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‘Innocent’ Victims/‘Guilty’ Migrants: Hindi public sphere, caste and indentured women in colonial North India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2015

CHARU GUPTA
CHARU GUPTA*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi, India Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article analyses representations of the indentured woman in the Hindi print-public sphere of colonial north India in the early twentieth century. There have been sophisticated studies on the condition of Indian women in the plantation colonies of the British Empire, this article focuses instead on the vernacular world within India, showing how the transnational movements of these women emigrants led to animated discussions, in which they came to be constructed as both innocent victims and guilty migrants, insiders and outsiders. The ways in which these mobile women came to be represented reveal significant intersections between nation, gender, caste, sexuality, and morality. It also demonstrates how middle-class Indian women attempted to establish bonds of diasporic sisterhood with low-caste indentured women, bonds that were also deeply hierarchical. In addition, the article attempts to grasp the subjective experiences of Dalit migrant, and potentially migrant, women themselves, and illustrates their ambivalences of identity in particularly gendered ways.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 5 , September 2015 , pp. 1345 - 1377
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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9 Satyanarayana, ‘“Birds of Passage”’, p. 90.

10 Marina Carter, ‘Strategies of Labour Mobilization in Colonial India’ in Daniel et al. (eds), Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants, p. 122.

11 Kapur, Ratna, Makeshift Migrants and Law: Gender, Belonging, and Postcolonial Anxieties, Routledge, New Delhi, 2010Google Scholar.

12 Agnes, Flavia, ‘The Bar Dancer and the Trafficked Migrant: Globalisation and Subaltern Existence’ in Basu, Sibaji Pratim (ed.), The Fleeing People of South Asia: Selections from Refugee Watch, Anthem Press, New Delhi, 2008, pp. 355–66Google Scholar. Also see Kempadoo, Kamala, Sanghera, Jyoti, and Pattanaik, Bandana (eds), Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, 2005Google Scholar.

13 Sharma, Nandita, ‘Travel Agency: A Critique of Anti-Trafficking Campaigns’, Refuge, 21 (3), May 2003, pp. 53–65Google Scholar. Also see, Andrijasevic, Rutvica, ‘The Difference Borders Make: (Il)legality, Migration and Trafficking in Italy among Eastern European Women in Prostitution’ in Ahmed, Sara, Castaneda, Claudia, Fortier, Anne-Marie, and Sheller, Mimi (eds), Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, Berg, Oxford, 2003, pp. 251–70Google Scholar.

14 Menon, Dilip M., The Blindness of Insight: Essays on Caste in Modern India, Navayana, Pondicherry, 2006, pp. 110–42Google Scholar.

15 Chandra Bhan Prasad and Milind Kamble, ‘To Empower Dalits, Do Away with India's Antiquated Retail Trading System’, The Times of India, 5 December 2012.

16 By 1911, for example, there were 112,940 Indians in Trinidad and 40,438 in Fiji. File 478/1914, Industries Dept, Uttar Pradesh State Archives, Lucknow (henceforth UPSA).

17 Brij V. Lal, Girmityas: The Origins of Fiji Indians, Journal of Pacific History, 1983; idem, Chalo Jahaji: A Journey through Indenture in Fiji, Suva Museum, Canberra, 2001; Kelly, John D., A Politics of Virtue: Hinduism, Sexuality, and Countercolonial Discourse in Fiji, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991, p. 1Google Scholar.

18 File 478/1914, Industries Dept, UPSA; File 68/4–6/September 1873, General Dept (Emigration), UPSA; File 9/October 1873, Agriculture, Revenue & Commerce Dept (Emigration), UPSA; William, L. F. Rushbrook, India of Today, Vol. 5, Indian Emigration by Emigrants, Oxford University Press, London, 1924, p. 11Google Scholar.

19 File 478/1914, Industries Dept, UPSA; Lal, Chalo Jahaji, p. 100.

20 Lal, Girmitiyas; Lal, Chalo Jahaji, pp. 106–7.

21 Ghosh, Kaushik, ‘A Market for Aboriginality: Primitivism and Race Classification in the Indentured Labour Market of Colonial India’ in Bhadra, Gautum, Prakash, Gyan, and Tharu, Susie (eds), Subaltern Studies X: Writings on South Asian History and Society, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1999, pp. 8–48Google Scholar.

