Abstract: Indian diaspora as we understand
explores the experiences, lives of people of Indian origin who live outside
India and in literature it focuses on the themes of cultural exchange, identity,
diversity and the various challenges faced by migrants across generations. Many
often conceive Indian diaspora with the images of a sophisticated life in a
foreign land. Many individuals were not cognizant of the fact that before the
rise of the Modern Indian diaspora, there was a notable movement of Indians to
European colonies, which is recognized as the Indenture Indian Diaspora. This
was a new form of bondage that shattered the happiness of the people with low
incomes. The number of people transported to the British colonies was more than
twenty lakhs from the year 1837 to 1920. These people lived with a sense of
trauma and their memory is haunted by the torturing everyday life. They
experienced cruelty at the hands of the Britishers like the false promises of
return to India but actually they faced kidnapping, a journey that continued for
more than three months on a lonely sea without proper food, more than eighteen
hours of work at the plantation, harsh punishments, and sexual violence at the
hands of their masters. The paper aims at presenting the trauma, sufferings and
pain experienced by innocent Indian labourers in an alien nation by using
autobiographies, biographies, historical records and testimonials.
Keywords: Diaspora, Kala Pani, Trauma, Culture,
Imaginary Home.
The concept diaspora was one of the
buzzwords of the 1990s and after globalization it has emerged as a fascinating
word. Since the 1960’s almost all the migrations happened for economic growth or
educational pursuits. Before the 1960s the word diaspora was used to denote
specific, ethnic communities with negative meaning. It denoted loneliness, no
connection with the roots, discrimination and marginalization. Vijay Mishra, a
great diasporic scholar believes that the Indian diaspora evolved in two
distinct periods- The first one he calls as Sugarcane Diaspora which involved
indentured labourers in the colonies for plantation purposes. The second one is
the ‘Masala Diaspora’ which involves migrants and refugees for education and
economic upliftment. The paper aims to shed light on the indenture diaspora and
how the pain borne by the innocent Indian labourers on an everyday basis. In
1834, William Gladstone, a British Liberal Party member, came with a new labour
supply system which transported coolies from the hills from Bengal to Mauritius
to take care of his plantation. From the 1830s until the early twentieth
century, the vast majority of the millions of voyages covering long distances by
Indians were not by convicted transportees or reluctant sepoys- they were sea
journeys taken by contract labourers. Geoghegan’s (1874) report on colonial
emigration stressed that the bulk of immediate post- mutiny emigrants crossed
the kala pani to Mauritius to avoid a compulsory sea trip to Port Blair. While
many British Indian officials like Geoghegan viewed migration as a means of
solving India’s overpopulation and immiseration, others sided with local
landowners and businessmen who were concerned about the transfer of bonded and
cheap sources of labour to colonial enterprises. Regarding the system of
indenture, the British claimed it was beneficial for the Indians as most of them
suffered due to famine and other economic crisis.
The process for recruiting the labourers
had lawful steps. The recruiters appointed Indian labourers as indentures by
telling the reality of the work, journey, location etc. Nevertheless, these
rules appeared simply on papers as the greedy recruiters appointed local people
called arkatis or arkatia as in charge of getting more indentured labourers. The
arkatis are described as merciless, selfish and betrayed the ignorant villagers
by portraying a fake picture and many false promises about their salary and
other perks. They exercised four techniques to lure the labourers such as
showing them economic gains, attracting men through beautiful women. The
homesickness and loneliness make the journey a never ending one haunted by
trauma. The calmness of the sea and the doubt about returning to the home
country left many of the labourers lose confidence resulting in the suicide of
many. Moreover, the poor maintenance of the ship, more passengers than that of
the allotted number on the ship, poor quality and no proper arrangement of food
affected the health of these people adversely. Once the labourers landed in the
colonies, people from the plantations selected the labourers and moved them to
the respective colonies. In the plantation fields, indentured labourers were
given demanding tasks that required them to work for over fourteen hours. They
were also denied wages if they were accused of not completing their assignments.
If an indentured worker was absent or refused to work, they could face fines or
imprisonment. The entire system of indenture was designed to benefit plantation
owners by extracting money and instilling fear in the labourers through fines,
taxes, and punishments. Most of the time, the Indian labourers were blamed as
lazy and criticised that they dwell in idleness without active works in the
field. The practice of the system of slavery left the planters to implement the
same treatment upon the indentures. The British plantation owners wanted to
prolong the stay of the indentured labourers at any cost. They believed that
increasing the women’s indentures in the colonies may increase chances of
establishing families, which paved the way for permanent settlements in the
colonies. The plantation community charged the indentured women with immorality
and claimed they were compromising the nation's cultural values and traditions.
They were blamed for the death of the children in the fields and for lack of
interest in bearing children due to the absence of motherly instinct. In spite
of providing relief and care for the health of the young mothers, plantation
authorities pressurized the indentured to work in the field immediately. With no
one to care for the newborn babies, the young mothers work on the field by tying
the babies on their backs under the hot sun. Most of those children were
malnourished and they died.
The trauma of indentured servitude
extended beyond physical suffering; it involved the obliteration of cultural
identity. Labourers were thrust into an environment that was completely
unfamiliar, with different plants, a new climate, and unfamiliar social customs.
