Legacy of Slavery and Indentured Labour

Linking the Past with the Future

Conference on Slavery, Indentured Labour, Migration, Diaspora and Identity Formation.

June 18th – 23th, 2018 , Paramaribo, Suriname

Org. IGSR& Faculty of Humanities and IMWO, in collaboration with Nat. Arch. Sur.

Allow me to greet all the esteemed participants of this event. I express my regrets of being unable to be physically in Guyana in view of those great exchanges to come. I wish full success to the event! May I be allowed to thank the organizers, more particularly, Dr Maurits Hassankhan, for giving me the possibility of sharing my experience of the Great Experiment on an inclusive basis, the basis that enables us to open indenture to its promises and duties regarding present world issues.

Slavery and indenture, a shared narrative, as developed in 2006 and onwards

Khal Turabully

PREMISES: I believe it is worthwhile to bring the classification of the IILR by UNESCO in October 2014 to the attention of researchers and to the public at large, as it enables more transdisciplinary approaches to History. My angle will be two-fold, presenting the human elements, the “personal narrative” or “petite histoire” of this route and exploring some of its theoretical promises. In doing so, I am also introducing the humanism of diversity born out of my research in the field, covering some 25 years of thoughts and practical theory.

A brief reminder: in November 1834, 36 hill coolies or Dhangars from the Indo-Gangetic areas boarded the Atlas in Calcutta. They engaged overseas through a 5 year contract written in Bengali, with George Charles Arbuthnot of Hunter-

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Arbuthnot & Company, British recruiters based in Mauritius. They set sail on September 15 1834 and reached British Mauritius on November 2. After the formalities, they went to Belle Alliance Sugar Estate or Antoinette Sugar Estate owned by Hunter-Arbuthnot & Company which had a labor force of some 200 slaves. Those Hill Coolies can be regarded as the pioneers of indentured migration not only in Mauritius but beyond as well. These pioneers of indenture, also known as Arbuthnot’s coolies, are the common ancestors of Indo-Mauritians and Indo-Guyanese or Indo-Guadeloupeans or beyond. Not only through a common reference to India, but also through their experimentation of the new type of work and salaried contract following the abolition of slavery. What is important here is to make note that the voyage across the kala pani meant crossing one ocean on the way to Mauritius, a trip that lasted some 6 weeks. For Guyana, one had to cross two dark oceans over 12 weeks of traumatic navigation. It is the same oceans of darkness, whether the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean, that both slaves and indentured persons crossed, though in different conditions. It is important to see that both slavery and indenture have a generic and systemic link. Even if there has been overlapping, indenture followed slavery in the broader global taylorized pattern.

A brief personal history of the International Indentured Labour Route (IILR) and the link to the Slave Route

Now, addressing the title of my paper, allow me to relate a brief story of the International Indentured Labour Route, from the angle of the “petite histoire” leading to a greater perspective. The whole idea goes back to 1994 when UNESCO was celebrating the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. It was on this occasion that the project of the Indentured Route was brought to the awareness of UNESCO for the very first time. I was part of the Mauritian delegation, led by Mr Cassam Uteem, the former President of Mauritius. We were already in the process of viewing indenture not only as a duty of memory but as an ongoing work on memory. It was important to envisage indenture through the subaltern’s perspective and carve out an “authentificated” narrative divested from the “victimary” burden and the colonial vision still attached to it.

We engaged in the variegated aspect of this paradigm as early as 1992, in Cale d’étoiles-Coolitude, the first poetic book of indenture written through the centrality of the oceanic voyage, the ocean being both a space of creation and de-creation of

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identities, and no longer only a kala pani with dark abysses peopled by fear and dispossessions. In this work, I had been inclusive by writing about the coolie’s History while considering the slave as his/her brother and sister of a historic exploitation. Instead of opposing memories, the poetics of coolitude articulated them to transcend a binary vision that is, very often, a source of conflicts. Coolitude was also poeticized as the celebration of a form of migration based on a contract instead of an ontogenesis in view of claiming an essence.

