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The geographic and social origins of Indian indentured

labourers in Mauritius, Natal, Fiji, Guyana and Jamaica
a a a
Lance Brennan , John McDonald & Ralph Shlomowitz
a
The Flinders University of South Australia
Published online: 08 May 2007.

To cite this article: Lance Brennan , John McDonald & Ralph Shlomowitz (1998) The geographic and social origins of Indian
indentured labourers in Mauritius, Natal, Fiji, Guyana and Jamaica, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 21:s1, 39-71,
DOI: 10.1080/00856409808723350

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 South Asia, Vol. XXI, Special Issue (1998), pp. 39-71

THE GEOGRAPHIC AND SOCIAL ORIGINS

OF INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS IN
MAURITIUS, NATAL, FIJI, GUYANA AND
JAMAICA
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Lance Brennan, John McDonald and Ralph Shlomowitz

The Flinders University of South Australia

HIS PAPER ASSUMES THAT PEOPLE DO NOT GO ON LONG - SOMETIMES

T dangerous - voyages to countries with social and economic structures

quite different from those which they have known without one or more
reasons. Some of these reasons may be personal (problems within the family,
perhaps), others may be economic, or even political. Generally we do not
know about the personal reasons - and at this distance in time they are
difficult to discover. However, some idea of their economic and political
reasons can be developed by placing them in the geographical and social
context of their homeland. That is, we may gain some idea of the external
influences on their emigration if we can determine where they, as members of
specific communities, stood in the economic (and political) structures of their
home districts, and how people in these districts were managing their
exposure to the interplay of land revenue extraction, commercial
development, public works, population growth, agrarian legislation and
famine associated with the British connection.1

This paper first addresses the questions of where the migrants came from
in North and South India, what changes occurred in the pattern over time,
and whether there were substantial differences between the origins of
labourers going to different colonies. It then goes on to examine the caste and

1 J. Pouchepadas, 'Land, Power and Market: the Rise of the Land Market in Gangetic India', P.
Robb (ed.), Rural India (London, Curzon, 1983), pp. 76-99; and P. Robb, 'State, Peasant and
Moneylender in Late Nineteenth-Century Bihar: Some Colonial Inputs', in Robb, ed., Rural
India, pp. 106-48.
 40 SOUTH ASIA

communal composition of the various cohorts and whether these changed

over time and differed between destinations.
The emigration of thousands of Indians to the plantations of the British
empire each year from the 1830s to the 1930s has attracted substantial
attention from historians. The latter have benefited from the fact that the
indentured labour system was introduced at a time when the British
government was beginning to enquire more closely into commercial
transport, and so there are many files and proceedings dealing with the
process.2 Where this emigration involved long expensive sea voyages such as
those to Mauritius and the West Indies there were attempts from the 1840s to
keep specific records of individual migrants. The economic interest of the
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employers - in that they needed to be able to identify the men and women
whose labour they had purchased - has been of advantage to the historian in
that there are individual immigration certificates and ship's immigration
registers which are able to provide individual level information on district
origin and caste or community. It is important to note that the place of origin
and caste or community which are used in these registers or certificates are
'self identification by the emigrants. Undoubtedly these will include some
people wishing to escape from situations for private or judicial reasons and
they may have given incorrect answers. But a great majority of the emigrants
had no reason to mislead, and we can be reasonably confident of the quality
of this evidence. These individual records were first used in 1959 by R. T.
Smith in a short piece on Guyana, but Brij Lai in his study of emigration to
Fiji really pioneered the use of the data.3 The possibility of dealing with the
records of individual workers - however brief - is an unusual experience for
the Indian historian. In this short study of the origins of these workers we
will use these records, or samples from them, wherever we can, but otherwise
we will rely upon work by previous historians or upon aggregate records
compiled in annual reports or by commentators.
The individual records used here stem from a study of the heights of the
emigrants and comprise the complete set of records of the men and women
who migrated to Fiji, 1879-1916, and to Jamaica, 1905-13. We will use
samples of those who travelled to Mauritius, 1842-4 and 1859-71; to Natal,
1860-66, 1874-78, and 1877-96, and Guyana 1865-1917.4

2 O. MacDonagh, A Pattern of Government Growth (London, Macgibbon and Kay, 1961),

pp. 15-21.
3 R. T. Smith, 'Some Social Characteristics of Indian Immigrants to British Guiana', Population
Studies, Vol. 13 (1959-60), pp. 34-8; Brij Lal, Girmitiyas (Canberra, Journal of Pacific
History, 1983); S. Bhana has also used the shipping registers in his study of Natal emigration,
Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal, 1860-1902 (New Delhi, 1991.
4 The periods 1842-4 and 1859-71 for Mauritius represent the earliest sets of years in which the
shipping lists held in the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mauritius, contain information about the
heights of the migrants. The early lists did not contain the heights of the female migrants. In
view of the pressures of time, a yearly sample of the migrants was taken roughly comparable in
size to the annual inflow. The Natal figures represent the data processed to date, determined by
 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 41

Geographic origins
J. Geoghegan in his investigation in 1870 showed that between 1842 and
1870 the indentured labourers came mainly from North (64 percent) and
South India (30 percent), and to a much lesser extent from West India (6
percent).5 In this study we have no information on the origins of those who
migrated through Bombay, and will concentrate upon the North and South
Indian migrants going to Mauritius, Guyana, Natal, Fiji and Jamaica. We do
not have any individual level information on the origins of the men and
women who emigrated to Malaya, Ceylon or Burma, but Kernial Singh
Sandhu compiled a map illustrating the origins of South Indian assisted
emigrants to Malaya, 1844-1938: most of the emigrants came from Madras,
and those who emigrated to Ceylon and Burma were also mainly from the
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South.6
North Indian migration

Of those who migrated from Calcutta between 1842 and 1870, the largest
number came from Bihar. The figures in Table 1 which were compiled by
Geoghegan during his study of the indentured labour trade, indicate that a
substantial number of the migrants came from West Bengal. Neither the other
aggregate nor individual level data for this period suggests that what we now
know as West Bengal sent as many people as Geoghegan indicates and this
may in fact be a question of nomenclature with the Chota Nagpur region
included in West Bengal rather than in Bihar.
Nearly half of our first sample of 2187 males who migrated from North
India to Mauritius between 1842 and 1844 (Table 2) came from the south
Bihar plains districts of Arrah (Shahabad), Gaya (Sahebganj) and Patna;
another eleven percent (mainly tribal emigrants) came from the Chota Nagpur
plateaux (Hazaribagh, Chota Nagpur and Ranchi districts). Only one district
from the NWP, Varanasi, appears among the eleven major sources of these
recruits. The origins of the females recruited at this time varied more than
those of the male recruits. The proportion of women coming from the south
Bihar plains districts was about half the proportion of men from the same
region, while the Chota Nagpur region was the origin of a higher proportion
of women than of men. Women came from a wider range of districts,
suggesting that some had been recruited in Calcutta by agents anxious to
increase the number of women. But the correspondence between the

the legibility of the records and by their completeness in terms of caste and height data. Smith
took a random sample of the migrants to Guyana, presenting an aggregate view of their
locational and social origins.
5 J. Geoghegan, Report on Emigration from India, P.P., 1874, Vol. XLVII (314), p. 70.
6 K. S. Sandhu, Indians in Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 1969), p.164. The heaviest
recruiting districts for Malaya were North Arcot, Tanjore and Trichinopoly. The general
understanding of recruitment for Ceylon is that it was heaviest in Tanjore; and for Burma that
the northern districts of Madras such as Ganjam and Vizagapatam were the main sources.
 42 SOUTH ASIA