22 For example, for Fiji alone, 6,415 recruits came from Basti, 3,589 from Gonda, 2,329 from Faizabad, 1,747 from Sultanpur, 1,716 from Azamgarh, and 1,683 from Gorakhpur. Similarly, the largest number of labourers going to Trinidad and British Guiana between 1875 and 1915, too, came from eastern United Provinces and Bihar, File 81/1908, Industries Dept, UPSA. Also see, Laurence, K. P., A Question of Labour: Indentured Immigration into Trinidad and British Guiana 1875–1915, James Curry, London, 1994, pp. 107–8Google Scholar.

23 Whitcombe, Elizabeth, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India. Vol. 1: The United Provinces under British Rule, 1860–1900, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1972Google Scholar.

24 Thomas, Timonthy N., Indian Overseas: A Guide to Source Materials in the India Office Records for the Study of Indian Emigration 1830–1950, British Library (BL), London, 1985, p. 1Google Scholar.

25 Grierson, George A., Report on Colonial Emigration from the Bengal Presidency, 25 February 1883, Calcutta, pp. 30–32Google Scholar. This report is available at V/27/820/35, Asian and African Collections, BL, and 9–15/August 1883, Emigration, A, Revenue and Agricultural Dept, National Archives of India, Delhi (NAI). Also see, 1–12/February 1883, Emigration, A, Revenue and Agricultural Dept, NAI [Major D. G. Pitcher Report on Result of his Enquiry into the System of Recruiting Labourers for the Colonies].

26 It was reported that often men migrated without the knowledge of their family. Economic pressures, low social status, and family bickering were stated to be reasons leading men to leave their homes. The wives were often left behind to fend for themselves and their families. File 344/1923, Box 256, Industries Dept, UPSA.

27 This position has been effectively critiqued by many scholars. See, for example, Carter, Lakshmi's Legacy, p. 1; Thapan (ed.), Transnational Migration, pp. 11–12.

28 Rhoda Reddock, ‘The Indentured Experience: Indian Women in Trinidad and Tobago, 1845–1917’; Verene A. Shepherd, ‘Indian Migrant Women and Plantation Labour in Nineteenth and Twentieth-century Jamaica: Gender Perspectives’, both in Jain and Reddock (eds), Women Plantation Workers, pp. 29–48 and 89–106 respectively; Kale, Madhavi, Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Labor Migration in the British Caribbean, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1998, p. 141Google Scholar. Brij Lal points out that of the total number of women who emigrated to Fiji, 63.9 per cent went as single women. Lal, ‘Kunti's Cry’, pp. 57–58. Also see, Sanadhya, Totaram, Bhootlane ki Katha: Girmit ke Anubhav [Story of Bhootlane: Experiences of Indenture], Lal, Brij. V., Kumar, Ashutosh, and Yadav, Yogendra (eds), Rajkamal, New Delhi, 2012, p. 97Google Scholar.

29 This, however, does not appear to be the case in Mauritius, where married women migrated mostly with their families and in groups. See Carter, Lakshmi's Legacy, pp. 34–39.

30 Kale, Fragments of Empire, p. 161.

31 Reddock, Rhoda, Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago: A History, Zed Books, London, 1994Google Scholar.

32 Samita Sen, ‘“Without His Consent?”: Marriage and Women's Migration in Colonial India’ International Labor and Working-Class History, 65, Spring 2004, pp. 77–104.

33 File 81/1908, Industries Dept, UPSA.

34 File 73/1917, Box 49, Industries Dept, UPSA.

35 File 344/1923, Box 256, Industries Dept, UPSA.

36 For example, the collectors of Balia, Benaras, and Ghazipur stated that educated opinion in their districts was more or less against emigration. It was reported that strong feelings of racial hatred were being created on this question in Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, and Benaras particularly. File 344/1923, Box 256, Industries Dept, UPSA; File 478/1914, Industries Dept, UPSA; 1–9/July 1922, A, Legislative Dept, NAI.

37 For details on why it entered into nationalist claims in this period only, see Ashutosh Kumar, ‘Indentured Migration from Northern India, c. 1830–1920: Historiography, Experience, Representation’, unpublished PhD Thesis, Department of History, University of Delhi, 2012.

38 Leader, 3, 14 and 26 October 1923.

39 On 25 February 1910, Gokhale moved a resolution in the Legislative Council for a ban on the recruitment of indentured labour to Natal: Proceedings of Legislative Department, 3 March 1910, Calcutta, pp. 239–85. Amid various arguments given by him to support this move, he stated that ‘it has broken up families, it has driven men to crime and it has driven women to a life of shame’.

40 Gopal Krishna Gokhale, ‘Indentured Labour’, Government of India Legislative Proceedings, 4 March 1912, Delhi, pp. 363–97. For a detailed analysis of Gokhale's speech, see Kale, Fragments of Empire, pp. 167–71, and Kumar, ‘Indentured Migration from Northern India’. I draw this paragraph largely from these works. Also see File 478/1914, Industries Dept, UPSA.

