased for me a chest and some chorelis, two rupees remained with me which I used in purchasing necessaries while on board for my subsistence – I seldom ever got food from the ship's people – I would never venture to go on board ship to the Mauritius – the promised service was in Calcutta and not the Mauritius.'
An early recruit to Mauritius, the Bengali woman Djoram recounted a typical story of immiseration and mobility within India. Already a migrant to Calcutta, she was there convinced by a recruiter to embark on a ship to take service – only once aboard did she, and many other migrants who made these pioneer journeys in the 1830s, become aware of how far their new employments were from India:
'I was born at the village of Amtah about three days' journey south of Midnapore. I left my home at Amtah about four and a half years ago, and came to Calcutta for service; about two years after my leaving home, my father was drowned in an inundation, and my mother came to Calcutta with my two brothers; we lived together at Khidderpore; I lived with an ayah for one year, cooking for her and serving her on two rupees per month; finding she could not support me, she taught me ayah's work, and I served a Mr Martin for about a year, when Mr Martin left for some other country; I was then out of employ; I remained two months, and then took service for the Mauritius; this is about two and a half years ago; a baboo, whose name I do not know, and a duffadar called Jungli Havildar entertained me ... I was sitting in a tailor's shop at Bhowanipore when this Junglee Haldar and the baboo came to me ... I was told I could get ten rupees a month wages, food and clothing, and that I was to serve a gentleman and lady who were proceeding in the ship I was to embark on; I asked how far Meritch was; they said five days' journey, and that if I pleased I could remain in service there or return; they thus deceived me and got me on board.'
Karoo was enticed to Calcutta with the promise of work on road repairs, and when the promised job did not materialize, was, like many others, inveigled into the emigration depot:
'A man of the name of Golam Ally, who is a duffadar, went to my country. He gathered fifteen men and brought them down to Calcutta, he had three men with him with badges on. He asked us "What are you doing in the jungle? Come to Calcutta, and you will get employment for repairing roads, for which you will receive pay at the rate of four rupees per month, besides diet" ... When we arrived here, he told us that no employment on the roads could be got; "You had better go forward and you will find plenty of employment." He mentioned that we should go to the Mauritius.'
Vulnerable individuals, especially women who had left their homes after a dispute, as in the case of Ratna, interviewed in Fiji, were easy fodder for unscrupulous recruiters:
'My man left the house after he had been rebuked by my father-in-law. I took my child and went looking for him in Ajodaji. I spent five or six days there, I did not know where to go and where to look for him. I was told that my husband had gone to Calcutta. I went to Calcutta by train in search for him. I was told that he had already left two or three days earlier. I went to the wharf and there I saw a steamer, some people took my son off me, and threatened me. I was put into the depot with my child and stayed there for two or three days before embarking on the ship.'
Calcutta-born Maharani later told interviewers that she escaped to Trinidad after being abused by her husband's family in India.
A Natal Indian, Aboo Bakr, testified to personal knowledge of coolies recruited under false pretences:
'I know an Indian woman, a Brahmin, she belonged to Lucknow; through a quarrel with her mother she made a pilgrimage to Allahabad; when there she met a man who told her that if she would work, she would be able to get twenty-five rupees a month in a European family, by taking care of the baby of a lady who lived about six hours' sea journey from Calcutta; she went on board and, instead of taking her to the place proposed she was brought to Natal.'
Even into the twentieth century, when migration overseas was a well-known phenomenon for the socially disaffected and economically marginalized, it was still possible for recruiters to trick individuals into migrating, including young men of relatively affluent backgrounds. In some cases their parents, particularly if literate and well-known, were able to raise the alarm fairly quickly, and institute the mechanisms of British bureaucracy on their side. Thus, when the son of Gopinath Pandey, a village headmaster from Uttar Pradesh, was tricked into going to Natal and embarked on the steamship Pongola, his father wrote a letter to the port emigration authorities. The letter reveals his disgust and distress at the manner of his son's embarkation for Natal. Gyapershad, the son, was a 17-year-old student, described by his father as 'a promising lad':
'... on the occasion of attending to some ceremonies at his maternal uncle's house he was decoyed and criminally misrepresented by some recruiters of professional roguery at Cawnpur to join the Coolie Depot preparing emigrants for the Colonies.
That the affection which I as an old father bear to him has almost not only paralysed me but also his old mother and young wife recently married, on account of his having been snatched away from our paternal care and guardianship ...