proportions of men and women coming from the same districts indicates that
even in these early years there was a degree of family migration.7
We are fortunate that Brij Lai has already published aggregate data for
the period 1844-1864 derived from the Home Public (Immigration) records
in the National Archives of India.8 We have grouped these in Table 3 into
two series to test whether the Rebellion of 1857-58 had any influence on the
sources of indentured workers, as well as to see whether there were any other
changes in the recruiting patterns. What is clear is that the southern plains
districts of Bihar remained central to the recruiting efforts and that the Chota
Nagpur plateaux provided far less of the workers than previously.
Geoghegan's explanation of this was that there was considerable competition
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for the tribal groups from the much closer tea plantations of Assam, while
there was a heavy mortality among them when they were transported by sea.9
The tribal groups, who seem to have had less immunity to cholera than the
plains people were also more vulnerable than others on the trip to Assam, but
once safely there they were more resistant to malaria. On the other hand they
did not have a similar advantage over others in healthier places like
Mauritius, and so both the supply of and demand for their services declined.10
Walton Look Lai argues that there was a direct relationship between the
dislocation caused by the Rebellion of 1857-8 and the massive increase in
numbers emigrating because '[m]ost of the emigrants went voluntarily to the
emigration depots, and most were from the districts most affected by the
disturbances (e.g., Shahabad, Patna, Gaya in Bihar, Ghazipur in Oudh). Many
were high caste ex-soldiers from the disbanded native army denied jobs in the
British Indian Army; many were mutineers fleeing from the prospect of arrest
and deportation ...' 11 On the face of it this seems a reasonable explanation,
but the districts mentioned were the usual sources of workers in the previous
period. And we need to remember that there also had to be a demand for
recruits as well as a supply and this demand was spread over the three
Presidencies.12 Whether or not it was the Mutiny that caused the rapid
increase in numbers emigrating from the North West Provinces and Oudh is
difficult to determine without more precise information about who was
migrating, though it is possible that it was easier for agents to recruit in Oudh
after its annexation. What is clear is that this was the period when the first
signs of the subsequent shift in recruiting patterns began to appear.

7 See M. Carter, 'The Family under Indenture: a Mauritian Case Study', Journal of Mauritian
Studies, Vol. 4 (1992), pp. 1-21.
8 Lal, Girmitiyas, p. 48.
9 Geoghegan, Emigration from India, p. 67.
10 R. Shlomowitz and L. Brennan, 'Mortality and Migrant Labour en route to Assam, 1863-
1924', The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 27 (1990), p.325.
11 W. L. Lal, Indentured Labor, Caribbean Sugar (Baltimore, 1993), p. 27.
12 K. K. Sircar, 'The Migration of Indian Labour to British Plantations in Mauritius, Natal and
Fiji, 1834-1914' (M.Sc. thesis, University of London, 1964), app. D.
 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 43

The second sample comprises men and women recruited between 1859
and 1871 for work in Mauritius. Their district origins have been broken down
in Table 4 into two series, 1859-64 and 1865-71, to test whether the shifts in
recruiting patterns obvious in the aggregated data in Table 3 continued after
1864 among those emigrating to Mauritius. The continued - indeed
increased - significance of Arrah (Shahabad) is obvious, and Gaya and Patna
continue to hold their own, but there was a substantial decline after 1864 in
the proportion of labourers from the Chota Nagpur region, while the
proportion of men and women from the eastern NWP increased from 25
percent to 30 percent of the sample.
In Bhana's work there are signs that while the Natal recruits in the first
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half of the 1860s came from much the same districts as those going to
Mauritius, there was a movement away from the south Bihar plains towards
eastern NWP and Oudh.13 Our Table 5 indicates that by the mid 1870s when
recruitment recommenced to Natal, this shift had become clear. It seems
likely from the tables that this movement was earlier in Natal than in
Mauritius. K. K. Sircar has compiled figures which indicate that as late as in
1876-77 recruits from Bihar to Mauritius numbered 466, while only 424
came from NWP and Oudh. About 40 percent of the total emigrants to
Mauritius came from Bihar until 1889, but as recruitment to the island was
reduced the largest number in any one year was 980 out of 2,534.14 The
heavier flow of Bihar recruits to Mauritius rather than to Natal may have
been influenced by the fact that the Mauritius and Natal recruitment were
handled by different Emigration Agents with separate networks, and that
returned labourers encouraged relatives and others to return with them to
Mauritius - that is, there was a self-generating system in place.15 From 1889
the recruitment pattern for Mauritius was much the same as that for Natal and
Fiji.
Why did the change of recruitment patterns between Bihar and NWP and
Oudh take place? Brij Lai explains it in terms of the greater (and nearer)
attraction of Calcutta for the people of southern Bihar, emphasised by the
expansion of the railways.16 This remains at least part of the explanation for
the change. But recent scholarship suggests that greater opportunities in parts
of the South Bihar region were also equally important. Alok Sheel
demonstrates that parts of the region had been major producers of cotton,
cloth and paper in the early nineteenth century, but that these declined

13 Bhana, Indentured Indian Emigrants, p.54. Bhana's statistics cover all the indentured
emigration to Natal up to 1902. There are difficulties using these tables because some of the
district origins have not been located (11.1%) while name changes have not been taken into
consideration: the most important of these is the congruence of Arrah and Shahabad.
14 K. K. Sircar, 'The Migration', app. J. Sircar in appendix K confirms the importance of recruitment in
NWP and Oudh for Natal
15 Lal, Girmitiyas, pp. 20, 52.
16 Lal, Girmitiyas, pp. 49-50.
 44 SOUTH ASIA

through industrialised competition. This decline and the related decay of the
commercial facilities of the Sone river ports was almost complete by the early
1870s.17 In those parts of the districts of Shahabad (Arrah) and Gaya reliant
on rainfall, agriculture was risky, and therefore it seems likely that until the
early 1870s migration overseas was an attractive proposition for those
displaced from their urban or industrial occupations or affected by the
vagaries of the seasons.18 As Sheel points out, this changed in the 1870s when
the Patna Canal branch of the Sone Canal system began to flow through parts
of western Gaya district, transforming what had been described as barren into
the best rice land in the district. Northern Shahabad had previously been
highly cultivated but the extension of the Sone canals expanded the
agricultural economy of the district and increased the security of the northern
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sub-divisions. The development of road and rail communications similarly

added to the wealth of those parts of the districts through which they
passed.19
What we are arguing here, therefore, is that the shift from south Bihar to
the North Western Provinces and Oudh as the main source of overseas
recruits occurred in the early 1870s partly because of the new agricultural
opportunities provided by the availability of irrigated land in the former
districts. Our work on the heights of recruits strongly suggests that at about
this time there was a down turn in the material conditions of the poorer
villagers in the NWP and Oudh.20 That is, at the same time as conditions
improved in Gaya and, to a lesser extent, Shahabad, they were declining in
NWP and Oudh, especially in the eastern districts.