During the UNESCO event in Paris, in 1994, while The Slave Route project was being launched, I presented a request to the Director General to help us establish the modus operandi for an indentured route. Federico Mayor directed me to Dr Doudou Diene, who was the in charge of the Slave Route and its conceptor. Mr Diene listened to me very attentively and told me that is has been a very long and tedious process to stage the commemoration of the abolition of slavery and much had to be undertaken for the recognition of “this major genocide”, I am quoting his words. Indeed, some governments were reluctant to address this complex page of History, given the related issues of identity, the need to address historiography from a more contrasted angle and the fear of giving compensation to the descendants of the slaves. He added: “It is, given the important work required for the future of the slave route, too early to think on an indentured route, but the project is very important for us. Let us wait for the right moment”… Mr Diene had perfectly understood the necessity to link those two paradigms, with their own specificities. For me, as from 1990, it was impossible, from a theoretical and humane point of view, to envisage indenture as a reality separated from slavery. Historically, the abolition of the latter ignited the global experimentation of indenture, as we all know. Therefore, it was important that the Indentured Route should construe itself through an inclusive approach fraught with a will to transcend censored histories and avoid positing itself “alongside” slavery, with a view of avoiding to relate itself to it.

I continued writing about indenture with this dialogic outlook. Then I was invited to theorize my poetic constructions. This happened in Paris, in 1996, through Notre Librairie, the francophone magazine. I wrote the first comparative analysis of slavery and indenture though symbolic and historic specificities. To sum up, I wrote anout the fact that slavery was a single voyage and indenture a virtual return voyage. I mentioned the fact the coolie was a person of the signified and the slave

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one of the signifier, besides speaking of withdrawal and detour strategies, marooning and vagabondage.

In, an article on “The Children of Coolitude” was published in The Courrier of UNESCO the same year (1). Through this article, the Organization gave an official visibility to the humanistic frame contained in the aesthetics of coolitude and inscribed it as a fertile vision for the humanities propounded by it. I kept in touch with Mr Diene, and work was carried on in Mauritius to have the Aapravasi Ghat classified by UNESCO. This was initiated by late Bickramsingh Ramlallah and was continued by the officials and historians of the country. Meanwhile, in 2003, Le Morne officially became a candidate to be a World Heritage Site for resistance against slavery. Mr Moussa Ali Iyé, the head of the intercultural dialogue of UNESCO at that time, confided onto me that the Morne, a Mauritian site of memory dedicated to resistance against slavery, was going to be inscribed officially on the World Heritage List, “soon”. It eventually happened in 2008. I was given this piece of information because one thing was feared: that the Morne and the Aapravasi Ghat would enter in a “victimary” competition, which UNESCO wanted to prevent at all costs, as it would have meant reactivating memories for the purpose of feud and exclusive identity confrontations. Mr Iyé asked me to popularize the dialogic aspect of my work, to prevent a concurrence between two victims of History. Several articles were published in the local press and on websites, namely the article Esclaves et coolies : pour un rapprochement des mémoires or “Indenture, slavery: a sharing of memory” (2). This article, for the very first time, articulated two memories with a view of elaborating a shared History of slavery and indenture within a theoretical frame. It was referenced on the website of the Comité National pour la Mémoire et l'Histoire de l'Esclavage after the historic act of President Chirac to recognize a day of Memory for Slavery on May 10 each year in France. The idea of “sharing memories” contained in our vision was not to obliterate the differences in narratives and memories and force uniformity of perceptions and approaches. It developed the theoretical framework enabling an articulating of differences to counter racism, cultural, social and historic revisionism or reduction of the complexity of realities. This is in keeping with the ethics of route policies of UNESCO.

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From the articulation of the two UNESCO sites to the reality of the IILR

With the UNESCO inscriptions of theAapravasi Ghat and Le Morne in Mauritius, coolitude found a material basis and a historic occasion to theorize the symbolism of the two UNESCO sites in Mauritius, to be explored not only as sites of memory but as aesthetic, cultural, ethical and social referents enabling a humane approach of “different” memories. In the site policy of UNESCO and the island’s landscape, there was an invitation to construe a new perspective of identity or a better living-together in Mauritius from the inclusive angle of the humanism of diversity grown directly from indenture. There was also the possibility to use this construction as an emblematic dialogue for all countries affected by slavery and indenture in the colonial era and beyond (3).

One of our missions was indeed to broaden this scope to promote transcultural awareness and interaction at large. It was important to underline one fact, that Mauritius is unique in the sense that it is not only the Gordian knot for the worldwide experimentation of indentured labor but also as the only country harboring two sites of memory, one dedicated to resistance to slavery and the other one, dedicated to the symbolical potency of indenture. My native island offered the unique opportunity to develop and deepen a dialogue between those two paradigms. Both had to be articulated in order to envisage transversal histories between slavery and indenture so as to foster the culture of peace through the dialogue of cultures hosted by UNESCO (4).

