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Role Name Affiliation National Coordinator Subject Coordinator Prof Role Name Affiliation National Coordinator Subject Coordinator Prof. Sujata Patel Department of Sociology,University of Hyderabad Paper Coordinator Prof. Kamala Ganesh Formerly Dept. of Sociology, University of Mumbai Content Writer Ashish Kumar Upadhyay Research Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai Content Reviewer Prof. Kamala Ganesh Formerly Dept. of Sociology, University of Mumbai Language Editor Prof. Kamala Ganesh Formerly Dept. of Sociology, University of Mumbai Technical Conversion Module Structure Description of the Module Items Description of the Module Subject Name Sociology Paper Name Sociology of the Indian Diaspora Module Name/Title Colonial period: free migration Module Id Section II Module 2 Pre Requisites Understanding of the concept of free migration during colonial period, familiarity with types of migration over the time in colonial period: indentured, free migration, passenger Indians migration from India and the specially to the British colonies. Objectives 1. Differentiate between types of migration 2. Explain the environment of migration, various policies to control Indian migration 3. To examine the issues Indians encountered during their stay in the colonies 4. To evaluate the role of free/passenger Indians in India and in the colonies they lived Key words Free/passenger migration, business and trade, services, remittance, return emigration, development back home. 1 Colonial period: free migration (Section II Module 2) Quadrant I 1. INTRODUCTION Indians migrated to various British colonies in the form of labour (indentured) and in various other forms - as merchants, agents for shipping companies, clerks, teachers, shop owners andretail sellersespecially for South Africa. The majority, as is well-known, went as indentured labour to sugar plantationsin South Africa, Mauritius, Surinam, British Guyana and Trinidad. Many servants and traders were habitual travelers: one ayah, it is reported,travelled 50 times to Britain. Lascars played a vital role in the maritime trade to and from India. During the colonial period sepoys were often caught up in the vacillating fortunes and internecine struggles of rival empire builders (Carter: 2006:57).But there was a higher number of other types of migrants, teachers, shopkeepers, retails, hawkers, merchants, interpreters, labourer (workers) also who went on their own expenses.It is important to mention here that indentured labourers were recruited by the British agents and in free migration or passengermigration as it is also called, Indians went on their own, paying for their passage. But they went a little later than the indentured labour. 2. CATEGORIES OF INDIAN MIGRANTS IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD: 2.1 Passenger Indians, Free or Wage labour and Indentured labour The major point of difference to distinguish between these two – indentured and passenger/free immigrationis the form of their migration over a period of time. Indentured labour as I mentioned earlier was recruited by the British rulers or agents on behalf of thecolonial power. Free / passenger migrants went on their own expenses and the colonial rulers did not have to take care of them or be responsible for their travel expenses as they did in the case of indentured labour. There is no exact definition to distinguish who was the Passenger Indian. Many British documents call them ‘Free Indians’ because some of them had finished their indentured periods and came back as free labour. Other documents refer to the ‘Passenger Indians’. Indentured labourhas been covered much in writing compared to the Passenger Indians. As Bhana and Brain comment,theworld of Passenger Indians was hardly documented or written about. It is documented in a very small published work on passenger Indians (Bhana and Brain 1990). Passenger Indians were not only traders, 2 businessmen or other occupational communities like clerks and agents. Uma Dhupelia- Mesthrie’s (2009) writing shows that there were a large number of Passenger Indians who worked as free or wage labour.They were not only from North and South India.Indentured Indians were predominantly from these two regions. But free or wage labour came also from Punjab and other places too. So Passenger Indians were not just traders. And therefore although all under the category were ‘free’ or passengers in the sense that they paid for their travel passage, some were wage labour and others were in trade and several other occupations. Bhana and Pachai (1948: 2) definePassenger Indians as follows: ‘It is common knowledge that Indians came to South Africa in two categories as indentured Indians and as free passenger Indians. The former came as a result of a triangular pact among three governments and the latter mainly traders ever alert to new opportunity abroad, came at their own expenses from India, Mauritius and other places’. 