17 A. Sheel, 'Long term demographic trends in south Bihar: Gaya and Shahabad districts', The
Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 29 (1992), pp. 331-4.
18 Gaya and Shahabad suffered in the 1866 famine. B. M. Bhatia, Famines in India, 2nd ed.
(Bombay, Asia, 1967), p.69. Parts of Gaya were also affected by drought in 1869. Sheel,
'Demographic Trends', p.334.
19 The development of a railway system capable of extracting large quantities of food grains for
overseas markets - even at times of scarcities - detracted from the food security of those at the
lower end of the economic scale who relied upon fixed daily wages. At the same time the
reduced cost of travel encouraged migration to the cities - especially Calcutta - in search of new
opportunities, both permanent and temporary. When agricultural labourers worked upon
irrigated land they did have the security of employment.
20 L. Brennan, J. McDonald, and R. Shlomowitz, 'The Heights and Economic Well-Being of
North Indians under British Rule', Social Science History, Vol. 18 (1994), pp. 288-96.
 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 45

Table 1: Provincial origins of Calcutta recruits, 1842-70

Provinces Recruits Percentage

Orissa 4,409 1.3
Bengal Western 62,113 18.0
Central 13,224 3.9
Eastern 1,713 0.5
Bihar 155,399 45.2
NWP, Oudh and Central India 100,433 29.2
Elsewhere 6,391 1.9
TOTAL 343,682 100.0
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Source: Geoghegan, J., 'Report on Emigration from India', G.B.P.P. (1874),

Vol. XLVII, (314)

Table 2: Major districts of origin of sample of North Indian

emigrants to Mauritius, 1842-44

District Male Female

% %
Arrah (Shahabad) 22.4 13.9
Benaras 2.5 2.4
Chapra (Saran) 4.8 3.0
Chota Nagpur (Ranchi) 6.0 15.8
Bihar/Sahebganj (Gaya) 20.4 11.1
Ghazipur 4.0 1.8
Hazaribagh 4.7 3.0
Muzaffarpur 2.7 0.6
Patna 7.4 2.7
Other 25.1 44.7
TOTAL 100.0 100.0
Number of Emigrants (2187) (332)

Source: Indian Immigration Registers, PE Series, Mahatma Gandhi Institute,

Moka, Mauritius.

Notes: Women came from Calcutta, Burdwan, Bankura, Chittagong, Dinajpur,

Hooghly, Purnea, 24 Parganas, Dacca, Purnea as well as 12.3 per cent
who came from locations which were unable to be identified. This
suggests that the recruiters had many difficulties in bringing women
from the normal recruiting districts of Bihar - though women from
Chota Nagpur were more comparable in numbers with the men.
 46 SOUTH ASIA

Table 3: Major districts of origin of all Indian indentured emigrants

leaving from Calcutta, 1844-1864
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1844-1855/6 1858-1863/4
District No % No %
Arrah (Shahabad) 11,455 19.3 11,846 19.4
Azamgarh 2,157 3.6 2,217 3.6
Bankura 2,388 4.0 890 1.5
Benaras 1,592 2.7 2,099 3.5
Chapra 2,390 4.0 4,838 7.9
Sahebganj (Gaya) 9,477 16.0 9,257 15.2
Ghazipur 4,820 8.1 ,534 12.3
Hazaribagh 4,545 7.7 3,950 6.5
Lucknow 780 1.3 2,121 3.5
Muzaffarpur 1,338 2.3 1,243 2.0
Patna 3,639 6.1 4,457 7.3
Purulia 3,413 5.8 4,151 6.8
Ranchi (Chota Nagpur) 3,936 6.6 1,956 3.2
Other 7383 12.5 4537 7.5
Total 59,313 100 61,096 100

Source: Derived from Brij V. Lai, Girmitiyas, Canberra, 1983, 47. (Constructed from Home Public
Proceedings, 1845-1864, NAI).
 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 47

Table 4: Major districts of origin of a sample of North Indian

indentured emigrants to Mauritius, 1859-71
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Males Females
1859-64 1865-71 1859-64 1865-71
District % % % %
Arrah (Shahabad) 18.1 30.1 18.6 33.9
Azamgarh 3.8 5.4 1.2 4.3
Bankura 1.4 0.3 4.5 1.0
Benaras 3.1 3.7 1.8 4.6
Chapra 5.6 5.6 2.8 3.5
Gaya 15.3 11.7 12.5 10.3
Ghazipur 11.5 12.8 8.7 12.5
Gorakhpur 2.4 2.6 0.7 0.5
Hazaribagh 6.1 0.9 8.4 1.1
Jaunpur 1.8 2.4 0.6 1.2
Lucknow 2.4 3.4 1.5 1.7
Muzaffarpur 1.9 2.2 0.7 1.0
Patna 7.6 6.0 6.1 7.3
Purulia 3.3 0.4 6.0 0.3
Ranchi 3.5 0.2 7.9 0.5
Other 12.2 12.3 18.0 16.3
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Number of Emigrants (4,668) (3,524) (1,435) (1,190)

Source: Indian Immigration Registers, P.E. Series, Mauritius.

 48 SOUTH ASIA

Table 5: Major districts of origin of a sample of North Indian

indentured emigrants to Natal, 1874-78
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Males Females Total

District % % %
Arrah (Shahabad) 2.7 1.8 2.5
Azamgarh 7.3 8.6 7.6
Bahraich 2.9 0.7 2.3
Banaras 2.6 2.7 2.6
BaraBanki 3.0 3.1 3.0
Basti 10.2 6.3 9.2
Fyzabad 4.7 4.6 4.7
Gaya 2.5 3.7 2.6
Ghazipur 7.8 14.2 9.5
Gonda 5.4 2.2 4.6
Gorakhpur 5.1 5.9 5.3
Patna 3.9 7.0 4.7
Rae Bareli 2.7 1.0 2.2
Tirhoot (Muzaffarpur and Dharbanga) 2.7 1.4 2.4
Other 36.5 36.8 36.7
Total 100 100 100
Number of Emigrants (1,928) (712) (2,640)

Source: Shipping Lists, Natal (a copy of the microfilm of these Lists was kindly
made available to us by Professor Joy Brain)
 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 49

Tables 6 and 7 relating to Fiji demonstrate what we have known already

from Brij Lai's work and seen in Bhana's figures for Natal up to 1902: that
gradually Basti and Gonda became the major indentured labour providing
districts. Table 8 illustrates that the Jamaica bound workers came from the
same set of districts as those going to Fiji - probably because they were
recruited by the same sub-agent and recruiting network. The long term
figures for Guyana in Table 9 between 1865 and 1917 also illustrate the
importance of the districts in Bihar and NWP as recruiting areas.
Why did Basti and Gonda become so prominent? It seems likely that
there was no one economic reason. There were many poor people in other
districts as well but, as Brij Lai argues, they may have had more opportunities
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to move to regional cities than those in these two remote districts. There is
ample evidence that both districts had experienced bad seasons in the 1890s.
Basti had recovered by 1905, but recovery meant that there was little land
available for cultivation.21 Emigration was one of the few opportunities for
those unable to rent land or find agricultural work in this isolated district.
Gonda had a different profile, in that a smaller proportion of the district was
cultivated due to the forests in the north of the district, but even then there
was about 70 percent of the land under cultivation in 1894 before a series of
floods and droughts reduced this to a figure below 60 percent. The district
recovered in the following years but it seems likely that a number of families
were displaced by the strains of the 1890s.22 Pradipta Chaudhary points out
that the recruiting was rarely done in the villages and therefore the emigrants
had already left their village in search of opportunity.23 The significance of
the floods and famines seems to have been in terms of individual dislocation
rather than in the reduction of population that occurred at the time.