41 Gokhale, ‘Indentured Labour’, p. 368.

42 Andrews, C. F. and Pearson, W. W., Report on Indentured Labour in Fiji: An Independent Enquiry, Star Printing, Calcutta, 1916Google Scholar; idem, India and the Pacific, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1937.

43 Report of Andrews' Speech to the Planters’ Association Executive Committee, Fiji, 7 December 1915, reprinted in Lal, Brij. V. (ed.), Crossing the Kala Pani: A Documentary History of Indian Indenture in Fiji, Division of Pacific and Asian History, Canberra, 1998, pp. 147–49Google Scholar.

44 Memorandum on indenture by C. F. Andrews, 9 December 1915, Suva, Fiji, reprinted in Lal (ed.), Crossing the Kala Pani, pp. 158–60.

45 Burton, J. W., Fiji of Today, C. H. Kelly, London, 1910Google Scholar.

46 It is also important to note that by the early twentieth century, indenture had begun to outlive its purpose as the growing number of indentured migrants who chose to settle rather than return home had equipped the plantations with an adequate labour force. This, combined with a persistent lobbying of the British Indian business community and provisional governments, brought indentured migration to an end, handing in the process an apparent victory to Indian intelligentsia and nationalists.

47 For perceptive analysis of Kunti's case, see Lal, ‘Kunti's Cry’; Kelly, Politics of Virtue, pp. 45–65. Also see Prasad, Tears in Paradise, pp. 48–49; Totaram Sanadhya, Fiji Dwip Mein Mere Ikkis Varsh [My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands], Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi, Varanasi, 1973, 4th edition, pp. 13–14. [originally published in 1914 by Rajput Anglo-Oriental Press, Agra].

48 Bharat Mitra, 8 May 1914; Also see Leader, 10 April 1913 and 13 August 1913. Letters have been regarded as particularly meaningful in transnational migrant histories, as they are seen as providing an unmediated voice of the ordinary immigrant in her/his own words, which expresses the epic drama of migration. See Elliot, Bruce S., Gerber, David A., and Shinke, Suzanne M. (eds), Letter Across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants, Palgrave, New York, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Sanadhya, Fiji Dwip. I am not going into this text in this article, as it has been recently analysed comprehensively and dynamically by Mrinalini Sinha: ‘Totaram Sanadhya's Mere Fiji Dwip me Ikkis Varsh and the Second Abolition’, lecture at University of Maryland, Baltimore, 4 April 2012: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMDS6iM8oWE, [accessed 14 November 2014].

50 Sanadhya, Fiji Dwip. Also see Sanadhya, Bhootlane ki Katha.

51 Sinha sees writings of Sanadhya as signifying a rights discourse. However, others have argued that since the book was penned by Chaturvedi, his nationalist thought left its strong imprint on the work. See Sanadhya, Bhootlane ki Katha, introduction by editors, p. 12.

52 For example, see the Hindi translation of Reverend C. F. Andrews' English contribution to the Modern Review: C. F. Andrews, Fiji Mein Bhartiya Mazdoor [Indian Workers in Fiji], ‘Ek Bhartiya Hridya’ [An Indian Heart], Bharatbandhu Karyalaya, Hathras, 1918, pp. 1–35. The weekly Hindi newspaper Bharat Bandhu serialized Andrews' writings. See Bharat Bandhu, 30 July 1918.

53 For further details on Stri Darpan, see Nijhawan, Shobna, Women and Girls in the Hindi Public Sphere: Periodical Literature in Colonial North India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2012, pp. 36–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mohan, K., ‘Fashioning Minds and Images: A Case Study of Stree Darpan (1909–1928)’ in Basu, Aparna and Taneja, Anup (eds), Breaking Out of Invisibility: Women in Indian History, Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, pp. 232–71Google Scholar.

54 See for example, Andrews, C. F., ‘Kuli Pratha’ [Coolie Custom], Stri Darpan, 16 (2), February 1917, pp. 63–64, 100–5Google Scholar; Nehru, Nandrani, Editorial: ‘Striyan aur Bharti’ [Women and Recruitment], Stri Darpan, 16 (3), March 1917, pp. 114–17, 152–60Google Scholar; R. Nehru, Editorial: ‘Striyan aur Bharti’, Stri Darpan, April 1917, pp. 168–69; R. Nehru, Editorial: ‘The Women's Deputation’, Stri Darpan, April 1917, p. 170; Editorial: ‘The Response of the Viceroy’ [reprinted from Abhyudaya], April 1917, p. 171; Uma Nehru, ‘Striyan aur Bharti’, Stri Darpan, April 1917, pp. 200–202; Editorial: ‘Upniveshon Mein Hindustani’ [Indians in Colonies], Stri Darpan, March 1920, pp. 174–75.

