Beyond Indenture: Agency and Resistance in the Colonial South Asian Diaspora
Crispin Bates
May 2024 · Cambridge University Press
Ebook
396
Pages
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About this ebook
Beyond Indenture brings together original essays by a mix of experienced and upcoming scholars. They 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 expiry 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. Alongside the migrant labourers, 'passenger Indians' made their way to the sugar, tea and rubber colonies, and became clerks, teachers and shopkeepers. After independence, the Indian communities overseas faced newer problems, not least of which were discrimination and marginalisation. Some were forced to return home. Others built upon the experience of struggles in the colonial era to collectively mobilise. Another theme explored is that of the broad alliances of diasporic Indians and Pakistani and Bangladeshi migrants who have been recently enabled by the internet to connect with each other and to reconnect with the countries from which they originated.
About the author
Crispin Bates is Professor of Modern and Contemporary South Asian History at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of African and Asian Studies, Kyoto University. He has authored, coauthored and edited a total of 15 books including a history of South Asia from 1600 to the present, entitled Subalterns and Raj (2007), and a series of seven volumes concerning the history of the Indian uprising of 1857, entitled 'Mutiny at the Margins' (2013–2017). In 2015–2018, he led 'Becoming Coolies', an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)–funded project on the origins of Indian overseas labour migration in the Indian Ocean, for which he conducted research in archives throughout the Indian Ocean region.
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