Running parallel to the problems caused by climatic variation and

population growth were the difficulties stemming from the general rise in
prices. This was associated by some officials with the extension of the railway
and the advance in export prices of agricultural produce - an advance which
was accompanied by the increase in the prices of goods imported into the
districts. While everyone had to pay the increased prices for the imported
goods, some cultivators did not benefit from the rise in agricultural prices,
either because their grain-dealing creditors controlled the prices for their
produce, or because they were too distant from the railheads to receive the
export influenced price for their products. Those who had to buy both local
and imported goods were under considerable pressure. This rise in prices was

21 United Provinces District Gazetteer, Basti (Allahabad, 1907), pp. 36, 56.
22 United Provinces District Gazetteer, Gonda (Naini Tal, 1905), p. 32.
23 P. Chaudhary, 'Labour Migration from the United Provinces, 1881-1911', Studies in History,
n.s., Vol. 8 (1992), p.27.
 50 SOUTH ASIA

reported as early as 1889 in Basti district.24 But Basti and Gonda did not have
a monopoly on these problems.
Chaudhary in discussing this question alerts us to the particularly
difficult situation of tenants-at-will and sub tenants in these districts. They
paid rack rents, especially if they were from the lower castes, and were often
indebted.25 This indebtedness increased during the periods of flood, drought
and famine, and was sufficient to lead to the dislocation of the cultivator.
Because the local economies were almost entirely based on agriculture, there
were few other opportunities for employment.
The above discussion establishes that the people of these districts were
living in difficult times in the period of colonial recruitment - but clearly
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there also needed to be a recruitment system which gave them the opportunity
to leave the districts. This system was likely to be self-sustaining once it
provided recruiters with satisfactory results and some emigrants returned with
stories of opportunity in the colonies.
South India

Geoghegan in his report on Indian emigration to the colonies indicated that

the Protector of Emigrants in Madras in 1857 had nominated Tanjore,
Trichinopoly and South Arcot in the south and Vizagapatam, Ganjam and
Rajamundary (Godavary) in the north as the main recruiting districts of the
Presidency. By 1870, according to the Protector, the bulk of the emigrants
came from Godavary, Vizagapatam, Ganjam, Chingleput and Madras.26 The
small sample of South Indian male immigrants going to Mauritius in 1843,
listed in Table 10, supports the view that Tanjore and Trichinopoly and South
Arcot (Cuddalore) were the main sources of recruits during the early period
of emigration.

Bhana's figures for South Indian migration to Natal between 1860 and
1902 are difficult to use because they combine the emigrants from North and
South Arcot, and at the same time give separate figures for a number of the
taluks (eg Wandiwash) in North Arcot and Chingleput. Moreover a
substantial proportion (15.2 per cent) of the places of origin are
unidentified.27 Though it would be misleading to specify Bhana's figures,
they do suggest that the districts of North Arcot and Chingleput became the
main sources of indentured labour for Natal.

24 E. Whitcombe, The United Provinces under British Rule 1860-1900 (Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1972), pp. 189-90 n. 116.
25 Chaudhary, 'Labour Migration', p. 37.
26 Geoghegan, Emigration from India, p. 67.
27 Bhana, Indian Indentured Emigrants, pp. 45-7.
 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 51

Table 6: Major districts of origin of North Indian male indentured

emigrants for Fiji, 1879-1916
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1879-85 1886-91 1892-6 1897-1901 1902-06 1907-11 1912-16

District % % % % % % %
Allahabad 1.7 4.4 5.1 3.2 1.5 1.1 2.6
Azamgarh 5.2 6.2 3.9 1.7 1.9 1.7
Basti 3.7 8.3 11.8 13.9 14.6 21.7 16.6
Bara Banki 1.4 2.0 2.1 2.0 1.6 2.3 2.3
Bahraich 0.9 1.4 1.5 1.4 0.7 3.8 2.9
Fyzabad 3.4 4.0 4.3 4.1 5.2 6.9 4.6
Gonda 5.8 5.6 8.3 7.8 5.1 15.2 9.2
Gorakhpur 1.2 4.2 3.8 4.4 2.9 2.8 3.8
Jaunpur 2.3 3.1 3.5 3.5 2.1 2.5 3.4
Rae Bareli 2.8 3.1 4.3 3.0 1.2 1.8 1.5
Sultanpur 3.4 4.0 4.9 4.1 4.6 4.5 3.5
Ghazipur 2.1 4.0 4.4 0.9 0.9 0.5 0.8
Shahabad (Arrah) 3.1 8.7 3.1 1.7 1.3 0.8 0.8
Raipur 0.1 0.0 0.0 3.0 3.3 0.0 0.0
Partabgarh 2.1 4.5 4.6 1.9 1.5 1.5 1.7
Other 62.7 37.5 32.1 41.2 51.9 32.7 48.2
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
No. of Emigrants (3333) (2668) (3740) (4994) (5262) (5994) (3249)

Source: Immigration Certificates, Fiji.

 52 SOUTH ASIA

Table 7: Major districts of origin of North Indian female indentured

emigrants for Fiji, 1879-1916
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1879-85 1886-91 1892-6 1897-1901 1902-6 1907-11 1912-16

District % % % % % % %
Allahabad 2.6 5.9 5.5 3.7 1.5 1.2 4.3
Azamgarh 4.9 7.1 9.3 6.4 2.9 2.6 2.2
Basti 2.0 5.6 11.9 12.0 15.1 27.0 22.4
Bara Banki 2.2 1.1 1.0 1.8 1.2 2.1 2.1
Bahraich 0.8 0.8 0.8 1.1 0.2 1.6 2.3
Fyzabad 4.1 4.1 3.5 4.8 8.0 9.2 5.8
Gonda 3.1 3.6 8.0 5.8 3.1 14.0 11.9
Gorakhpur 1.5 4.8 4.8 5.4 6.1 3.7 5.6
Jaunpur 1.5 4.0 7.1 4.4 2.1 2.6 2.4
Rae Bareli 1.6 1.9 2.0 1.9 1.3 1.2 3.1
Sultanpur 2.1 2.6 2.5 2.4 3.9 4.3 3.0
Ghazipur 2.7 6.9 9.9 2.7 2.7 1.3 1.3
Shahabad (Arrah) 2.6 8.7 3.5 1.7 1.7 1.0 0.8
Raipur 0.1 0.0 0.0 5.3 12 A 0.0 0.1
Partabgarh 1.6 1.9 2.2 2.1 1.1 1.0 1.8
Other 66.6 41.0 28.0 38.5 26.7 27.1 30.9
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
No. of Emigrants (1246) (1080) (1534) (2097) (2247) (2366) (1433)

Source: Immigration Certificates, Fiji

 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 53

Table 8: Major districts of origin of North Indian indentured

emigrants to Jamaica, 1905-1913
Males Females
1905-48 1909-13 1905-08 1909-13
District % % % %
Allahabad 1.3 2.6 0.7 2.4
Azamgarh 1.8 1.5 3.0 1.6
Basti 21.5 16.4 22.8 21.3
BaraBanki 2.3 1.9 0.9 1.1
Bahraich 2.2 2.9 0.4 1.8
Fyzabad 7.4 4.9 10.2 8.0
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Gonda 7.9 9.4 7.4 11.0

Gorakhpur 4.8 2.6 5.2 4.0
Rae Bareli 3.0 3.0 2.0 3.2
Sultanpur 6.3 3.7 6.3 3.4
Raipur 2.6 2.3 2.0 1.1
Partabgarh 1.6 3.1 2.2 3.4
Other 37.3 45.7 26.9 37.7
Total 100 100 100 100
No. of Emigrants (1,853) (2,414) (807) (977)

Source: Emigrant Passes, The Jamaican Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica.