55 ‘Kuli Pratha’, Stri Darpan.

56 Gajpuri, Mannan Dwivedi, Ramlal: Gramin Jivan Ka Ek Samajik Upanyas [Ramlal: A Social Novel on the Rural Life], Indian Press, Prayag, 1917, pp. 112–13Google Scholar.

57 Premchand, ‘Shudraa’, Mansarovar, Vol. 2, Saraswati Press, Allahabad, 1984, pp. 338–60Google Scholar.

58 For further details on the work done by Banarsidas Chaturvedi against indenture, see Chaturvedi, Banarsidas, Samay ke Darpan Mein [In the Mirror of Time], Aakashwani, New Delhi, 1993, pp. 21–30Google Scholar; Chaturvedi, Banarsidas, Nabbe Varsh [Ninety Years], National Publishing House, New Delhi, 1981, pp. 55–56Google Scholar; Jain, Yashpal, Shraddhanjali: Svargiya Banarsidas Chaturvedi ke Mahan Vyaktitva aur Kritiva ka Sansmaran [Homage: Remembering the Great Personality and Work of Late Banarsidas Chaturvedi], Yashpal Jai Abhinandan Samaroh Samiti, New Delhi, 1986, pp. 53–59Google Scholar.

59 Maithilisaran Gupt Granthavali, Vol. 2, Krishnadutt Paliwal (ed.), Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2008, pp. 94–95 [originally published in Maithilisaran Gupt, Kisan, Sahitya Sadan, Jhansi, 1916].

60 Jyoti Prasad Mishra ‘Nirmal’, ‘Pravasini Baala’, Chand, January 1926, p. 253.

61 Arvind Prasad Srivastava, ‘Pravasini Bharatvasini’, Chand, January 1926, pp. 451–53.

62 Chaturvedi Ramchandra Sharma Vidyarthi ‘Visharad’, ‘Kuli Line Mein Pravasi Behnen’ [Emigrant Sisters in Coolie Lines], Chand, January 1926, p. 282.

63 Zahur Baksh, ‘Main Patit Kaise Hui: Ek Satya Ghatna Par Aadharit’ [How I Was Degraded: Based on a True Incident], Chand, January 1926, pp. 273–88.

64 J. P. Chaturvedi, Fiji Mein Pravasi Bhartiye [Overseas Indians in Fiji], Bhartiya Sanskritik Sambandhi Parishad, 1985.

65 Maithilisaran Gupt Granthavali, Vol. 2, pp. 94–95.

66 Lal (ed.), Crossing the Kala Pani.

67 Badri Narayan, Lok Sanskriti Mein Rashtravad [Nationalism in Popular Culture], Radhakrishna, Delhi, 1990; Menon, Blindness of Insight.

68 Kolff, Dirk, Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan 1450–1950, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990Google Scholar.

69 Lal, Chalo Jahaji, pp. 114–116.

70 Bharat Mitra, 8 May 1914.

71 Leader, 13 August 1913; Bharat Mitra, 8 May 1914; Lal, ‘Kunti's Cry’.

72 Kelly, Politics of Virtue, pp. 49–53.

73 Baba Ramchandra Private Papers, File 2A, Notebook 2, p. 10, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi. Also see his Notebook 1, p. 19. For further analysis of his writings on indenture, see Ashutosh Kumar, ‘Indentured Migrants from Northern India c. 1880–1917: With Special Reference to Official Reports and Contemporary Writings’, unpublished MPhil thesis, Department of History, University of Delhi, 2008.

74 Srivastava, ‘Pravasini Bharatvasini’, pp. 451–53.

75 Maithilisaran Gupt Granthavali, Vol. 2, pp. 94–95.

76 ‘Visharad’, ‘Kuli Line Mein Pravasi Behnen’, p. 282.

77 I draw these arguments from the influential and powerful work of Brown, Wendy, State of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995Google Scholar. Also see Antoinette Burton, ‘States of Injury: Josephine Butler on Slavery, Citizenship, and the Boer War’, Social Politics, Fall 1998, pp. 338–61.