Under the circumstances I am constrained to reach your honour in the sanguine expectation of your being gracious pleased of adopting prompt measures for stopping the said Gyapershad my son at any of the intervening stations available to the SS Pongola in transit from Calcutta to Natal and for taking him back to Calcutta to me and for thus saving his old parents' critical life.
P.S. It is sickening to hear that I am a Brahmin and my son Gyapershad has been misrepresented to be Rajput (Thakur) for sheerly serving the evil purposes of the recruiter.'
Even where migrants had a good understanding of their destination, resentments and misrepresentations as to working conditions and wage rates could still occur. In 1914 a group of Punjabi migrants to Fiji reported that they had left India:
'... on the inducement and representations of Wali Mohamed and Atta Mohamed, castes Sayed, residents of Karnana, tahsil Nawanshar, District Jullundur, Punjab. They have been sending our people during the last five years and on each steamer 45 or 46 men are being emigrated while they take Rs 35 as their commission for each individual ... we were made to understand that in Fiji we can get work on daily wages at 5/- but regret to say that even 2/- can be hardly earned – thus we have been suffering much. We had no previous experience of such tricks and they are deceiving to the people and are also against the law.'
If early migrants were deceived as to the real distance of their destination, and later indentured recruits disappointed in the opportunities proffered, in the peak years of migration, during the mid-nineteenth century would be emigrants could find themselves the prey of rival recruiting agencies that thwarted their attempts to go to a particular colony where they may have had friends or relations. Chummun left his village intending to go to Mauritius, around 1860, with a relative who had already been to the colony when, at Raniganj, they were met by a munshi 'who advised us to go to Bourbon and offered to take us to the Bourbon Depot. He succeeded in inducing my companions to follow him. He said that Mauritius had become a bad place for Coolies and that Bourbon was much better. He said that Mr Caird had gone away and that the Mauritius Depot was locked up.'
Jhurry gave a statement to the Calcutta Magistrate in April 1861 that revealed that he had instigated a chain migration to Mauritius, but that his own brother had been unable to accompany him, having been lured to the Trinidad depot by a recruiter:
'I was ten years at Mauritius. My masters were Hart and Bissy, of Grand Port district. As they were very kind to me, I came back to recruit Coolies for them. I have five men with me now, who are disposed to accompany me. They come from Arrah Zillah. My brother left Arrah to come and join me. He was enticed away by an arkotty who took him to the Trinidad depot. I endeavoured to communicate with my brother, but was prevented by the arkotty who had charge of him. I have heard that my brother has been sent away to Trinidad.'
Another recruit, who had friends in Mauritius, left Sherghotty to go to that island but was taken by a duffadar to a place called the 'new Mauritius depot'. Only after he had been registered as an emigrant did he find that it was the Demerara depot:
'When an inspector of emigration visited Thanjavur in 1866, he found numerous abuses of their position by recruiters. Mootoosamy Pillay had a sign in front of his house inviting would-be migrants for Mauritius to enter his premises. On investigation, he was found to have a licence for Ceylon. In a reversal of earlier deceits, which saw recruits intending to work inland, being taken overseas, Ramalingum, a recruiter ostensibly working for the Mauritius depot in Madras, was dismissed from his post in 1871 when he was found to have been taking recruits to the local Godavery works instead.'
Children were particularly vulnerable to entrapment, and as indenture contracts could be signed from the age of ten years and upwards, minors could find themselves engaged to an estate overseas for lengthy periods. In 1882, a small boy, Dawoodharree, was found to have been recruited from India for the Sans Souci estate in Mauritius, along with a group of men. He pleaded with the Protector of Immigrants to cancel the engagement, but the estate manager was unrelenting, claiming that:
'Dawoodharree was engaged at the same time as five or six other men who came from India with him, that he was aware that he was going to Mauritius to contract an engagement for five years, that his passage as well as the passage of the others, had been paid by the sirdar of 'Sans Souci' estate, and that the amount disbursed for this purpose by the sirdar had been refunded by the estate.'
The Protector initially ordered the estate to provide a certificate of discharge for the boy together with a cheque for forty rupees to provide for his repatriation, but after enquiring into the case, concluded that Dawoodharree should be made to work for one year, after which his engagement could be cancelled if he so wished.
