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Literature of Girmitiya
History, Culture and
Identity
Edited by
Neha Singh · Sajaudeen Chapparban
Neha Singh · Sajaudeen Chapparban
Editors
History, Culture and Identity
Editors
Neha Singh Sajaudeen Chapparban
Department of Languages, Centre for Diaspora Studies
Literatures and Cultural Studies, Central University of Gujarat
School of Humanities and Social Gandhinagar, India
Sciences
Manipal University Jaipur
Rajasthan, India
ISBN 978-981-19-4620-2 ISBN 978-981-19-4621-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4621-9
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Contents
1 Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture, and Identity 1

Neha Singh and Sajaudeen Chapparban
Part I Language, Literature, and Identity

2 Language, Literature and Cultural Identity:
A Narrative from the Malaysian Tamil Diaspora 23
M. Mahalingam
3 Poetics of the Crossing: Rerouting Identity in Indian
Indenture 43
Anjali Singh
4 Unutterable Sufferings of Girmitiyas in Amitav
Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies 59
Pulkita Anand
5 A Critical Reflection on Imperialism, Nostalgia
and Traumatic Experiences in Totaram Sanadhya’s
My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands 73
Rabindra Kumar Verma
v
vi CONTENTS
Part II Culture, Music, and Songs

6 Tracing the Girmitiya Consciousness in Bhojpuri
Folkloric Songs: A Study of Three Bhojpuri Video
Songs 91
Anisha Badal-Caussy and Jay Ganesh Dawosing
7 The Poetics of Unsung Chutney Singer Lakhan
Karriah of Trinidad 111
Kumar Mahabir
8 Preservation of Cultural Heritage: A Case Study
of Asians in Mauritius 127
Zareen Beebeejaun-Muslum
9 Relocating Cultural Identity: Pattern and Conditions
of Indian Diaspora in Fiji 145
Sushma Pandey
10 Vivid Girmitiya Sacraments and Ganga Talao 179
Anshuman Rana
Part III Migration and History

11 Girmit as a Global Labour Regime: Essentials,
Expansion and Exceptions 197
Amit Kumar Mishra
12 ‘Convicts’ as the Indentured Labour: Contribution
of Indians to the Development in Southeast Asia 227
Aparna Tripathi
13 The Girmityas and Power Politics: A Genealogical
Analysis of Colonial Fiji 241
Dhanya Joy
14 Indentured Labour Migration from Bombay
Presidency: A Study of Marathi-Speaking Community
in Mauritius 255
Dhanraj Gusinge
Index 267
Notes on Contributors
Pulkita Anand is Assistant Professor of English at Shahid Chandrasekhar

Govt. PG College, Jhabua. Her areas of research are Indian Writing in
English, British Drama, Gender studies and Afro-American literature. She
is the author of a book. She has participated in many workshops, sympo-
siums, international conferences, and national seminars and has written
papers that have been published in reputed journals. Her creative work
has been published in various journals.
Anisha Badal-Caussy is Lecturer from the Department of Mauritian
Studies at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mauritius. Her research inter-
ests are Mauritian Literature, Postcolonial Literature, Border Studies,
Cultural Studies, Feminism, and Postmodernism. She has participated in
many national and international conferences.
Mrs. Zareen Beebeejaun-Muslum is a senior lecturer at the Depart-
ment of Mauritian Studies, Mahatma Gandhi Institute. She has lectured
for more than fifteen years in the field of Sociology and Anthropology.
Apart from teaching, her research interests are as follows: Gender Issues,
Contemporary Mauritian Society, HIV/AIDS related stigma and discrim-
ination, Social impact of Type II Diabetes amongothers. She recently
collaborated on a book publication titled ‘Achieving Work-Family-Balance
(WFB) among professional working women in Mauritius’.
Sajaudeen Chapparban is Assistant Professor in the Centre for Diaspora
Studies at Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, India.
vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Jay Ganesh Dawosing is a Lecturer from the Department of Bhojpuri,

