Girmit, intimacy and sexual violence: indentured women on colonial sugar plantations, c. 1834–1917

ABSTRACT

This essay investigates the sexual violence against Indian indentured women during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on colonial plantations around the world through the lens of intimacy and labour. Beginning in the 1830s, Indian men, women, and children were brought to various overseas plantations by colonial planters under the indenture system, which was designed to fill the labour shortage that resulted from the 1833 abolition of slavery in the British Empire. This essay uses the petitions, depositions and letters of indentured women---available in colonial archives in both their native Indian languages and in English translation---to argue that the violence against women was not only perpetuated by plantation authorities but equally by Indian male indentured workers. The paper identifies two forms of violence on the plantations: colonial violence related to racial hierarchy and control over the subjugated subject and patriarchal violence related to Indian social control and domination. Each type of violence was related to intimacy, i.e. closeness of people on plantations. While colonial violence was enacted through power relations, the Indian male violence was enacted through imposition of the patriarchal norms.

KEYWORDS:

• Indian indentured
• girmitiya
• ‘coolie’
• women
• violence
• intimacy
• plantations

Acknowledgments

I appreciate that Shahid Amin, Radhika Mongia, Neilesh Bose, and Ayushi Varma read and offered feedback on this paper. I am particularly appreciative to the University of Basel’s Brian Ngwenya, Kai Florian Herzog, and Julia Tischler for inviting me to share this research at their workshop on ‘Violence and Intimacy’. I express my gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Parliamentary Papers, Mr Geoghegan’s Report on Coolie Emigration from India, 1874, no. 314: 2; Parliamentary Papers, 1st Session., 1841, no. 45: 194.

2 ibid.

3 See, Ashutosh Kumar, Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

4 See for instance, John Scoble, British Guiana: Facts! Facts! Facts! 28 February. (London: Johnson & Barrett Printers, 1840); Joseph Beaumont, The New Slavery: An Account of the Indian and Chinese Emigrants in British Guiana (London, 1871); Edward Jenkin, The Coolie: His Rights and Wrongs. (New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1871); William Garland Barrett,. Corydon: Many Years a Resident in Jamaica and in British Guiana. (London: Gray and Warren, 1859).

5 See Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour, Overseas, 1830–1920 (London : Oxford University Press, 1974).

6 Gail Omvedt, ‘Migration in colonial India: The articulation of feudalism and capitalism by the Colonial State’, The Journal of Peasant Studies 7, no. 2 (1980): 185–212, doi: 10.1080/03066158008438100; Clare Anderson, ‘Convicts and Coolies: Rethinking Indentured Labour in the Nineteenth Century’, Slavery and Abolition 30, no. 1 (2009): 93–109.

7 Prabhu Mohapatra. ‘Assam and the West Indies, 1860–1920: Immobilising Plantation Labour’, in Masters, Servants and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562–1955, ed. Douglas Hay and Paul Craven (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Prabhu Mohapatra. ‘Regulating Informality: Legal Construction of Labour Relations in Colonial India’ in Workers in the Informal Sector Studies in Labour History 1800–2000, ed. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya et al (Delhi: Macmillan, 2001); Michael Anderson. ‘India, 1858–1930: The Illusion of Free Labour’ in Masters, Servants and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562–1955, ed. Douglas Hay and Paul Craven (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

8 J.D. Kelly, ‘From Holi to Diwali in Fiji: An Essay on Ritual and History’, Man (ns), 23 (1988): 40–55; Brij Lal, ‘Hinduism under indenture: Totaram Sanadhya’s account of Fiji’, Journal of Pacific History 30, no. 1 (1995); C. Jayawardena, ‘Religious Belief and Social Change: Aspects of the Development of Hinduism in British Guiana’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8 (1966): 211–40; P.P. Mohapatra, ‘“Following Custom”? Representation of Community among Indian Immigrant Labour in the West Indies, 1880–1920’, IRSH, 51 (2006), Supplement: 173–202.

9 But this was not strictly followed and there was even a pre-designed form to apply for an exemption from this rule. There is a debate over the causes of wife murders and crime on the plantations or whether sexual jealousy was central cause for crime or not. A detailed analysis can be found in Ashutosh Kumar, Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 125–62.

10 Brij V. Lal, Girmitiya: The Origin of Fiji Indian Diaspora, (Suva, 1983, reprint Lautoka: Fiji Institute of Applied Science, 2004); Brij V. Lal, Chalo Jahaji: On A Journey Through Indenture in Fiji, (Canberra: Australian National University, 2000).

11 Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830–1920 (London: Oxford University Press, 1974).

12 There are a significant number of literature available which discuss the plight of women under the indenture system. See, Gauitra Bahadur, Coolie Women: The Odyssey of Indenture (Gurgaon: Hachette India, 2014).