It was also common practice for recruiters to station themselves on the roads leading to centres of pilgrimage. Luckless travellers finding themselves without funds were another source of labour for the arkatis and duffadars. Mootoosamy Pillay left his home to attend the Kundri festival held in the mosque of Meera Sahib. On his return, at Karrical, he met a recruiter who induced him to emigrate. Vitilinga Naicken was travelling to Madras to see his sister when he became ill at Pondicherry. Taking lodgings there, he was assisted by a stranger who 'came thither and gave me some hot water. He took care of me two days, and then led me to his own house where he kept me about a month and cured my sickness. He then heard my story and said ... that if I went to Bourbon I could acquire money and return home, and that he would also accompany me.' Nagamootoo Padiatchy's stated reason for emigrating was almost banal: 'About eleven years ago a quarrel ensued between myself and my father. Displeased with my father, I thought of going to the Mauritius, and accordingly went to the bazaar street of my village.' Inevitably, he there met a recruiter's agent who was only too happy to undertake the necessary formalities on his behalf.
Some migrants were deceived into going overseas in the mistaken belief that they were being recruited by the East India Company. Ramdeen stated:
'I was a syce at Barrackpore; Juggernauth another syce induced me to go to Mauritius. Juggernauth also went and died there. He told us Gillanders & Co were sending men to Mauritius, and induced us to go to get service. I came by myself to Calcutta, and the others were collected from other parts near Calcutta, where they had come in search of employ; fifty out of two hundred and fifty were Dangahs ... There were some Ooreahs also ... We were told that we were engaged to do the Company's work.'
When Ramdeen was asked what he understood by 'company', he replied that he knew of only one company 'the government of this country'. He declared that he and his fellow migrants would not have gone if they had known it was not for company service.
The Indian Government officially took a neutral stance on the emigration question, but the misleading notices posted by emigration officials in the pay of the overseas colonies at major Indian ports seemed to give the impression that the local government was the employer because they stipulated that migrants were under the protection of the 'Company'. In 1852, for example, the Emigration Agent of Mauritius at Madras circulated a notice in the Tamil and Telegu languages which asserted that recruits could earn good pay, and be well fed, housed and clothed at Mauritius, thereby being able save all the wages earned over five years, with a free return passage at the end of that time. The notice concluded 'These are the advantages that a kind Government secures to all those who are desirous to proceed to the Mauritius, and emigrants are strongly advised to select this colony rather than the foreign settlement of Bourbon where the Honourable Company cannot look after their interests.'
A considerable number of individuals were attracted by the idea of Company service. Contrary to traditional views of the Indian tied to his village, researchers have established that 'population mobility was inherent in the social order and the peasantry lived in a state of flux.' Kolff has demonstrated the existence of a military labour market in India even in the pre-capitalist period, with sultans, rajahs and Mughal emperors all recruiting for large state armies from among marginal peasants. By the nineteenth century, it had become common practice for inhabitants of certain districts to supply the new rulers – the British – with military recruits. Yang's study of Saran district in Bihar, for example, reveals that the district had provided the British Army with 10,000 sepoy recruits by the mid-nineteenth century. He shows that where migratory trends developed, various types of labour, including seasonal work and overseas indenture, would be taken up and concludes that the rural migrant displayed considerable skill and sophistication in his migratory choices: 'Whether he moved, where he went, and what he did all testify to his capacity to operate under some degree of risk and uncertainty in order to create a safe investment ... there has always been movement in response to better opportunities'. It was money which lured villagers like Tirvengadum and Marooda to the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion. At Pondicherry Tirvengadum was assured by the recruiter Carpayee that overseas labourers returned 'with plenty of money'. Madooda was told that he too, would become wealthy, if he went abroad.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Coolitude by Marina Carter, Khal Torabully. Copyright © 2002 Marina Carter and Khal Torabully. Excerpted by permission of Wimbledon Publishing Company.
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Table of Contents
Introduction; The Coolie Odyssey: A Voyage In Time and Space; Thrice Victimised: Casting The Coolie; Surviving Indenture; Reclaiming The 'Other': Diaspora Indians And The Coolie Heritage; Some Theoretical Premises of Coolitude; Conclusion: Revoicing the Coolie; Poetic and Critical Texts of Coolitude; Notes; Bibliography
What People are Saying About This
'The concept of 'Coolitude' parallels that of 'Negritude', pioneered by Clive James and other African and Carribean intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s, and could have an equally profound cultural impact...this book is both politically and intellectually ambitious. Marina Carter is one of the most highly regarded historians of the Indian Ocean. Her co-author is a poet and intellectual, a veritable giant in France...the list of his achievements goes one and on.' —Crispin Bates, University of Edinburgh