These guidelines were clearly integrated in the official policies of those sites when le Morne was classified in 2008. Of course, time was needed to allow discourses to be heard and confronted within the diverse components of the country, each still envisioning the pains of the past through their own looking glass. The Mauritian state was exemplary in the sense that, gradually, this inclusive approach became the one the island promoted, even though some regressive and narrow views were voiced by some groups and individuals who had not understood the possibilities those sites offered to serve a broader narrative of humanities. In post-independence Mauritius, it was the first time one could converse with one’s own History on concrete grounds, and not only learn history about the Normans, the Tudors or the French Revolution through textbooks.

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The Morne and the Aapravasi Ghat sparked heated debates, enabling the liberation of speech concerning those two repressed pages of Mauritian History. This fact is essential to me as it allowed one to mediate the pains of the past through language and developed a democratic exercise regarding a “non-dit” that could have sparked social unrest and misunderstanding. This exercise allowed the Mauritian Government to set up to set the Justice and Peace Commission, which began its work in February 2009. In its last consultative meeting within the Parliament complex, I again made the point that instead of opposing indenture and slavery in the fact-finding sessions to come, special attention had to be paid to mediate them with a view of nation-building through those two sites and memories. We had indeed a historic opportunity for an island easily characterized as a “rainbow nation”, but with much complexity still to be worded and addressed, to move to a more mature citizenship. In view of de-essentializing the issue, I suggested to the Aapravasi Ghat historians and authorities, namely Dr Satyendra Peerthum and Mr Raju Mohit, to research into the issue of diversity in indenture, not only in terms of caste, religions, social conditions, gender, age or geographic origins but also across the line of Indianness per se, to know precisely which percentage of non-Indians were indentured in Mauritius. The study showed statistics amounting to some five percent of indentured non- Indians, that is more some 25,OOO to 30,000 persons in a population of some 462,000 (5), which, even if it is not an impressive figure, is enough to show that diversity was one of the foundations of indenture. There, the coolie trade had also been regarded as a mechanism generating “salaried” migration in the Taylorized 19th century colonial world and not only as a pretext for “race” or political competition in the 21st century. It also contained the diversities of the Indian mosaic and also related to China, Africa and beyond.

I could notice that throughout debates, a dignified though fragile sense of a common destiny through a shared memory emerged progressively. Ultimately in 2012, both people from the Morne Trust Heritage Fund and from the Aapravasi Ghat sat together to comment on the conclusions of the Peace and Justice Commission on Radio Plus, a station based in Port-Louis. I was invited to join in. My last words were that one needed to address the main issues of the report with the attitude of making the slavery-indenture rapprochement a social and cultural reality on the island. It was therefore important to transcend historical wounds to enter the crucible of living together well, through the mediation of those two

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painful pages of imperial history. The findings of the Justice and Truth Commission still remain in limbo. I must say that though there is more progress to be made, the articulation of the UNESCO sites has enabled Mauritians to approach their unknown pasts with a growing awareness of those two episodes of their History. I believe me must make more efforts to have this articulation of sites and memories in textbooks and elsewhere, as History is never a linear reality.

One fact is that UNESCO was more than happy to note that the dialogue between our two sites of memory, which forms the basis of the humanism of indenture, was worth considering in a more global outlook. I was then requested by the leading team of theAapravasi Ghat to contact UNESCO to set the ball rolling for the Indentured route. In 2013, I contacted Doudou Diene, the man who created the Slave route. He told me that after some 19 years of existence of the Slave Route, the time had come for the Route of Indenture. We met in Paris several times to devise the best way of getting the message to the Board. My main argument was to promote the idea of the humanism of diversity the indenture experience contained, as exemplified through the shared narratives implemented in Mauritius through the two world heritage sites. This point was therefore brought forward when I drafted the first cultural and humanistic frame of the route. Then, when we were about to contact the UNESCO officials, we met with a major snag: the ambassador of Mauritius in Paris, who had undergone an important operation, was not in a position to present our request officially. I informed the Aapravasi Ghat about the problem and the case was taken up by the executive team of the Ghat, mainly through Messrs M. Utchanah and R. Mohit, helped by Mr A. Parsuraman, an ex-UNESCO secretary and Mrs B. Mukherjee, the ex-ambassador of India to UNESCO. They made the final move to Paris, leading to the inscription of the IILR on UNESCO’s agenda in October 2014.

