Resumo de Identured Labour

Identured Labout

An estimated two Crores(20 millin)
persons of Indian origin live outside India Pakistan and
Bangladesh. The Government of India has formed an
exclusive ministry to look after the needs of ?People? of
Indian Origin? living abroad. Today it is highly
educated,skilled and qualified persons such as
doctors,engineers,informatin technology experts and
business magnates who expatriate.
It was not always this
rosy and positive. The Indian diaspora began under British
rule(175701947)with Indians being lured and gang pressed
into going into exoile as bonded or indentured
labour.
?Indentured?or bonded labour was designed to
replace slave labour.Slalvery was abolished in the United
Kingdom ni 18,inFrance in 1948 and in the Neitherlands in
196. All these states had empires in continents outside
Europe and needed manpower to run plantations and undetake
public works such as road building. Where was this
manpower to come form? India was an obvious source.
India dn china with some of themost fertile land in the
world,have attracted settlers from cEntral Asia and traders
fromall over the world for thousands of years,which has
swelled their populatins. Before the British came,Indians
travelled as traders,missionaries,physicians and Sufis.
All this topped with the British Raj. In the 19th
century,china ws free while India ws enslaved by the
British and at their mercy. Mass migratin of the kind
needed by the colonis of Europe,could only tke place when
living conditins became very difficult in the country
itself. This change form abundalce to want,was brought
about by ahundred years and les of British rule.

India,once ghe richest country in the world,was
systematically looted and exploited and its inhabitants
reduced to great poverty. Famines became a
regular,recurrent feature. Tens of millions died of hunger
every two or three years and manymore were denied nutritino
at a critical period of their lives and grew upto live a
sub human life.
Between 188 and 1924,half-a-million
Indians expartiated to the Caribben Trinidad and
Tobago,Guyana Jamaica and surinam. How did this come about?

We have the answer in the autobiography of an Indian
Indentured Labourer:Munshi Rahman Khan(1874-1972). He
wrote it in 1943in the Bundelkahndi dialect f Hindi under
the title Jeevan Prakash. It ws first translated into the
Dutch and is now available in English.
Themunshi ws born
in August 11,1874 in Bharkhari near Hamirpur in the
bundelkhand area of Uttar Pradesh. His story of how he got
indntured reads,
?The clock of the bazaar (parade ground
vicinity,kanpur)indicated that it ws 7 o?clock. While I
was standing on the bridge of the canal and looking at the
water flowing,twoMuslims who later proved to the
moneyminded devils,came ti me.? After a polite
exchange,they learnt that our hero had pased middle school
and offered to procure a job for him at six two anna bits
(twelve annas or three quarters of a rupee)per day.
The
work has todo with sugar. You will have to suprevise the
labour and travel on the Govrnment?s ship at the expense of
the Government. And at every third of fourth month,you
will have to bring the sugar toyour plantatin. The ship
form calcutta takes three months to reach there(sriram
Tapa),come now,we willshow uyou the labour you have
tosuprevise.
?From today onwards such aasfod etc.You
will have no problems. Enjoyu your food and drink
happily.,live comfortably and carry out government work
honesly which is the only way to merit promotin.? The
Munshi was ecstatic?.(he was 24 and married?
?To Get
rupees twenty four per monthin India was very
difficult?.
?I forgot my own self,got separted form my
family?.
The munshi never returned home. He ramarried
insurinam and we shall return tohis life ina future
column.

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