2.2 Passenger Indians includes wage labour The term ‘Passenger Indians’ was not widely used in earlier writings in South Africa. As Mesthrie writes, in her piece on Passenger Indians as workers, it was Gandhi (1928) who mentioned two categories of Indians in South Africa - indentured labour and free Indians (and their free servants (clerks etc.)). He further says that free servants came to serve Muslim traders. Gandhi clearly mentions that traders and servants, who were serving Indian traders and indentured whose contract had expired were absolutely free. But there are scholars who use different terms to denote these new forms of migrants. They (Joshi 1942; Burrows 1943; Wetherell 1946 cited in Mesthrie 2009: 113) employ the word ‘free Indians’. Mabel Palmer (1957: 42-43 cited in Dhupelia-Mesthrie) writes about the ‘free immigrants - Muslim and Hindu traders’ and argues that they be distinguished from others classes of free Indians; those who had served their period of indenture were commonly called Passenger Indians. Later the majority adopted this definition while Hilda Kuper (1960: 3) defines it as follows: ‘Passenger Indians were those who entered the country under ordinary immigration laws and at their own expense’. So in a nutshell one can say that there were three categories of Indians who were living in these countries 1. Indentured Indians who were still in contract 2. Ex- indentured who had finished or served their indentured periods and 3. Those who came from India especially for economic reasons on their own expenses. 3 Majority of the free passengers to South Africa were Muslim. Bardlow (1979: 134) says that Indians in Cape Colony were exclusively passenger Indiansin origin and that lacking skill of other kinds, the Cape Indians almost without exception became traders and shopkeepers. Muslims tended to become wholesale and retail, general dealers and butchers while Hindus became fruit and vegetables hawkers and shoemakers (leather workers) in Cape colony. There was an impression that there were only two categories - indentured labour and traders, while as Mesthrie suggest in her writing, there was another category of workers within the category of free/passenger Indians. The term ‘Passenger Indian’ got associated with traders and rich merchants in South Africa. Maureen Swans’ (1985:8 cited in Dhupelia-Mesthrie) work is focused on rich merchants and not other categories of traders like retailers and hawkers. Other scholars like Padayachee and Morell (1991) define passenger or free Indians as falling into two categories : wealthy merchants and small traders and hawkers. Kalpana Hiralal (2000:135-136) defines free or passenger Indians as being traders. Joy Brain (1983:243-245) compiles a list of Christian passengers to Natal which include traders, teachers, interpreters, catechists etc. Kuper (1960) also provides an important detailthat there were some whose contracts expired; they went India and came back as free passengers along with the other passengers to South Africa. Some scholars write that passenger Indians were male while Bhana and Brain (1990) suggest that passenger Indians included females too.Dhupelia-Mesthrie (2009:114) mentions that there were female migrants also, though they were in small numbers before 1910. She (2009:115) emphasizes that most of the earlier writing either ignores other forms of migration or does not pay much attention to it, and this means groups like small shopkeepers, hawkers, shop assistants, accountants, priests, women and children. 2.3 Sepoys and Lascars Marina Carter, while writing on ‘Free Migration’ in The Encyclopedia of Indian Diaspora, gives importance to the migration of sepoys and lascars.She writes “despite the British tendency to categorize Indians in social and occupational groups, in practice there was a great deal of overlap. Many male and female servants ended up as indentured labourers, some of whom went on to further migrate as free or trade migrants, while lascars occasionally found themselves enslaved or forced to take on work as servants. Similarly sepoys often had a peasant or servant background and once discharged could also become an indentured or free migrant. (Carter: 2006:57). 4 Sepoys played very important role in British conquest over many places several times. They were part ofAnglo French warfare, ofraids on trading settlements in Bencoolen (Malaysia, Singapore), in 1789. They played an important role in 1795 in Moluccas and in Egypt in 1800 and they also served at Macao. Carter (2006: 57) mentions that soon after all this conquest, they were mobilised to conquer Mauritius in 1810, and participated in theexpedition of Java in 1811. Many sepoys became permanent overseas migrants because of the nature of work and migration. Recruitment for sepoys was not only for outside India mission but within country too. Saran District in Bihar was known for sepoy’s recruitment during Robert Clive’s tenure in India. By the mid-19th century around ten thousand Saran people had become sepoys. Even in South India, members of Pallan and Paraiyan castes joined as sepoys, and later migrated as indentured labourers. Most of those who enlisted for indentured migration were sepoys; it shows that sepoys were the first choice because they were already working and had been tested. In Mauritius many ex-sepoys were found as plantation worker recruits.
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