They were frequently prevented from speaking their native languages or engaging
in their traditional practices. The plantation system sought to erase their
history to shape compliant workers. This erasure led to profound feelings of
alienation, with labourers expressing a sense of dislocation, yearning, and a
loss of identity. The masters in the plantation sexually harassed indentured
women. If the women complained, the authorities on the plantation punished them
by giving them challenging tasks to perform until they accepted it.
Indian women were
occasionally coerced into sexual relations by European planters and these
relationships were rarely sincere. The memories of their native country and most
importantly the friendships they formed in the ship and depot allowed the
indentures to escape their trauma. Once the voyage
from the hometown to the depot started, all the labourers mingled with each
other through their sorrow, the pain of leaving their family, home country and
physical & psychological trauma. Thus, the ship journey created a bond among the
passengers and the bonding is called jahaji bhai (shipmates). This journey
brought them two things: fortitude and brotherhood. Even when the plantation
owners recruited them in different plantations, such friendship continued for
many decades. They would walk many miles to meet their friends in other
plantations. For the indentured labourers, music served as more than mere
entertainment; it was a connection to their heritage. Many hailed from regions
in North India where the folk traditions of the Bhojpuri, Awadhi, and Magahi
communities were prevalent. On the plantations, they sang birha, sohar, chaiti,
alha, and kauth songs, which evoked memories of village life, festivals, rivers,
families, and relationships. These songs allowed migrants to reconnect with a
homeland they believed they would never revisit, acting as a form of emotional
transport. The lyrics often conveyed feelings of longing, sorrow, separation,
and hope. These melodies articulated themes of suffering at sea, betrayal by
arkatis (recruiting agents), and the challenges faced under plantation
overseers. Through their songs, workers expressed their hardships, which were
often omitted from colonial records. Consequently, music became an alternative
archive, preserving history through emotion rather than documentation, fostering
community and a shared identity. Indenture did not preserve Indian culture
unchanged; instead, it transformed it. The interaction with African, European,
Chinese, and Indigenous cultures in the colonies gave rise to new hybrid musical
styles. In Trinidad and Guyana, for instance, Bhojpuri folk music merged with
Caribbean beats to create chutney music, a lively genre that remains popular
today. In Mauritius, geet-gawai became a key element of Indo-Mauritian wedding
traditions, combining North Indian tunes with island influences. Languages also
evolved: Bhojpuri fused with English, Creole, and local dialects to form
linguistic hybrids like Fiji Hindi and Caribbean Hindustani. However, the
emotional essence of the songs—the yearning for home, the memories of rivers and
fields, the sorrow of separation—remained unchanged. The plantation setting was
a mix of different languages and cultures, bringing together Hindus, Muslims,
various caste groups, and individuals from diverse regions. Songs were
instrumental in fostering a sense of collective identity among this varied
population. Group singing helped create unity, enabling migrants to overcome the
caste barriers that had strictly organized life in India. The indentured
followed Hindu festivals such as Satyanarayan Puja, Ramayan Recital, Bhagvada
Katha, Ram Navami and Shiv Ratri to protect and follow their culture. Following
the cultural practices of the homeland, mother tongue, their religious practices
and rituals in the settled land enabled them to construct an imaginary India in
all the colonies they settled. Additionally, the unity among themselves and
cultural bonding enabled them to come out of their pain and create their
identity in the settled land.
The experiences of Indians who crossed
the Kala Pani weave a rich and intricate narrative of trauma, memory, and
resilience. Their time under indenture was characterized by physical violence,
cultural displacement, gender-based abuse, and psychological upheaval. Despite
these hardships, these migrants used memory as a means of survival, turning
their trauma into cultural expression and crafting new identities in unfamiliar
lands. Examining the Kala Pani crossing goes beyond historical analysis; it
acknowledges the emotional and cultural impacts that continue to influence
modern diasporas. Their narratives highlight the significant human toll of
colonialism and the enduring power of memory in reclaiming histories that were
once suppressed.
Songs and folk culture throughout the Kala Pani essentially show how displaced
communities relied on art to survive remember and rebuild. These musical
traditions were more than just artifacts from the past they were potent
manifestations of emotional truth echoes of suffering longing and resiliency
that assisted migrants in making sense of their broken lives. Songs gave them
continuity in a world where exploitation and erasure threatened their identities
by serving as a reminder of their origins. Migrants created a cultural lifeline
in unfamiliar and frequently hostile settings by uniting through shared rhythms
and group singing. Furthermore the persistence of these folk traditions in
modern diasporic societies—from the chutney performances of Trinidad to the
geet-gawai gatherings of Mauritius—shows how music that has been preserved
across oceans can develop into vibrant new cultural forms. This living
continuity highlights the unwavering spirit of the indentured workers who
refused to let their memories fade in the face of unspeakable adversity. They
made sure that future generations would inherit stories of creativity survival
and community in addition to stories of suffering by transporting their cultural
heritage across the dark waters. In the end songs and folk culture became the
essence of the Kala Pani journey turning displacement into identity and trauma
into expression. Through the power of collective memory and cultural expression
communities manage to maintain hope dignity and humanity even in the darkest
historical moments as evidenced by the enduring resonance of their melodies.
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Salma Begum is an
Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Science
and Technology, Meghalaya. Her academic interests span British Literature,
African Literature and Indian Writing in English with a focus on gender studies,
post colonial theory and cultural narratives. She actively engages in research
and teaching, contributing to scholarly discourse through publications, seminars
and academic initiatives.