Folklore and Oral Traditions at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mauritius.
His research interests are Bhojpuri Language and Culture, Bhojpuri folk
songs, Heritage, Folklore and Oral Traditions. He has published several
papers and is an active researcher in his fields of interest.
Dhanraj Gusinge is Assistant Professor in Department of History at
Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. He completed
his Ph.D. entitled ‘History and Cultural Identity of Marathi Diaspora in
Mauritius’ under the Centre for Diaspora Studies at Central University
of Gujarat. He completed his M.Phil. entitled ‘Indian Diaspora in Mauri-
tius: A Historical Study of Indentureship (1834–1920)’ from the Central
University of Gujarat. He was awarded the ICSSR Doctoral Fellowship
in 2018–2019. He has presented research papers in various International
and National Seminar/Conferences. His area of interest includes Indian
Diaspora, Migration, Indian History, Culture and Identity.
Dhanya Joy is Assistant Professor of English at St. Joseph’s College for
Women, Alappuzha (affiliated to Kerala University, India). Her interests
span an eclectic range of cross-disciplinary domains including literary
theory, film studies, philosophy and life studies. She has published
research papers in various national and international journals. She is
currently working on the post-theoretical implications in the works of
Jorge Luis Borges, the master craftsman of Argentine literature.
Kumar Mahabir is a full-time anthropologist at the University of Guyana
(UG) and a Fellow of The Eccles Centre for American Studies—British
Library. He is also the founder and chief director of the weekly Sunday
ZOOM program hosted by the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre (ICC).
Dr. Mahabir is also a former Assistant Professor at the University of
Trinidad and Tobago (UTT). He obtained his Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of Florida (UF) in the USA, and his M.Phil. and B.A.
degrees in Literature in English from the University of the West Indies
(UW). He is the author of 12 books to date.
M. Mahalingam is currently working as Associate Professor at the Faculty
of Law of SGT University, Gurugram, Delhi-NCR, India. He has been
teaching history and sociology to law students since 2015. He has
numerous research publications to his credit. He is currently a Co-project
director for the research project of the Indian Council of Social Science
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ix
Research (ICSSR) entitled ‘The Plight of Migrant Labourers During the

Covid-19 Pandemic in Delhi- A Socio-Legal Study’.
Amit Kumar Mishra is Associate Professor, School of Global Affairs
at Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi. His research, teaching and
publications explore south asian diaspora, transnational migrations, and
diaspora-development. He was consultant to Truth and Justice Commis-
sion (Mauritius), Fellow Weatherhead Initiative on Global History
(Harvard University) and a member of UNESCO Indentured Labour
Route Project.
Sushma Pandey is currently working with ‘Jharkhand Anti Trafficking
Network’ as Project Coordinator, (SPARK Ranchi Jharkhand). She has
Ph.D. in diaspora studies and is a recipient of ICSSR Foreign Travel
grant. She conducted ethnographic research in Fiji. She has published a
paper on the topic of Invisible Indentured History of Women Migration
During Social Reform in India International Journal of Social Science
and Economic Research. She is a part-time research intern at women’s
studies centre Ranchi Dept. of Economics, Ranchi University, Supported
by Indian Association for Women’s Studies (IAWS). She worked with
Tribal Research Institute Ranchi Jharkhand. As a research associate, she
completed In-house Project ‘Megaliths of Jharkhand, Encyclopedia of
Tribes of Jharkhand’. She also worked with ‘Azim Premji University’ as
Research Associate on the project ‘15 meters back’: schemes to support
women working in traditionally male jobs, competition, and violence. She
has working experience with Himalayan Heritage Research and Develop-
ment Society (HHRDS) as a Cultural Counsellor/Program Coordinator
Sikkim and Uttarakhand.
Anshuman Rana is currently Assistant Professor and Head of the Depart-
ment in the Institute of Media Studies, Shri Ramswaroop Memorial
University, Lucknow. He holds a Doctorate in Diaspora Studies. He
has done his bachelor’s and master’s in Journalism and Mass Commu-
nication. His research interest lies in Lifestyle migration, Development
Communication and Culture Studies.
Neha Singh is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages,
Literatures and Cultural Studies at Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan,
India.
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Anjali Singh holds a Ph.D. in English. Her areas of interest include