The grounds for classification as expressed in 2014

As said earlier, the humanism of diversity was among the main claims brought forward by the team fighting for the classification of the IILR. It made no sense just to bring the indenture route to existence just for the sake of remembering the past. The Aapravasi Ghat contains a symbolical value for the whole of mankind. Indenture is one of the major components of contemporary History. It is also to be understood as a cross-cultural voyage allowing a migratory aesthetics reflecting the

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realities of the present. It was therefore useful to reactivate its capacity of furthering understanding between cultures, histories and memories. This much-needed humane foundation, ultimately, became the element that characterizes this route inscribed on its agenda by UNESCO in October 2014, when my native island celebrated the 18Oth anniversary of the arrival of the coolies on the Atlas. The IILR is therefore meant to further the dialogue developed in Mauritius, and foster an intercultural and transnational vision addressing otherness or memories. In its extract of October 2014 regarding the approval of the IILR project, the Executive Board of UNESCO acknowledged “the synergies between the IILR project and the Slave Route Project” and “encourages Member States to support the project…further promoting a culture of peace, cultural pluralism and intercultural dialogue”.

It is well too obvious that the synergy between the two routes is an extension of the inclusive approach we fostered in Mauritius, both through the coolitude dialogue between the two heritage sites mentioned earlier.

The inscription of the IILR on those grounds, I sincerely believe, opens indenture more conspicuously to contemporary issues regarding identity, culture and the approach regarding multiple memories and histories, allowing to build on affinities besides identities. For instance, it can develop the transnational awareness of a shared History intra and extra indenture, with a view of promoting a culture of peace at large. This is what the Mauritian State declared after UNESCO’s decision: “This project will contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of the movement of millions of peoples and cultures in that age; highlight the global transformations and culture interactions that has resulted from this history; and contribute to a culture of peace by promoting reflection on culture pluralism, intercultural dialogue, sustainable development and peace” (6). Let us also add that the same official statement mentions the necessity of a transnational database on indenture, which was hailed by experts in the field during the very first symposium of the IILR organized by the Mauritian Government at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute from 3 to 5 November 2014. This idea of the database, undoubtedly, is another cornerstone of the IILR, as the Government stated: “Moreover, the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO has proposed (…) to elaborate an international database on Indentured Labour accessible worldwide. The database would disseminate information about such a major historical event and build a greater

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understanding and cooperation among peoples” (7). Even there, there is a vision of inclusiveness.

Events following the declaration of principles of UNESCO

Allow me to conclude by quoting the IILR preambles in extensor. One notes that, as contained in the EXPLANATORY NOTE of the UNESCO document:

- “Ignorance or concealment of major historical events constitutes an obstacle to mutual understanding, reconciliation and cooperation among peoples. The International Labour Route Project centered around Aapravasi Ghat in Mauritius symbolizes the story of more than 462,000 Indentured Labour, the vast majority from India who were recruited to work on the sugar plantations in Mauritius, after the abolition of Slavery. Subsequently, Aapravasi Ghat became one of the oldest surviving entry and transit point associated with indenture. More than 2.2 million indentured labour were mobilized mostly from India to more than 26 countries in various parts of the world making it one of the greatest mass movement of the diaspora worldwide.

- The International Indentured Labour Route Project will complement the Slave Route Project since both relate to the movement of a mass of people across continents. These movements based on intercultural exchanges have been instrumental in forging most of the modern societies of today. My own comments: UNESCO envisions the IILR as a complement of the Slave Route and envisages a transcultural approach of both slavery and identure.

- This process of Indentured Labour deserves to be studied in a more systematic, scientific and global manner. Ignorance of such major historical events constitutes a barrier to mutual understanding and cooperation among peoples.

- This project will inter alia: - •contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of the movement of

millions of peoples and cultures in that age; - • highlight the global transformations and culture interactions that has

resulted from this history; and - • contribute to a culture of peace by promoting reflection on culture

pluralism, intercultural dialogue, sustainable development and peace”.

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- My comment: this clause springs directly from our paper work stemming from the humanism of diversity of coolitude.