13 P. C. Emmer. ‘The Great Escape: The Migration of Female Indentured Servants from British India to Surinam, 1873–1916’ in Abolition and its Aftermath: The Historical Context 1790–1916, ed. D. Richardson (London: Routledge, 1987), 245–66; David Northrup, Indentured Labour in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

14 Brij V. Lal, Ashutosh Kumar and Yogendra Yadav (ed.), Bhootlen Ki Katha: Girmit Ke Anubhav by Totaram Sanadhya (New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, 2012).

15 Ibid., 98. (originally in Hindi. English translation is mine)

16 Ibid., 98–99.

17 Major D.G. Pitcher Report on his enquiry into the system of recruiting labourers for the colonies & c., Emigration, Government of India, Revenue and Agriculture Department, Emigration, Part A, Proceedings No. 1–12, February 1883; Major Pitcher and Mr. Grierson’s Enquiry into Emigration, Government of India, Revenue and Agriculture Department, Emigration, Part A, Proceedings No. 9–15, August 1883.

18 C.F. Andrews and W.W. Pearson, Report on Indentured Labour in Fiji: An Independent Enquiry. (Allahabad, 1916), 12.

19 Emigration Act 1864 had made 100:40 men and women ratio mandatory for ship carrying indentured workers from India.

20 An able-bodied man was entitled to a wage of one shilling or ten anna; however, a woman was entitled to receive only 9 pence or seven anna. See, Government of India, Revenue and Agricultural Department, Emigration, Progs A, No. 36–38, July 1883.

21 Major Pitcher and Mr. Grierson’s Enquiry into Emigration, Government of India, Revenue and Agriculture Department, Emigration, Part A, Proceedings No. 9–15, August 1883, para 138, p.32.

22 Rhoda Reddock, ‘Freedom Denied: Indian Women and Indentureship in Trinidad and Tobago, 1845–1917’, Economic and Political Weekly 20, no. (43) (1985): 79–87.

23 Jo Beall. ‘Women under Indenture in Natal’ in Essays on Indentured Indians in Natal, ed. Surendra Bhana (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 1988), 9.

24 Jo Beall. ‘Women under Indenture in Natal’ in Essays on Indentured Indians in Natal, ed. Surendra Bhana (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 1988), 9. See also Jo Beall, ‘Women under Natal, 1860–1911’ in Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, ed. C. Walker (Cape Town: David Phillip, 1990), 146–67; Jo Beall and M.D. North-Coombes, ‘The 1913 Disturbances in Natal: The Social and Economic Background to ‘Passive Resistance’’, Journal of Natal and Zulu History 6, no. 1 (1983): 48–81.

25 Maureen Swan. ‘Indentured Indians: Accommodation and Resistance, 1890–1913’, in Essays on Indentured Indians in Natal, ed. Surendra Bhana (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 1988), 121.

26 Marina Carter, Lakshmi's Legacy: The Testimonies of Indian Women in 19th Century Mauritius, (Mauritius: Editions de l’Ocean Indien, 1994); Marina Carter, Women and Indenture: Experiences of Indian Labour Migrants (London: Pink Pigeon Press, 2012).

27 Walter Gill was an Australian white overseer on the sugar plantations of Fiji hired by the Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR) in early twentieth century. He wrote a memoir entitled Turn North-East at the Tombstone of his overseership on the plantations of Fiji where he has described in detail about the Indian indentured women. This is among the few rare sources which shows that how plantation authorities thought and perceived about the indentured labourers.

28 Walter Gill, Turn North-East at the Tombstone (Rigby Limited, 1970).

29 Walter Gill, Turn North-East at the Tombstone, op.cit.

30 Revathi Krishnaswamy, Effeminism: The Economy of Colonial Desire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011), 1.

31 Andrews and Pearson, Indian Indenture Labour in Fiji: An Independent Enquiry (Allahabad, 1916, Appendix 6).

32 See Resolutions by Gopal Krishna Gokhale to end the indenture system Proceedings of the Council of the Governor General of India, Legislative Department, February 1910; Proceedings of the Council of the Governor General of India, Legislative Department, March 1912; Government of India, Commerce & Industry, Emigration, A Progs. Nos. 8, July 1916, Resolution by the Hon’ble Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Regarding the Abolition on the System of Indian Indentured Labour.

33 The Bombay Chronicle, 29 October 1915 cited in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Volume 15: (New Delhi: Publication Division, Government of India, 1999), 56–57.

34 Look for the detailed analysis on the subject, Ashutosh Kumar, Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 205–40.

35 See, Prinisha Badassy, ‘A Diabolical Conspiracy: The life and world of Henry Louis Paul (1862–1935)’, Journal of Natal and Zulu History 21, no. 1 (2003): .42.

36 See, Resolution of Governor of Surinam, dated 1st July 1904, no. 852, Agent General of Surinam, Immigration Department, 1853–1914, Inventory No. 582.

37 John D. Kelly, A Politics of Virtue: Hinduism, Sexuality and Countercolonial Discourse in Fiji (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

38 Marina Carter, Voices from Indenture: Experiences of Indian Migrants in the British Empire (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), 7.