Indenture Studies, Migration Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Women’s
Writing, and Gender and Queer Studies. She has travelled widely and has
also presented research papers in Australia and Fiji, apart from publishing
papers in several peer-reviewed and referred journals. Her book Voices
and Silences: Narratives of the Girmitiyas and Jahajis from Fiji and the
Caribbean (2022) has been co-published by Manohar Publishers and
Routledge.
Aparna Tripathi is currently working as Ph.D. Research Scholar at
the Centre for Diaspora Studies, Central University of Gujarat, Gand-
hinagar, Gujarat. She has been awarded her M.Phil. from the same
centre. She published more than 4 papers in international and nation-
ally reputed journals and also published 2 book chapters in the edited
books. She obtained her B.A.(Hons.) and M.A. in Political Science
from Banaras Hindu University. Her research interests include Political
Thought, Indian Foreign Policy, Indian Diaspora in Southeast Asia and
USA and International Relations.
Rabindra Kumar Verma teaches English at the Department of
Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies, Manipal University Jaipur.
He has earned 11 years of teaching experience in the domain of English
literature, language and literary theory and criticism. He was awarded
D.Phil. in 2011 by the Department of English & Modern European
Languages, University of Allahabad, India. He has published more
than 25 research papers in national, international, and Scopus-indexed
journals, and book chapters in the edited books.
List of Figures
Fig. 13.1 Fiji: Ethnic Composition (2007):

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
www.britannica.com/place/Fiji-republic-Pacific-Ocean
/People 242
Fig. 13.2 Sample of emigration pass:
www.fijigirmit.org/ph_passes.htm 245
Fig. 13.3 A group of Girmityas:
www.fijigirmit.org/ph_girmitold.htm 248
Fig. 14.1 Marathi language in Mauritius (Source Census
of Mauritius, 1990, 2000, 2011) 263
Map 8.1 The main regions and districts of recruitment for Indian
indentured labourers (1826–1910) (Source Aapravasi
Ghat Trust Fund Collection, published in Peerthum
[2017]. They came to the Mauritian Shore’s: The
Life-Stories and the History of Indentured Labourers
in Mauritius [1826–1937]: Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund) 131
Map 14.1 Marathi Settlement in Mauritius (Source Mauritius
Marathi Cultural Centre Trust [2012], p. 33) 262
xi
List of Tables
Table 6.1 Traditional Girmitiya song Calcutta Se Chootal Jahaaj

rewritten by Suchita Ramdin (1989), performed
by Roots Foundation and translated by Prof. Ramesh
Ramdoyal depicts their agony during the unending
voyage to an unknown world which fate had chosen
as their new home, leaving behind their beloved ones,
and their country, their hope of seeing their motherland
gone forever 95
Table 6.2 Girmitiya song Girmitiya Kantraki (2017),
a Champaran Talkies Production, produced by Neetu
Chandra and sung by Raj Mohan in the attire
of an Indentured Labourer and the video has a cartoon
story of the girmitiya in Suriname 97
Table 6.3 Girmitiya song Fiji Bidesia sung by Ranpoo Singh
in 2010, written by late Master Santa Prasad Bahadur
Korokade India School, Lekutu, Bua, Fiji Islands, 1961 98
Table 8.1 Number of convicts in Mauritius 1815–1848 129
Table 8.2 Arrival and departures of Indian immigrants
between 1834 and 1912 130
Table 9.1 Chronology of indentured system 152
Table 9.2 Year- and country-wise migration 153
Table 9.3 Number of laborers emigrated to colonies 153
Table 9.4 Percentage of Port-Wise migration (1835–1844) 154
Table 9.5 Numbers of emigrating Indian indentured laborers 155
Table 9.6 Districts wise recruitment 155
xiii
xiv LIST OF TABLES
Table 9.7 District-Wise North Indian migration in Fiji 156