78 Gillon, K. L., Fiji's Indian Migrants: A History to the End of Indenture in 1920, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1962, p. 182Google Scholar; Sarojini Naidu, Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, G. A. Natesan and Co., Madras, 1924. Also see Nijhawan, Shobna, ‘Fallen Through the Nationalist and Feminist Grids of Analysis: Political Campaigning of Indian Women against Indentured Labour Emigration’ Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 21 (1), 2014, pp. 111–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 Quoted in Tinker, A New System of Slavery, p. 353.

80 The argument is influenced by Dozema, J., ‘Ouch! Western Feminists’ “Wounded Attachments” to the “Third World Prostitute”’, Feminist Review, 67, 2001, pp. 16–38Google Scholar. She uses the idea of ‘injured identities’, as floated by Wendy Brown, to argue that the desire of Western feminists to protect the injured identities of Third World prostitutes leads to collusion with, and intensification of disciplinary regimes of power. A somewhat similar process can be witnessed in the discourses of Indian women reformers regarding the indentured women. Also see Andrijasevic, ‘The Difference Borders Make’.

81 Maithilisaran Gupt Granthavali, Vol. 2, Krishnadutt Paliwal (ed.), Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2008, pp. 94–95 [originally published in 1916].

82 ‘Visharad’, ‘Kuli Line Mein Pravasi Behnen’, p. 282.

83 Nehru, ‘Striyan aur Bharti’, pp. 156–59.

84 Ibid.

85 Carter, Marina, Servants, Sardars and Settlers: Indians in Mauritius, 1834–74, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995, p. 2Google Scholar.

86 Lal, Chalo Jahaji, p. 229.

87 File 344/1923, Box 256, Industries Dept, UPSA.

88 Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration, p. 30.

89 Srivastava, ‘Pravasini Bharatvasini’, pp. 451–53.

90 For example, Singaria, a tribal woman, migrated to Assam as an indentured labourer largely to escape social and patriarchal exploitation and physical coercion at home. For details see Bates, Crispin and Carter, Marina, ‘Tribal and Indentured Migrants in Colonial India: Modes of Recruitment and Forms of Incorporation’ in Robb, Peter (ed.), Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1993, pp. 159–85Google Scholar.

91 Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration, pp. 30–32.

92 1–12/February 1883, Emigration, A, Revenue and Agricultural Dept, NAI.

93 Editorial, ‘Upniveshon mein Hindustani’, Stri Darpan, p. 175.

94 Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration, p. 31; J. Geoghegan, Note on Emigration from India, BL, Calcutta, 1873, BL; Comins, D. W. D., Note on the Abolition of Return Passages to East Indian Immigrants from the Colonies of Trinidad and Tobago, Bengal Secretariat Press Calcutta, 1892Google Scholar; File 478/1914, Industries Dept, UPSA.

95 Faruqee, Ashrufa, ‘Conceiving the Coolie Woman: Indentured Labour, Indian Women and Colonial Discourse’, South Asia Research, 16 (1), 1996, pp. 61–76Google Scholar.

96 Kelly, Politics of Virtue, p. 35.

97 File 478/1914, Industries Dept, UPSA.

98 Bavin, Cyril, ‘The Indian in Fiji’ in Colwell, James (ed.), A Century in the Pacific, Methodist Book Room, Sydney, 1914, pp. 182, 193; 104/August 1916Google Scholar, Sl. No. 5, C&I, Emigration, NAI; Kelly, Politics of Virtue, pp. 58–59.

99 Sen, ‘“Without His Consent?”’.

100 File 478/1914, Industries Dept, UPSA.

101 Sen, ‘“Without His Consent?”’, p. 79.

102 File 81/1908, Industries Dept, UPSA.

103 File 81/1908, Industries Dept, UPSA.

104 ‘Difficulties alleged to have arisen in the registration of intending emigrants in the NWP’, L/PJ/6/6/265, BL.

105 File 81/1908, Industries Dept, UPSA.

106 L/PJ/6/6/265, BL.

107 L/PJ/6/6/265, BL.

108 Lal, Chalo Jahaji, p. 108.

109 Lal, Chalo Jahaji, p. 131.

110 Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration, p. 30.

111 Srivastava, ‘Pravasini Bharatvasini’, pp. 451–53.

112 Amin, Shahid, A Concise Encyclopedia of North Indian Peasant Life, Manohar, Delhi, 2005, pp. 47–48Google Scholar.

113 Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration, p. 31.

114 Prasad, Tears in Paradise, p. 15.

115 L/PJ/6/6/265, BL.

116 Lal, Brij V., ‘Girmit, History, Memory’ in Lal, Brij V. (ed.), Bittersweet: The Indo-Fijian Experience, Pandanus Books, Canberra, 2004, pp. 14–15Google Scholar.