39 Government of India, Revenue and Agricultural Department, Emigration, Progs A, No. 4, August 1883.

40 Indian Immigration Registers, Vol. 5/5, Statements and Complaints, 1874–1916, Letter No. 22, Natal Archives Depot [hearafter NAD], Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

41 There is significant literature available on the question of marriages among indentured in South Africa. Plantation regime validated only those marriages which were register in the office of magistrate. This new rule became one of the disputed points between woman and indentured labourer and the court. In his Satyagraha campaign M.K. Gandhi made a significant issue of validation of marriages perform with Indian rituals.

42 Indian Immigration Registers, Vol. 5/5, Statements and Complaints, 1874–1916, Letter No. 97, NAD, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

43 See, Jo Beall. ‘Women under Natal, 1860–1911’ in Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, ed. C. Walker (Cape Town: David Phillip, 1990), 146–67.

44 Indian Immigration Registers, Vol. 5/5, Statements and Complaints, 1874–1916, Letter No. 32, NAD, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

45 Indian Immigration Registers, Vol. 5/5, Statements and Complaints, 1874–1916, Letter No. 98, NAD, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

46 Although there also have been instances of women who exploited their scarcity value by cohabiting with more men and getting benefits of less work or jewelleries.

47 Indian Immigration Registers, Vol. 5/5, Statements and Complaints, 1874–1916, Letter No. 7, NAD, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

48 Colonial Secretary Office Minute Papers [hearafter CSOMP] 848/1903, National Archives of Fiji [hearafter NAF].

49 Records of Indian Immigration Department, Minutes Paper [hereafter RIID, MP], 1/77, 101/1895, NAD.

50 RIID, MP, 1/97, 686/1900 NAD.

51 RIID, MP, 1/77, 112/1895 NAD.

52 Dipesh Chakravarty, ‘On Deifying and Defying Authority: Managers and Workers in the Jute Mills of Bengal, circa 1890–1940’, Past and Present 100, no. 1 (1983): 124–46.

53 See, Brij V. Lal, Ashutosh Kumar and Yogendra Yadav (ed.), Bhootlen Ki Katha: Girmit Ke Anubhav by Totaram Sanadhya (New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, 2012), 102.

54 Cited in Jo Beall, Women Under Indenture in Natal (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), 109.

55 Kalpana Hiralal. ‘“Rebellious Sisters”: Indentured Women and Resistance’, in Colonial Natal in Resistance and Indian Indenture Experience, ed. Maurits Hassankhan et. al (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2014) 259.

56 Ibid., 260.

57 Kalpana Hiralal. ‘“Rebellious Sisters”: Indentured Women and Resistance’, in Colonial Natal in Resistance and Indian Indenture Experience, ed. Maurits Hassankhan et. al (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2014) 243.

58 Wragg Commission report cited in Y. S. Meer ed., Documents of Indentured Labour: Natal 1851–1917 (Durban: Institute of Black Research, 1980), 288.

59 Brij V. Lal, ‘Veil of Dishonour: Sexual Jealousy and Suicide on Fiji Plantations’, Journal of Pacific History 20, no. 3 (July 1985): 142.

60 Colonial Secretary Office Minute Papers [hearafter CSOMP], 10385/14, National Archives of Fiji [hearafter NAF].

61 Annual Reports on Indian Immigration to Fiji, Department of Immigration, Suva, Fiji, 1909, p. 19.

62 C.F. Andrews and W.W. Pearson, Report on Indentured Labour in Fiji: An Independent Enquiry (Allahabad, 1916), 19.

63 CSOMP 10385/14, Ibid., reply of Agent General, NAF.

64 Samita Sen. ‘Unsettling the Household: Act VI (of 1901) and the Regulation of Women Migrants in Colonial Bengal’, in “Peripheral” Labour? Studies in the History of Partial Proletarianisation, ed. Shahid Amin and Marcel van der Linden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 135–56.

65 Ibid.

66 PA 43 Petition of Lutchmee, 27 October 1880, National Archives of Mauritius (hearafter NAM).

67 PA 43 Petition of Reshmee, 23 April1880, NAM.

68 Marina Carter, Voices from Indenture: Experiences of Indian Migrants in the British Empire (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), 146.

69 Ibid.

70 See Ashutosh Kumar, ‘Anti-Indentured Bhojpuri Folk Songs and Poem from Northern India’, Man in India: An International Journal of Anthropology93, no. 4 (2013): 517–18; Ashutosh Kumar, ‘Songs of Abolition: Anti-Indentured Campaign in Early Twentieth Century India’, in Indian Diaspora: Socio-Cultural and Religious World, ed. P. Pratap Kumar (Leiden: Brill, 2016): 38–51.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Incentive Grant under the IoE Scheme of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi under grant number R/Dev/D/IoE/Incentive/2022-23/47826

Notes on contributors

Ashutosh Kumar

Ashutosh Kumar is Associate Professor of History at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He is the author and editor of many books, including Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Girmitiyas and Global Indian Diaspora: Origins, Memories and Identities, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).