Table 9.8 District-wise caste composition of emigrants 156
Table 9.9 Commissions of agents for laborer recruitment 158
Table 9.10 Labor recruitment for Kangani system 160
Table 9.11 Indians employed in Fiji during 1911 165
Table 9.12 Free Indian population in Fiji, 1908–1912 165
Table 9.13 Emigrants from Calcutta to Fiji, 1891–1902 167
Table 9.14 Emigration from Calcutta to Fiji by age, 1879–1916 168
Table 9.15 Cost of rations in Fiji 170
Table 9.16 Daily wages of indentured labor in Fiji 172
Table 9.17 Male and female percentage of emigration
during the colonial period 173
Table 11.1 Production of sugar and arrival of Indian indentured
labourers in Mauritius 216
CHAPTER 1
Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture,

and Identity
Neha Singh and Sajaudeen Chapparban
Introduction
People have been moving from one place to another for various socioe-
conomic and political reasons since ancient times. In recent times also
there is a visible increase in human mobility across national and interna-
tional boundaries. People are relocating to other villages, cities, states, and
nations. Studies of migratory mechanisms categorized human mobility
into national and international and temporary and permanent migration.
These human mobilities are further divided on the basis of two primary
characteristics, that is how and why they chose to migrate from their place
of origin. There are various driving factors that instigate people to migrate
which include political, social, cultural, economic as well as demographic.
N. Singh (B)
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur,
India
e-mail: neha87always@gmail.com
S. Chapparban
Centre for Diaspora Studies, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, India
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
N. Singh and S. Chapparban (eds.), Literature of Girmitiya,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4621-9_1
2 N. SINGH AND S. CHAPPARBAN
Everett Lee,1 a renowned demographer calls these factor ‘push and pull
factors’ and categorized migration as a ‘permanent or semi-permanent
change of residence’. Indians have also been migrating for various push
and pull factors and crossing the ‘social-cultural setting2 ’ which leads to
the formulation of Diaspora. Chapparban (2020) argued the ‘Sociocul-
tural setting is an attachment with feeling, memories, and familiarity with
the things which an individual loved and experiences at the primary stage
of life. This similarity can span a settlement category such as a locality,
city, region, state, country, or continent. It varies from place to place
depending upon sociocultural similarities and dissimilarities. It can also
be a setting that is marked by social category and dominance of that
particular category be it race, culture, religion, ethnicity, or language
group which also constitutes the identity of a settlement category. If a
person migrates from one sociocultural setting to another sociocultural
setting, he experiences a difference in the host society, and this expe-
rience of being different in another sociocultural setting is called the
post-migration feelings and diasporic sense. The pre-migration feelings
are always positively colored with new hopes, dreams, and a better life
full of passion and eagerness. These feelings vary in the forced migratory
patterns’ (2020: 1880). Indians who migrated during the colonial time
under the indentured laborer system crossed the sociocultural settings
which led to the formulation of early Indian diaspora communities in
the new sociocultural setting of the different host societies. Etymolog-
ically, as Clifford3 follows, the word ‘diaspora’ comes from the Greek
roots ‘dia’ and ‘speirein,’ which means ‘to disperse.’ It was first applied
to the Agean population later to the Jewish exile, Africans, Chinese,
Indians, Palestinians, Armenians, and more recently to almost all patterns
of contemporary migrations, mostly to all international migrations in the
post-nation societies.
Jacobsen and Pratap4 say although South Asia is a peculiar and notice-
able cultural zone, this doesn’t entail that all its cultures are identical.
Perversely, South Asia is indeed one of the world’s largest linguistically,
1 Lee, E. S. (1966). A Theory of Migration. Demography, 3(1), 47–57.

2 Chapparban, S. (2020). Psychology of Diaspora. In David Leeming ed., Encyclopedia
of Psychology and Religion. 3rd edition: Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.
3 Clifford, J. (1994). Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology, 9(3), 302–338.
4 Jacobsen, K. A., & Kumar, P. (Eds.). (2018). South Asians in the Diaspora: Histories
and Religious Traditions. Brill.
1 LITERATURE OF GIRMITIYA: HISTORY, CULTURE … 3
religiously, and ethnically multifarious regions. South Asian affiliates with