Table 9: Major districts of origin of a sample of North Indian male

and female immigrants to Guyana, 1865-1917

District No. of Immigrants

%
Allahabad 294 3.2
Azamgarh 585 6.3
Basti 820 8.8
Fyzabad 386 4.2
Ghazipur 544 5.9
Gonda 478 5.2
Gorakhpur 291 3.1
Jaunpur 260 2.8
Lucknow 216 2.3
Shahabad (Arrah) 230 2.5
Other 5175 55.8
Total 9,279 100.0

Source: Adapted from R. T. Smith, 'Some Social Characteristics of Indian Immigrants to British
Guiana', Population Studies, Vol. 13 (1959-60), p. 38.
 54 SOUTH ASIA

The figures in Table 11 for a sample of males coming from South India
to Natal between 1860 and 1866, indicates the importance of the area around
the port of Madras. Table 12 which relates to a sample of emigrants to
Mauritius in 1869, 1871 and 1873, supports this but also points to the role
that the northern districts of Vizagapatam and Ganjam continued to play, and
that Tanjore and Trichinopoly remained sources of recruits. The small sample
of women in this table is the earliest that we have for women from the south,
and like some of the north Indian tables it suggests that wives were
accompanying their husbands or following them. The sample of emigrants to
Natal between 1877 and 1896 supports Bhana's figures for the period
indicating that North Arcot and Chingleput districts were by far the most
important sources of recruits at this time. Again, the sources of females for a
similar period echo those of the male recruits (see Table 13).
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It is possible to comment with more certainty about the figures in Table

14 illustrating the origins of the South Indian male workers who went to Fiji
between 1903 and 1916, because this represents the entire set of recruits. The
southern districts were no longer of any great significance in government
controlled emigration as the kangani organised recruitment from those
districts for Ceylon and Malaya became the norm.28 The northern districts
have lost the pre-eminence they exhibited in the early 1870s, possibly because
of migration to Burma, though Vizagapatam remained a significant source of
workers. The central plains districts of Chingelput, Chittoor and especially
North Arcot are the major recruiting areas, providing about a third of the
total emigrants. The presence of a larger proportion of people from Malabar
district is a new development. Female emigration (Table 15) follows much
the same pattern of district origin as male emigration.

There were considerable economic pressures on the agricultural

labourers of the Madras plains districts during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century despite the increased commercialisation of agriculture.
Wages at best held steady and possibly declined, opportunities to become a
tenant cultivator diminished as competition sharpened for land and the
equally important pasture, and indebtedness increased.29 In North Arcot
cropped land expanded by 47 percent during this period because of major
efforts to provide tank irrigation, but agriculture remained risky because this
type of irrigation still relied upon local rainfall. The 1890s saw a sequence of

28 See Sandhu, Indians in Malaya, p. 164. It is noticeable that North Arcot is the district from
which the largest proportion of assisted labour emigrants entered Malaya. There is, however,
no indication of when this occurred, and it may have been after migration to the sugar colonies
ceased.
29 For a discussion of the impact of the agrarian, climatic and medical situation on the well-being
of labourers in South India at this time, see L. Brennan, J. McDonald and R. Shlomowitz,
'Trends in the Economic Well-Being of South Indians under British Rule: the Anthropometric
Evidence', Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 31 (1994), pp. 247-57; see also D. Kumar,
Land and Caste in South India (Cambridge University Press, 1965), pp. 160-67; and C. J.
Baker, An Indian Rural Economy 1880-1955 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 154-9.
 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 55

droughts in the district: 1891, 1892, 1896-97, 1900-01.30 North Arcot was
well served by railways and those interested in migrating could easily make
their way to Madras.
Malabar district though not susceptible to drought, was also a difficult
environment for cultivators and agricultural labourers. The considerable
growth of population pushed cultivation further up the hillsides, and agrarian
relations between landlords, leaseholders and cultivators was often strained to
the extent that the cultivators were evicted. Communal conflict interacted
with this agrarian conflict, and occasionally led to outbreaks of severe
violence.31
The discussions above suggest that there was a considerable 'push'
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element for many of the indentured workers who left South India for Fiji.
But there may also have been a 'pull' element encouraged by the ability of
returning migrants to buy land.32

Social Origins
The social origins of the North Indian emigrants to Fiji have already been
explored by Brij Lai. We will, therefore, spend more time on the earlier
North Indian migrations and on the South Indian migration.
North India
One striking point about our sample of 2187 males who sailed to Mauritius in
1842-44 was that they included 107 different and identifiable castes or
communities, and there were 105 who identified themselves as belonging to
castes whose existence it was not possible to confirm. The ten most frequent
identifications in Table 16 stretch across a wide range from tribal groups like
the Munda and Bhuiya to Chamars and Mochis (the present Scheduled
Castes), to Gowala (a pastoral and cultivating caste), to Kurmis (cultivators),
and the largest group, the Muslims.33 It is not possible to make any estimate
of the occupations of the Muslims. There were 24 Brahmins (1.1 percent) and
44 Rajputs (2 percent) in the sample. These figures are mainly useful for
comparison with subsequent samples of migrants to Mauritius. A much
smaller number of females (from 57 castes) migrated on the same vessels.

30 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. V (Oxford, 1909), pp. 412-5; A. F. Cox, The Manual of
the North Arcot District in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (Madras, 1895), p.281.
31 D. N. Dhanagare, 'Agrarian Conflict, Religion and Politics: the Moplah Rebellions in Malabar
in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries', Past and Present, 74 (1977), pp. 115-28.
32 D. Kumar, Land and Caste in South India, 2nd ed. (Delhi, 1992), p. xxxiii.
33 The Muslim group did not include those who identified themselves as Mughals(1), Pathans
(3), Sheikhs (1), and Julahas (6).
 56 SOUTH ASIA

Table 10: Major districts of origin of a sample of South Indian male

emigrants to Mauritius, 1843

District No. of Emigrants %

Chingleput 5 1.9
Cuddalore (Sth Arcot) 20 7.4
Madras 27 10.0
Madura 13 4.8
North Arcot (Chittoor) 17 6.3
Tanjore 98 36.4
Trichinopoly 80 29.7
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Other 9 3.3
Total 269 100

Source: Indian Immigration Registers, P.E. Series, Mauritius

Table 11: Major districts of origin of sample of South Indian male

emigrants to Natal 1860-66

Most frequent district of origin

District No. %
Bangalore 76 2.7
Chingleput 403 14.2
Ganjam 55 1.9
Madras 490 17.2
Mysore 162 5.7
Nellore 86 3.0
North Arcot (Chittoor) 1062 37.3
Salem 83 2.9
South Arcot 80 2.8
Tanjore 47 1.7
Other 302 10.6
Total 2846 100

Source: Shipping Lists, Natal

 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 57

Table 12: Major districts of origin of a sample of South Indian

indentured immigrants to Mauritius 1869,1871,1873

Males Females
District Number % Number %
Chingleput 153 13.2 44 9.0
Ganjam 48 4.1 23 4.7
Godavari 39 3.4 11 2.3
Madras 34 2.9 17 3.5
North Arcot (Chittoor) 150 12.9 55 11.3
South Arcot (Cuddalore) 40 3.4 10 2.1
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Tanjore 123 10.6 86 17.7

Trichinopoly 37 3.2 16 3.3
Vizagapatam 329 28.3 174 35.7
Other 210 18.1 51 10.5
Total 1163 100 487 100

