PRESENTED BY:NEHA KAR

B. COM. 3RD SEMESTERROLL NO. – 66

C.K.B. COMMERCE COLLEGE

A PRESENTATIONON

INDENTURED LABOURERS

INTRODUCTIONIndentured labourer was a labor system whereby young people paid for their passage to the New World by working for an employer for a certain number of years. It was widely employed in the 18th century in the British colonies in North America and elsewhere. It was especially used as a way for poor youth in Britain and the German states to get passage to the American colonies. They would work for a fixed number of years, then be free to work on their own.

OBJECTIVES:

The main objectives are:

•To discuss the Indentured labourer system.

•To give a brief idea about the Indian Indentured

labourer.

METHODOLOGY

The project report is prepared from the secondary data

which have been collected from various books and

journals and also from the related websites.

The Indian indenture systemThe Indian indenture system was an ongoing system of indenture, a form of debt bondage, by which 3.5 million Indians were transported to various colonies of European powers to provide labour for the (mainly sugar) plantations. It started from the end of slavery in 1833 and continued until 1920.

The first indentureOn 18 January 1826, the Government of the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion laid down terms for the introduction of Indian labourers to the colony. Each man was required to appear before a magistrate and declare that he was going voluntarily.

Colonial British Indian Government regulations

Colonial British Indian Government Regulations of 1837 laid down specific conditions for the dispatch of Indian labour from Calcutta. The would-be emigrant and his emigration agent were required to appear before an officer designated by the Colonial British Government of India with a written statement of the terms of the contract. The length of service was to be five years, renewable for further five-year terms.

Ban on export of Indian labour

As soon as the new system of emigration of labour became known, a campaign, similar to the anti-slavery campaign sprang up in Britain and India. On 1 August 1838, a committee was appointed to inquire into the export of Indian labour. It heard reports of abuses of the new system. On 29 May 1839, overseas manual labour was prohibited and any person effecting such emigration was liable to a 200 Rupee fine or three months in jail. After prohibition, a few Indian labourers continued to be sent Mauritius via Pondicherry

Resumption of Indian labour transportation

The planters in Mauritius and the Caribbean worked hard to overturn the ban, while the anti-slavery committee worked just as hard to uphold the ban. The Government of the East India Company finally capitulated under intense pressure from planters and their supporters: On 2 December 1842, the Indian Government permitted emigration from Calcutta, Bombay and Madras to Mauritius.

Indentured and coolitude, a humanism of diversity

From this important experiment in international migration based on a labour contract, poet and semiologist Khal Torabully, born in Mauritius where Unesco has classified the only site related to coolie labour in the wake of talorization, has devised a humanism of diversity called coolitude. From this voyage, Torabully has proposed a vision that brings the presence of the indentured into focus, as a paradigm allowing one to chart dialogues in cultures and civilizations. Coolitude is studied in various countries, and UNESCO is interested in its capacity to avoid competition between the memories of slavery and indentured, and promote peace between human groups.

CONCLUSION

The earliest labourers who left India were frequently peasants or illiterate people in search of a better life. Many hoped to get away from Indian famines that ravaged the country in the 19th century. Others left in groups of family members. Under economic stress, people on the move did not record a great deal of family history information in India. It is possible that oral history may have been passed on from generation to generation.

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