varied countries of origin, speak different languages and practice different
faiths. India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bhutan consist
of the six contemporary nation-states that represent South Asia. India,
being a multicultural society and diverse of these republics, is further
subdivided by religious, linguistic, and racial identities.
Across the world, the South Asian diaspora is a conspicuous interlude.
The first era of migration spanned the 1830s till the South Asian countries
gained their freedom. The mobilization of people from the South Asian
region to establish the British colonies is what defines this time period
as the colonial era. In response to the great depression requirements of
the British regime, this exodus was largely orchestrated by the British
colonial state. The end of enslavement in the British Empire coincided
with an increase in the need for plantation consumables like sugar and
the viability of agricultural production to include coffee, tea, and subse-
quently rubber, which led to the development of a new kind of labor
engagement for Indians. Indentured laborers (also known as contract
laborers) from India were employed to address the issue of the shortage
of laborers, mostly in the British plantations across continents. Conse-
quently, the colonial administration began the process of hiring cheap
labor from South Asia and transported them to Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana,
East Africa, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago, Caribbean islands, etc.
The insinuation that the stated contract payments were far relatively
higher than what could be earned by continuing to work in India was
supposed to be to the worker’s advantage. There is evidence to suggest
that, irrespective of the contractual system in place, laborers were at a
disadvantageous position within the framework of that notorious system:
frequently debilitated from exposure to unidentifiable diseases, they were
rarely given better healthcare outlined in their contracts. This made them
unable to accomplish their full contract obligations due to sickness; and
in Mauritius, this was the reason for being susceptible to the infamous
‘double-cut,’ wherein one day of absence from work resulted in a two-day
pay cut.5
The present book aims to critically engage in one of the earliest notice-
able forms of Indian migration under the indentured labor system of the
British colonial enterprise, on the eve of the abolition of slavery. Earlier,
5 Brennan, L. (1998). Across the Kala Pani: An Introduction. South Asia: Journal of
South Asian Studies, 21(1), 1–18.
enslaving lives was a common phenomenon in world history. Early colo-

nial commercial development in the new world and the Caribbean islands
was highlighted by the emergence of large plantations sustained by a labor
pool composed mainly of purchased slaves from the West African coast.
Plantations as modern agricultural architecture and servitude as a labor-
organizing entity both seem to have a long-standing tradition within
western civilization’s frameworks. Burnard6 explicates the idea that slavery
has been chronicled in the European continent since the Greco-Roman
era when slave labor was used to construct the structural fabric of human
civilization.
Western European states benefited enormously from the trans-Atlantic
slave trade before the prohibition on slave ownership in the nineteenth
century. Slaves were transported to the Americas from Africa to labor
in mines, on plantations, and in other colonial development projects.
The termination of the transatlantic slave trade was likely attributable to
Britain’s measures and in 1807, the British Parliament outlawed slavery.
Slavery in Britain’s territories was repealed in 1833, liberating more than
three-quarters of a million slaves. Using its naval power, Britain imple-
mented its anti-slavery stance over the world at the same time and for
decades afterward. According to Gwyn Campbell,7 it is critical to consider
both the historical connection between different manifestations of unfree
labor as well as the movements from slavery to abolition to alternative
methods of labor.
It is essential to clarify the circumstances during which Indian emigra-
tion evolved amid the colonial system to fully understand its peculiarities.
It is vital to consider how indentured labor emerged as an immediate
result of the British empire’s global domination and the construction of its
financial power, and how the prohibition of slave labor in British colonies
spurred the labor supply. Slave labor from the African slave trade was
used to develop the early plantation empires. The British initially hired
workers from China and other European countries, but they fled the
plantation due to their unsuitability for the tropical climate and meager
wages. The British resorted to Eastern India’s financial recession areas
(primarily today’s Bihar and Uttar Pradesh) or some provinces of the
6 Burnard, Trevor G. Planters, Merchants, and Slaves: Plantation Societies in British