Source: Indian Immigration Registers, P.E. Series, Mauritius

Table 13: Districts of origin of a sample of South Indian emigrants to

Natal, 1877-96
1877-1896 1877-93
Males Females
District No. % No. %
Chingleput 420 23.5 184 27.1
Coimbatore 30 1.7 19 2.8
Godavari 39 2.2 2 0.3
Madras 51 2.8 24 3.5
Madura 56 3.1 24 3.5
Nellore 50 2.8 14 2.1"
North Arcot (Chittoor) 745 41.7 289 42.6
Salem 54 3.0 15 2.2
South Arcot 115 6.4 40 5.9
Tanjore 28 1.6 10 1.5
Trichinopoly 18 1.0 14 2.1
Vizagapatam 46 2.6 5 0.7
Others 138 7.7 112 16.5
Total 1790 100 678 100

Source: Shipping Lists, Natal. Derived from records kindly provided by Professor Joy Brain.
 58 SOUTH ASIA

Table 14: Districts of origin of South Indian male indentured

emigrants to Fiji 1903-16

1903-07 1908-12 1913-16

District No. % No. % No. %
Chingleput 316 12.3 198 4.9 184 5.9
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Chittoor 14 0.5 158 3.9 227 7.2

Coimbatore 111 4.3 110 2.7 109 3.5
Cuddapah 76 3.0 119 3.0 105 3.3
Ganjam 5 0.2 8 0.2 5 0.2
Godavari 120 4.7 230 5.7 163 5.2
Guntur 25 1.0 180 4.5 77 2.5
Hyderabad 108 4.2 138 3.4 171 5.5
Kistna 110 4.3 313 7.8 152 4.8
Madras 19 0.7 7 0.2 10 0.3
Malabar 141 5.5 137 3.4 109 3.5
Nellore 197 7.7 156 3.9 115 3.7
North Arcot 669 26.1 624 15.6 630 20.1
South Arcot 108 4.2 138 3.4 171 5.5
Salem 141 5.5 137 3.4 109 3.5
Tanjore 114 4.4 104 2.6 74 2.4
Trichinopoly 51 2.0 48 1.2 37 1.2
Vizagapatam 43 1.7 269 6.7 118 3.8
Other 196 7.6 927 23.2 570 18.2
Total 2.564 100 4,001 100 3,136 100

Source: Immigration Certificates, Fiji

 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 59

Table 15: Districts of origin of female South Indian indentured

emigrants to Fiji 1903-16

1903-7 1908-12 1903-16

District No. % No. % No. %
Chingleput 163 16.4 106 6.6 87 7.2
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Chittoor 12 1.2 74 4.6 116 9.6

Coimbatore 19 1.9 30 1.9 24 2.8
Cuddapah 22 2.2 51 3.2 33 2.7
Ganjam 2 0.2 5 0.3 1 0.1
Godavari 56 5.7 146 9.1 125 10.3
Guntur 4 0.4 74 4.6 27 2.2
Hyderabad 1 0.1 29 1.8 38 3.1
Kistna 19 1.9 87 5.4 48 4.0
Madras 19 1.9 87 5.4 48 4.0
Malabar 31 3.1 152 9.4 84 6.9
Nellore 84 8.5 60 3.7 37 3.1
North Arcot 335 33.8 266 16.5 233 19.3
Salem 46 4.6 67 4.2 31 2.6
South Arcot 20 2.0 42 2.6 48 4.0
Tanjore 38 3.8 42 2.6 48 4.0
Trichinopoly 6 0.6 9 0.6 14 1.2
Vizagapatam 23 2.3 204 12.7 94 7.8
Other 91 9.2 79 4.9 73 6.0
Total 991 100 1610 100 1209 100

Source: Immigration Certificates, Fiji

 60 SOUTH ASIA

The table indicates that the most frequent identifications came from a set of
castes/communities similar to that of the males. This also suggests that there
was a certain amount of family migration at this time.
The next set of data relating to social origins (in Table 17) stems from a
sample of the migrants who travelled to Mauritius between 1859 and 1871.
The Chota Nagpur tribal groups like the Munda and Bhuiya are no longer
among the most numerous castes and Brahmins and Rajputs now become
increasingly significant elements in the migration. The share of the Koeris
(cultivators), Chamars, Dusadhs (village watchmen and agricultural
labourers) and Muslims has remained stable, but the cultivating castes such as
Kurmis and Kahars have declined as a proportion. The Gowalas (a pastoral
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and cultivating caste in east India) decline in importance as emigrants during

the 1860s but Ahirs with a similar caste situation in NWP and Oudh society
begin to become important later in the period. This trend may well be a sign
of the beginning of the shift from Bihar to NWP and Oudh as the major
recruiting area.
The family character of a substantial amount of the migration is
supported by the figures for female migration in Table 18. It is possible that a
network of recruiters distributed in a certain way through a set of districts
would engage similar proportions of men and women from the same districts:
it becomes less likely that they will also recruit much the same proportion of
the same castes and communities unless there was some connection between
the males and females.
Most of the trends in the social composition of the indentured labourers
suggested by the Mauritius sample for 1859 to 1871 are evident in Bhana's
figures for emigration to Natal in the same period though, because male and
female emigrants are not distinguished in the latter, the two sets of figures are
not strictly comparable.34 Our sample of emigrants from North India to Natal
between 1874 and 1878 (Table 19) suggests that while Chamars and Muslims
remained the most common migrants, that there were substantial numbers of
Brahmin and Rajput indentured workers. One aspect of Bhana's tables of the
caste and communal identification of the emigrants is particularly
noteworthy: viz the sudden decline of recruitment of Muslims from 12.0 per
cent in 1883-85 to 2.6 per cent in 1886-89, and a continuing low ratio in the
period until 1902. This ratio was not only much lower than the proportion of
Muslims in the recruitment region, but also lower than the figures for Fiji
(Table 20) and the sample for Guyana (Table 21) during the same period.
This suggests that there was a distinct policy against Muslim migration among
the recruitment officials in Natal.

34 Bhana, Indentured Indian Emigrants, pp. 79-81.

 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 61

Table 16: Caste/communal identifications of a sample of North Indian

emigrants to Mauritius, 1842-44

Male % Female %
Muslim 277 12.7 45 13.6
Chamar 180 8.2 17 5.1
Kurmi 175 8.0 24 7.2
Mochi 157 7.2 20 6.0
Gowala 128 5.9 9 2.7
Munda 126 5.8 33 9.9
Dusadh 98 4.5 15 4.5
4.1 10 3.0
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Bhuiya 89
Kalwar 67 3.1 0
Koeri 67 3.1 4 1.2
Oraon 24 1.1 21 6.3
Kahar 67 3.1 8 2.4
Other 732 33.5 126 38.0
Total 2187 100 332 100

Source: Indian Immigration Registers, P.E. Series, Mauritius

Table 17: Major Caste/communal identifications of a sample of North

Indian male indentured emigrants to Mauritius 1859-71

1859-64 1865-71
Group No. % No. %
Muslim 696 14.9 496 14.1
Chamar 589 12.6 390 11.1
Dusadh 292 6.3 212 6.0
Kurmi 318 6.8 174 6.0
Koeri 267 5.7 211 6.0
Rajput 256 5.5 229 6.5
Gowala 317 6.8 116 3.3
Brahmin 157 3.4 260 7.4
Kahar 187 4.0 118 3.3
Ahir 2 0.0- 187 5.3
Other 1587 34.0 1131 32.0
Total 4668 100 3524 100