- SOURCE http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002299/229974E.pdf

Our philosophical and scientific observations contained in our inclusive approach of indenture informs UNESCO’s wish not to promote fragmented or distorted narratives opening the way for victimary competition. This does not mean we have to delete specificities of each paradigm. Indenture, as the explanatory notes firmly develops, state that “Indentured Labour deserves to be studied in a more systematic, scientific and global manner” and develop dialogue, pluralism, sustainable development and peace… We should therefore not divide and compete within our own narratives or other narratives (slavery, diversities…) along divisive lines leading to “killing identities” already rampant on the globe, to quote Amin Maalouf.

We pursued this objective in our own actions. For instance, last year, in Guadeloupe, during the Centenary celebrations of the official abolition of indenture organized by GOPIO, I was honored to represent UNESCO officially. In front of the Memorial of the Indian Indentured in Capesterre, during a solemn ceremony, we echoed UNESCO’s wish to connect histories and memories. Regarding the IILR, we reiterated the necessity to work on the diversity both inside and outside indenture, namely, and to chart a comparative approach of indenture and slavery. This message has been shared among many academics internationally. This vision is in keeping with the philosophy of the routes of UNESCO, expressing a necessity to articulate histories that are economically and socially connected, though divided along lines of exploitation and inhumanity. This vision and methodology was reinstated during the 100th anniversary of the abolition of Indenture in Mauritius in 2017. When Mahen Utchanah, the ex-Energy Minister of Mauritius and organizer of the event, expressed concern that the IIRL was at a standstill, I brought to mind that there is no other way to make it move forward than by connecting with the slave route. Historically, chronologically, as one knows well, the abolitions of slavery paved the way for coolie trade and both have generic traits to be reactivated through what Doudou Diene calls “histoire de longue durée” (History with a deeper chronology”).

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Recently, in may 2018, in the International Festival of Coolitude (IFC), regrouping some 15 thinkers, researchers and academics from diverse geographies, we echoed this same inclusive philosophy. For instance, we linked the History of the first European indentured and the “sugar slaves” of Solomon islands, through the intervention of Emelda Davis and Tristan Franconville. Dr Doudou Diene, the conceptor of the Slave Route of UNESCO and now Head of Human Rights for the United Nations, was our guest of honour. After some 25 years of cultural and intellectual camaraderie, our exchanges were expressed to an international audience. I quote Dr Diene’s conclusive words regarding slavery, “blackbirding” and coolitude: “These acts have been separated by history through inherited racism”. Concluding the IFC works and shared visions, Diene declared: “‘This has been a profoundly scientific and emotional exercise. These people come out of a very terrible, tragic and violent History where all their humanity has been denied and they survived. It means that they fought back not only physically but mentally, spiritually and culturally. So they are the bearers of human values and spiritual values which will transform the present day contemporary societies”. (8).

We believe that this is a promising dimension of our researches and work: articulating both slavery and indenture, as a step stone to envisage more diversities in the human family. Through this articulation, it is apparent that the “silence of archives” we come across through our researches on indenture is not only in the coolie trade but also between indenture and slavery , as a new continent to be explored by artists, thinkers and academics. This is a golden opportunity to uphold to our ancestors the values that they fought for, as brothers and sisters of the ships…

© Dr Khal Torabully

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NOTES

(1)Available online: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001044/104412eo.pdf

(2)“Pour un rapprochement des mémoires”, see: http://www.revues-plurielles.org/php/index.php?nav=revue&no=1&sr=2&no_article=9956

(3) "Bienvenue à Ali Moussa Iye à Maurice : deux sites symboliques exceptionnels à valoriser", http://www.potomitan.info/torabully/aapravasi2.php

(4)« MAURICE : PLUS QU’UNE JUXTAPOSITION, IL NOUS FAUT UN ITINERAIRE DOUBLE D’UNE PASSERELLE ENTRE L’AAPRAVASI GHAT ET LE MORNE » http://www.potomitan.info/torabully/morne_unesco.php

(5)S. and S. Peerthum, “They Came to Mauritian Shores”: The Experiences of Free or Non-Indentured Indian Immigrants in Nineteenth Century Mauritius”, http://www.aapravasighat.org/English/Education/Documents/AGTF%20Newsletter%202013.pdf

(6)“Government of Mauritius (Port   Louis), 31 October 2014, Mauritius: International Indentured Labour Route Project Approved By Unesco” http://allafrica.com/stories/201410311221.html

(7) Idem .(8)Programme and participants on the Facebook page of the IFC:

https://www.facebook.com/Festival-International-De-La-Coolitude-International-Festival-Of-Coolitude-178962292933269/?ref=br_tf And here: http://www.potomitan.info/ki_nov/coolitude_2018.php

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