America, 1650–1820. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015.
7 Campbell, G. (2004). Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia.
Routledge.
Madras and Bombay Presidency to recruit labor. The abolition of slavery

had a considerable influence on plantation-dominated economies, notably
because former slaves were unwilling to compromise for the planters’
wages. Thus, the ‘apprenticeship’ system was explored as a remedy, which
permitted farming to flourish by engaging former slaves as apprentices.
The plan was essentially a four- to six-year compulsory apprenticeship for
former slaves over the age of six and a half.
The indentured system was introduced as a model of contract labor for
this reason, with workers signing a five-year agreement to operate in the
plantation system. According to Brij V Lal,8 there were also initiatives to
recruit Chinese labor and they were thought to be inappropriate for long-
term plantation labor because they would depart at the first opportunity
to profit through commerce and supporting processes. They also reject to
work on meagre wages on plantation. Brij V Lal puts forth his argument
on Indian migration that these failures placed special emphasis on India
as a sustainable and long-term supply of labor. India was indeed the main
source of labor for the British Empire’s sugar estates in the nineteenth
century.
“Pressure to emigrate has always been significant enough to create
a stream of emigrants considerably larger than they are actually offered
possibilities,” Kingsley Davis9 said of emigration in India. Local recruiters
known as arkitas /arkatiyas enlisted laborers in India by painting a rosy
and glossy picture of the working environment in the plantation colonies.
They also kidnapped people and took them to a coolie depot, where they
commenced their trek to the new world. One of the earliest records of
studies on Girmitiya can be traced back to the study of Brij V Lal in
the 1980s. Gounder et al. (2020) observed in their book that the first
in-depth statistical examination of the demographic underpinnings of the
girmitiyas was offered by Brij Lal’s thesis in 1983. Lal proved unequivo-
cally that, contrary to the colonial myth of indenture, the girmitiyas were
not India’s ‘flotsam and jetsam.’10 Instead, the girmitiyas represented
8 V Lal, B. (2012). Chalo Jahaji: On a Journey Through Indenture in Fiji. ANU Press.
9 Davis, K. (1988). Social Science Approaches to International Migration. Population
and Development Review, 14, 245–261.
10 Gounder, F., Hiralal, K., Pande, A., & Hassankhan, M. S. (Eds.). (2020). Women,
Gender and the Legacy of Slavery and Indenture. Routledge.
a mixture of castes and classes in India. David Northrup11 explicitly

forefronts the idea that almost all indentured laborers were acquired by
abduction and threat of force, and were gravely deluded about their
itineraries, responsibilities, and remuneration by nefarious recruiters, espe-
cially at the beginning of the trade. Certain events gave rise to derogatory
nicknames, such as ‘blackbirding’ in the South Pacific, the ‘pig trade’ in
China, and the ‘coolie trade’ in India.
British colonization resulted in overseas migration from India, both in
India and on archipelagos. Local recruiters were also forced to rely on
sirdars, or labor group leaders, who volunteered to help the recruiters
and the emigration agent, as Marina Carter12 recounts in her book ‘Sir-
dars, Servants, and Settlers.’ As indentured servants, many Indians sailed
overseas territories such as Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Mauritius, Fiji,
and others. The British government then began the process of recruiting
laborers from the Asian colonies. As a corollary, in 1834, the first group of
36 dhangars (hill coolie) of Eastern India was transported to Mauritius to
serve in the plantations. Previously, the British tried bringing convict labor
to Mauritius to develop infrastructure. Hugh Tinker13 calls this recruit-
ment of indenture labor a ‘new form of slavery (Tinker, 1974).’ After
working for the term of the contract they were allowed to be free. It was
estimated that around 30 million people migrated to different parts of the
world between 1834 and 1937 whereas, in the period between 1901 and
1937, a total of 451,000 laborers migrated (Tinker, 1974).
The experiences of women in this infamous system of indentured
labor become equally important because they had varied experiences and
contributions to the colonial plantation settlements in the British Empire.
Satish Rai14 in his documentary ‘In Exile at Home: A Fiji Indian Story’
explored how this whole system of transportation of laborers was imple-
mented. According to his documentary, it was thought that girmitiyas had
migrated to Fiji voluntarily, and the majority of them didn’t come back,
11 Northrup, D. (1995). Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922.