Source: Indian Imigration Registers, P.E. Series, Mauritius

 62 SOUTH ASIA

Table 18: Major Caste/communal identifications of a sample of North

Indian females emigrants to Mauritius 1859-71

1859-64 1865-71
Group No. % No. %
Muslim 275 19.2 250 20.9
Chamar 162 11.3 167 13.9
Dusadh 114 7.9 101 8.4
Gowala 82 5.7 25 2.1
Rajput 54 3.8 41 3.4
Koeri 42 2.9 46 3.8
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Kurmi 44 3.1 40 3.3

Kahar 46 2.9 32 2.7
Brahmin 15 1.0 44 3.7
Ahir 0 0.0 44 3.7
Other 601 41.9 409 34.11
Total 1435 100 1199 100

Source: Indian Imigration Registers, P.E. Series, Mauritius

Table 19: Major Caste/communcal identifications of a sample of North

Indian emigrants to Natal, 1874-78

Male Female
Group No. % No. %
Ahir 207 10.7 61 8.6
Brahmin 90 4.7 28 3.9
Chamar 272 14.1 105 14.7
Kahar 58 3.0 39 5.5
Koeri 47 2.4 22 3.1
Kori 75 3.9 20 2.8
Kurmi 94 4.9 37 5.2
Pasi 50 2.6 20 2.8
Rajput (Thakur) 178 9.2 42 5.9
Other 827 42.9 374 52.5
Total 1928 100 712 100

Source: Shipping Lists, Natal.

 Table 20
Caste/Communal Identifications of North Indian Male Emigrants
to Fiji, 1879-1916
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1879-85 1886-91 1892-96 1897-1901 1902-06 1907-11 1912-16

00 Group No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
Ahir 241 7.2 284 10.6 455 12.2 551 11.1 450 8.6 585 9.7 363 11.2
Pi Brahmin 230 6.9 52 1.9 16 0.4 17 0.3 181 3.4 271 4.5 50 1.5
Chamar 251 6.5 266 10.0 503 13.4 526. 10.5 655 12.4 896 14.9 381 11.7
o Kahar 110 3.3 110 4.1 128 3.4 179 3.6 130 2.5 257 4.3 117 3.6
PQ Kori 137 4.1 89 3.3 193 5.2 154 3.1 172 3.3 392 6.5 135 4.2
Q Kurmi 129 3.9 125 4.7 199 5.3 311 6.2 272 5.2 366 6.1 238 7.3
pq
Pasi 44 1.3 55 2.1 117 3.1 121 2.4 72 1.4 151 2.5 105 3.2
Rajput 202 6.1 268 10.0 240 6.4 203 4.1 216 4.1 147 2.5 58 1.8
Q Muslim 416 12.5 256 9.6 342 9.1 491 9.8 613 11.6 743 12.3 435 13.5
Thakur 213 6.4 178 6.7 300 8.0 512 10.3 561 10.7 390 6.5 343 10.6
2; Other 1360 40.8 985 36.9 1247 33.3 1929 38.6 1940 36.9 1796 30 1024 31.5
Total 3333 100 2668 100 3740 100 4994 100 5262 100 5994 100 3249 100
Q
HH Source: Immigration Certificates, Fiji.
 64 SOUTH ASIA

Table 21: Caste/communal identifications of a sample of North Indian

emigrants to British Guiana, 1865-1917

Group No. %
Ahir 913 10.2
Brahmin 146 1.6
Chamar 120 13.6
Dusadh 162 1.8
Gowala 140 1.6
Kahar 343 3.8
Koeri 237 2.6
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Kurmi 529 5.9

Pasi 225 2.5
Rajput/Thakur/Ksatriya 832 9.3
Muslim 1465 16.3
Other 2767 30.8
Total 8979 100

Source: Adapted from R. T. Smith, 'Some Social Characteristics of Indian Immigrants to British
Guiana', Population Studies, Vol. 13 (1959-60), 38.

Table 22: Castes/communal identifications of North Indian emigrating

to Jamaica 1905-13

1905-08 1909-13 1905-08 1909-13

Male Male Female Female
Caste No. % No. % No. % No. %
Ahir 194 10.5 252 10.4 59 7.3 79 8.1
Brahmin 92 5.0 102 4.2 43 5.3 36 3.7
Chamar 255 13.8 285 11.8 149 18.5 156 16.0
Kahar 68 3.7 80 3.3 41 5.1 44 4.5
Kori 86 4.6 98 4.1 28 3.5 58 5.9
Kurmi 117 6.3 125 5.2 41 5.1 53 5.4
Pasi 38 2.1 61 2.5 13 1.6 23 2.4
Rajput (Thakur) 217 11.7 295 12.2 80 10.0 79 8.0
Muslim 233 12.6 324 13.4 138 17.1 169 17.3
Other 553 29.8 792 32.8 215 26.6 280 28.7
Total 1853 100 2414 100 807 100 977 100

Source: Emigrant Passes, Jamaica

 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 65

When we examine Table 20, what is immediately obvious is the stability

of the composition of the social origins of the North Indian recruits going to
Fiji between 1879 and 1916. The one major movement is the decline of
Brahmin identifications between 1879/85 and 1902/06. It is possible that the
recruiters preferred not to take Brahmins, perhaps because it was recognised
that they usually did not do field work themselves. The proportion of high
caste emigrants was maintained through the period by the increased
proportion of Thakurs and, for a time, Rajputs. The remainder of the major
castes and communities retain their share of the total. When we compare these
figures with those for emigration to Jamaica during the same period (Table
22) the patterns are remarkably similar.
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The North Indian females who emigrated to Fiji and Jamaica had much
the same pattern of social origins as the male emigrants. It is noticeable again
in Table 23 that while Rajput and Thakur females comprised a smaller
proportion of the total female emigration than the corresponding castes did of
the total male migration, the opposite held true of Muslim and Chamar
women.
It is interesting that the emigration from North India to the sugar
colonies while it commenced with a substantial proportion of tribal and
untouchable labourers, had shifted by the late 1850s to encompass a broad
spectrum of castes and communities.
South India

Most of the early Immigration Registers and Certificates for the South
Indians who emigrated under government control provide a peculiar
difficulty for those trying to create a series relating to social origin. Most of
the records until 1865 do not record particular caste names, but instead
differentiate on the basis of language for Hindus other than Rajputs, and
otherwise on the basis of religious community. So between 1860 and 1865,
the male emigrants to Natal from Tamilnadu were listed as Malabaris while
the Telegu speakers were identified as Gentoos. That caste actually existed at
this time and was not some colonial census construct is confirmed by the
discovery in Mauritius of one register of a shipload of South Indian migrants
in 1843 who were dealt with in the same way as North Indians. Their caste
affiliations are listed in Table 24. The sample is too small to allow us to rely
upon it for the entire South Indian migration at the time, but it does suggest
that most of the early South Indian migrants were at the lowest levels of the
social scale (like the Paria) or somewhat higher (like the Padayachi), while
there were some from important cultivating castes (like the Tamil Vellala or
Telegu Kavarai).
 OS

Table 23
Caste/Communal Identifications of North Indian Female Emigrants to Fiji, 1879-1916
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1879-85 1886-91 1892-96 1897-1901 1902-06 1907-11 1912-16

Group No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
Ahir 63 5.1 94 8.7 175 11.4 213 10.2 142 6.3 192 8.1 174 8.7
Brahmin 107 8.6 56 5.2 19 1.2 24 1.1 111 4.9 133 5.6 26 1.8
Chamar 81 6.5 129 11.9 310 20.2 248 11.8 378 16.8 482 20.4 192 13.4
Kahar 47 3.8 54 5.0 52 3.4 86 4.1 62 2.8 103 4.4 55 3.8
O
Kori 27 2.2 12 1.1 59 3.8 69 3.3 69 3.1 160 6.8 73 5.1 I-*

Kurmi 28 2.2 39 3.6 65 4.2 98 4.7 93 4.1 124 5.2 96 6.7 H

Pasi 19 1.5 22 2.0 38 2.5 28 1.3 26 1.2 56 2.4 50 3.5
>
Rajput 116 9.3 137 12.7 178 11.6 255 12.1 203 9.0 153 6.5 140 9.8
(Thakur) >
Muslim 207 16.6 152 14.1 173 11.3 232 11.1 263 11.7 354 15.0 254 17.7
Other 551 44.2 385 35.6 465 30.3 844 40.2 900 40.0 609 25.7 373 26.0
Total 1246 100 1080 100 1534 100 2097 100 2247 100 2366 100 1433 100

Source: Immigration Certificates, Fiji.

