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From Hell to Paradise? Voluntary Transfer of Convicts to the Andaman Islands, 1921–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

TAYLOR C. SHERMAN
TAYLOR C. SHERMAN*
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway University of London E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The paper attempts to understand the challenges and opportunities which the penal settlement at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands presented to colonial governments in twentieth-century India. To this end, the paper examines a scheme drawn up in the 1920s which saw the introduction of a much more liberal regime for convicts in Port Blair. Under these plans, convicts were granted access to land and encouraged to bring their families from the mainland. This research reveals that the policies which determined the history of the settlement in this period were defined by two tensions. First, there was a constant battle between the central authorities and provincial governments over the shape and purposes of the settlement. Second, there was a contradiction between the penal objectives of the colony and the larger strategies which aimed to develop the islands for the greater British empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , March 2009 , pp. 367 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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