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The Currents of Restless Toil: Colonial Rule and Indian Indentured Labor in Trinidad and Fiji Nishant Batsha Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2017 © 2017 Nishant Batsha All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Currents of Restless Toil: Colonial Rule and Indian Indentured Labor in Trinidad and Fiji Nishant Batsha The study of Indian indentured servitude in the British Empire has largely been confined to the histories of slavery or free labor. Few scholars have connected indenture to larger processes in the British Empire. This dissertation examines the global nature of Indian indenture to find how trends in colonial power were inflected in the relationship between the state and the indentured worker. This dissertation uses the colonial experience in South Asia as a basis for its global history. It contends that the history of the colonial rule of law in the subcontinent was of deep importance to the mechanisms of indenture. By looking at archival records from the United Kingdom, Trinidad, Fiji, and elsewhere, this dissertation finds that officials in the indenture colonies were attempting to transform indebted Indian peasants into indentured workers. This process was inflected by the experience of colonial rule elsewhere. At first, this meant the implementation of ideas tied to imperial liberalism. Following the challenges to British colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, the indenture colonies mirrored a wider movement towards conservative governance. The ways in which the colonial state attempted to control and manipulate workers underwent a dramatic shift. In the indenture colony, colonial power exerted both authoritarian and paternalist tendencies. This dissertation uses the governorships of Arthur Hamilton-Gordon in Trinidad and Fiji to explore this shift. This dissertation makes its argument by focusing on the indenture colonies of Trinidad and Fiji. In doing so, it moves beyond the model of studying indenture that has looked at the British Empire as a whole, or otherwise in specific colonies or sub-regions. Using Trinidad and Fiji allows for a deep understanding of continuity and change. For example, Trinidad can be used to examine indenture’s beginnings, as the colony began to import Indian indentured labor in 1842, while Fiji can be used to understand late indenture. Furthermore, colonial officials, ideas of authority, capital, labor, and goods were always circulating throughout this global empire. The study of Trinidad and Fiji allows for a critical understanding of such exchanges and this dissertation uses both to explore bureaucratic offices, law, financial systems, governance, protest, medicine and health, and global agitation in Indian indenture. “The Currents of Restless Toil” is an in-depth study into the nature of colonial governance in the indenture colonies of Trinidad and Fiji. It explores the nuances of colonial power, providing a window into the theory and practice that shaped the restless toil of Indians across the world. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... ii List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................... iv List of Illustrations ........................................................................................................................ v Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One Groundwork ........................................................................................................... 38 Chapter Two All that’s Fit to Punish .......................................................................................... 60 Chapter Three Money Sent Home ............................................................................................... 86 Chapter Four Settling the Land ................................................................................................. 109 Chapter Five Changes: Arthur Hamilton-Gordon in Trinidad ................................................. 134 Chapter Six On to Fiji ............................................................................................................... 163 Chapter Seven In the Lockup .................................................................................................... 182 Chapter Eight Protest, Response, Violence .............................................................................. 204 Chapter Nine Controlling the Infected ...................................................................................... 237 Chapter Ten Global Movements ............................................................................................... 264 Conclusion The Many Mahabirs ................................................................................................ 286 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 292 i Acknowledgements This project was made possible by the generous support of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. My gratitude goes to my dissertation committee: Nicholas Dirks, Janaki Bakhle, Mae Ngai, and Karuna Mantena. I am especially thankful for the support from Nick and Janaki, who have seen me from my undergraduate days through the PhD. I am thankful for the assistance given by the staff of the National Archives of Fiji (and especially for the impromptu going-away party!), the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the National Archives of Trinidad & Tobago, the British Library, the New York Public Library, the West Indiana Collection in the Alma Jordan Library at the University of the West Indies, the Yale University Divinity Library, the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Hamilton Library, the libraries of Columbia University, and the libraries of the University of California–Berkeley. This dissertation would not have been written were it not for the incredible kindness of people around the world. In Fiji, Ashwin Raj looked after me and was a great friend and intellectual companion. In the United Kingdom, Joyce Lorinstein helped me find a place to live. My host, Gerry Moore, provided accommodation at possibly the most reasonable price in all of London. I am thankful too to Victor Petrov, who lent me his room while I was conducting preliminary research in London. In Trinidad, Nicholas Laughlin, Georgia Popplewell, and Ashraph Ramsaran were amazing friends who brought me into a lovely community of artists and writers. I am especially thankful to Ashraph for letting me stay in his home during the 2015 Carnival. In New Haven, Parwiz Abrahimi provided some great company and a place to stay. When I returned to New York for research, Dominic Vendell, George Aumoithe, Mary Freeman, ii and Sam Daly were all wonderful hosts. In Hawai‘i, Kathy Reinhart graciously opened her home while I finished my research. You all have my thanks and gratitude. My many thanks go to Sam Daly for his friendship, commiseration, and support. Charles Clavey always took the point and has been a true friend for many years. Fatima Al Shamsi has seen me through every phase of my academic life and I am thankful for her kindness and friendship. Jon Connolly was a great friend and reader in the Bay Area. Most of all, my thanks go to my wife, Emily Hamilton. We met just a month into my PhD. You have seen me through this whole process, from New York to St. Louis, from Fiji to the Bay Area. I don’t think I would have ever gotten to this point were it not for your support and companionship. Thank you for all that you have given me. iii List of Abbreviations BFASS: British Foreign Anti-Slavery Society CDA: Contagious Diseases Acts CO: The Colonial Office CSO: Colonial Secretary’s Office EIC: The East India Company INC: The Indian National Congress MP: Minute Paper NAF: The National Archives of Fiji NATT: The National Archives of Trinidad & Tobago NYPL: The New York Public Library PMB: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PP: Parliamentary Paper TNA: The National Archives of the United Kingdom iv List of Illustrations Figures Fig. 1: Workers gathered around the pay table at the Perseverance Estate in Trinidad ........86 Fig. 2: People at work in a cane field during the period of harvesting ..................................109 Fig. 3: Newspaper clipping of Arthur Hamilton-Gordon as Governor of Fiji .......................163 Fig. 4: Certificate of Industrial Residence of Summir ...........................................................182 Fig. 5: Workers raising a tazia during the Hosay festival on St. Augustine Estate in Trinidad, ca. 1891 ......................................................................................................204 Fig. 6: Indian immigrants employed at Makogai Leper Asylum, Fiji ...................................237 Tables Table 1: Remittance Data for Fiji and Trinidad, 1882–1918 .................................................104 v Introduction To cross an ocean, to leave behind a home to labor far from the comforts of home, to become a migrant—all this required a measure of fortitude in the face of loneliness and exile. And yet, when the migrant landed upon the new shore, life once again began anew. The old world drifted into memory. The new