 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 67

Table 24: Caste/communal identifications of a sample of South Indian

male emigrants to Mauritius 1843

Group No. %
Paria 40 14.9
Pulayan 32 11.9
Padayachi 26 9.7
Vellala 24 8.9
Ambala 14 5.2
Kallam 14 5.2
Pallan 11 4.1
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Kavarai 10 3.7
Other 98 36.4
Total 269 100

Source: Indian Immigration Registers, P.E. Series, Mauritius

Table 25: Caste/communal identifications of a sample of South Indians

emigrants to Mauritius, 1869-73

Males Females
Group No. of cases % total No. of cases % total
Paria 116 10.0 52 10.7
Reddi (Kapu) 93 8.0 45 9.2
Balija 93 8.0 34 7.0
Palli (Vannia) 88 7.6 34 7.0
Vellala 81 7.0 39 8.0
Golla 56 4.8 37 7.6
Mala 49 4.2 14 2.9
Muslim 44 3.8 12 2.5
Weaver 29 2.5 8 1.6
Salilu 24 2.1 16 3.3
Other 490 42.1 196 40.2
Total 1163 100 487 100

Source: Indian Immigrant Registers, PE Series, Mauritius

 68 SOUTH ASIA

Table 26: Sample of South Indian emigrants to Natal - most frequent

castes/communities

Males Females
1877-1896 1877-1893
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Group No. % No. %

Balija 162 9.1 73 10.8
Dhobi 34 1.9 14 2.1
Kapu 50 2.8 9 1.3
Mudali 23 1.3 13 1.9
Muslim 91 5.1 21 3.1
Odda 40 2.2 24 3.5
Pariah 260 14.5 122 18.0
Shepherd 37 2.1 10 1.5
Upila 61 3.4 40 5.9
Vannia 364 20.3 135 19.9
Vellala 99 5.5 33 4.9
Vodda 40 2.2 25 3.7
Others 429 24.0 159 23.5
Total 1790 100 678 100

Source: Shipping Lists, Natal

 ON

Table 27
Caste/Communal Identifications of South Indian Indentured Emigrants to Fiji, 1903-1916
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Males Females
1903-07 1908-12 1913-16 1903-07 1908-12 1913-16
00 Group No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
04 Balija 163 6.6 185 4.6 138 4.5 82 8.5 108 6.8 72 6.1
W
04 Kapu (Reddi) 164 6.6 283 7.1 198 6.5 74 7.7 129 8.1 99 8.4
Mala 139 5.6 326 8.2 146 4.8 54 5.6 153 9.7 79 6.7
O Muslim 157 6.3 348 8.7 270 8.8 33 3.4 94 5.9 74 6.3
PQ
< Pariah 277 11.2 290 7.3 158 5.2 142 14.8 145 9.1 85 7.2
_) Vannia (Palli) 262 10.6 302 7.6 403 13.2 111 11.6 126 7.9 130 11.1
Q Gounden 97 3.9 139 3.5 162 5.3 33 3.4 30 1.9 42 3.6
W Other 1216 49.1 2112 53.0 1582 51.8 431 44.9 800 50.5 594 50.6
Total 2475 3985 100 3057 960 100 1585 100 1175 100
B 100 100

I Source: Immigration Certificates, Fiji

Q
 70 SOUTH ASIA

The next set of data in Table 25 comprises an analysis of the social

origins of 1163 men and 487 women who emigrated to Mauritius in 1869,
1871 and 1873. There was a larger proportion from cultivating castes such as
Balijas, Vellalas, and Reddis in these shiploads, but low castes (e.g. the
Salilu) and agricultural labouring castes (e.g. the Parias and Pallis) remain the
most prominent. As in North India the female emigrants are - roughly - in
the same proportion as the males in their caste or communal group.
The figures compiled by Bhana for South Indian indentured emigration
to Natal are difficult to use because he did not separate male from female,
and counted Malabaris and Gentoos as separate castes/communities.35 Bearing
this problem in mind, these figures indicate much the same picture as those
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for Mauritius and Fiji. The dominant castes are the Pariah and Vannia (Palli)
with substantial numbers of Vellala and Balija also travelling to Natal. It is
again noticeable that the proportion of Muslims drops from 1886 as in North
India, though the decline is not as substantial. The sample we have of the
North Indian emigration to Natal follows this pattern (see Table 26) with
Vannia (Palli) and Paria the most common identifications.
An analysis of all the South Indian emigrants to Fiji indicates that people
from an enormous number of identifiable castes (267 for the males) travelled
to Fiji between 1903 and 1916. Many of these castes were represented by one
or two people, and only a few sent more than three percent of the total. Table
27 indicates that similar castes and communities dominated the migration
stream to Fiji as our sample for Mauritius indicates for the early 1870s. The
pattern of female emigration was similar to that of males - as in most
previous cases.

Conclusion
One point stands out from this attempt to establish the geographical and social
origins of the indentured workers: their home districts were spread widely
across the recruiting regions, and they came from most of the castes and
communities of the subcontinent. There were, however, changing patterns of
recruitment in both North and South India, as people responded to the various
pressures and opportunities of their times. The evidence we have shows us a
number of these shifts in pattern: the sharp reduction in the numbers of tribal
people, such as the Mundas from the Chota Nagpur plateaux, when they
found alternative employment and the colonial recruiters realised that they
had health difficulties with the passage through Calcutta which plains people
did not share; the significance of Gaya and Shahabad (Arrah) as sources of
recruits until the 1870s when other opportunities presented themselves
through transport and irrigation developments; the growth of Basti and Gonda

35 Bhana, Indentured Indian Emigrants, pp. 72-4.

 INDIAN INDENTURED LABOURERS 71

as major sources of labour, as they became caught in the costs of the

integration of India into the world market without at the same time being able
to profit from it.
As the recruitment zone shifted different communities became involved.
We have seen how the tribal people were replaced by high caste groups by the
early 1860s. But there were also people like the Chamars and Muslims who
each provided a steady annual stream of about 10 percent to most of the
colonies throughout the period. In the South the range of areas for organised
recruitment, originally quite widely spread along the Coromandel coast,
squeezed into the central zone focussed on North Arcot, a district with a
vulnerable system of agriculture and agrarian relations strained by the new
commercial culture. The main castes migrating from the South were
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established by the early 1870s, and comprised mainly lower caste groups
though there were many from the respectable shudra castes such as the Balija
and Vellala.
The changing shape of indentured recruitment is a useful tool not only to
help us understand the original social composition of the Indian communities
outside the subcontinent, but also as a way of looking back into the India
from which they travelled. There remains a great deal more work to do
before we can understand the conditions which led these brave people to
confront the oceans, strange countries, and greater direct exposure to the
pressures of the capitalist system than they had previously experienced.