Cambridge University Press.
12 Carter, M. (1995). Servants, Sirdars, and Settlers: Indians in Mauritius, 1834–1874.
Oxford University Press, USA.
13 Hugh, T. (1974). A New System of Slavery. The Export of Indian Labour Overseas,
London, Hansib Educational Book.
14 Rai, S. C. (2010). In Exile at Home: A Fiji-Indian Story. University of Western
Sydney (Australia).
instead preferring to reside in Fiji for sustainable development. The newly

discovered facts debunked this myth and sparked an investigation into the
reasons for the 35,000 girmitiyas’ refusal to repatriate to their ancestral
homeland in India. The central problem to investigate was whether girmi-
tiyas wanted to settle in Fiji or if they did so because of being prohibited
from relocating to India and building a home in exile. In his documentary,
Shahista Shaman said women were vital in the formation of the planta-
tion economy. Many of the women were alienated from their friends. Fiji
lured women with farming backgrounds and arkatias kidnapped many
of them. After being recruited from cities and religious centers, naive
Indians were escorted to Calcutta or Madras for immigration clearance
and deportation to colonies. People were sobbing and had no idea where
they were sailing. During the travel to a distant land, emotional anguish
was experienced. These girmitiyas arrived in Fiji after a three-month trek,
where they were segregated and relocated to a plantation. In this film ‘In
exile at home,’ Satendra Nandan claimed that girmitiyas were tricked into
fleeing their homes in India to serve in Fiji. Additionally, the fact that
they committed to visiting Fiji only for five or ten years suggested that
they were only passing through. He described this historical migration
as chaotic. He says hard work was nothing new to them; it was a never-
ending pace of labor in the absence of civilization and community. It was
a mentally taxing time for women because they had to work incredibly
hard during their gestation and immediately after childbirth.
Colonialism not only shaped the capital and trade but also human life
and mobility across the cultures, borders, and communities, whose lega-
cies left indelible marks and dark shadows on the lives, culture, literature,
and identity of colonized subjects even in the postcolonial times. Inden-
tured/Girmitiya migration is one of the largest colonial enterprises that
forced millions of people from China, Arab countries, and the Indian
subcontinent/South Asia to leave their beloved families, home, memo-
ries, culture, and people behind to join indentured colonies beyond the
kalapani.15 Although they rebuilt/re-created many things that they left
behind in the places of arrival, these catastrophic departures fractured
their psyches, hyphenated their identities, and had significant effects on
their lives and their generations.
15 Kalapani is a term that was common parlance among the Indian masses during the
sea voyages during the colonial time. Sea journeys of indentured laborers and deportation
of anti-colonial voices to island prisons.
The present book aims to cover the contract labor migration and
migration during this contract labor. Although this form of mass labor
migration was ‘legal’ and ‘free’ in nature, in practicality it was loaded with
gross violations of basic human rights, injustices, lack of proper wages,
health facilities, malnutrition, and other civil facilities. It is ingrained with
the pains and pangs of dislocation, relocation, memories, nostalgia, sepa-
ration, belonging, etc. There is also a positive aspect of this migration in
terms of providing employment to the masses who were affected by social
inequalities, debt, natural calamities, taxation, repressed women, and
workers of small industries in colonial India. Most people who joined and
were forced to join this colonial labor enterprise were the socioeconom-
ically backward castes and classless from the Indian subcontinent. This
indentured system was also commonly known as girmitiya migration. The
adjective word ‘girmitiya’ comes from the noun ‘girmit’ a malapropism
of the English word ‘agreement.’ The Indian illiterate masses who joined
and signed the labor contract were not able to pronounce the English
word ‘agreement’ thus they mispronounce it as a ‘girmit ’ which later
came to be known as ‘girmitiya.’ The girmit community while traveling
brought with them many of their cultural and religious traits, languages,
customs, food habits, traditions, etc. in the gathari 16 to the colonies.
Gathari 17 has been explained as cultural baggage that indentured laborers
took along with them and called these tangible and intangible assets
their cultural belongings. Many religious ceremonies and celebrations,
including Phagwah, Diwali, Dussehra, Eid, Moharram, Mahashivratri, and
Ram Navmi, were held on plantations under trees. Auspicious days for the
performance of specific chores, the naming of newborns, celestial details,
and so on were transcribed into birth and death rites, and marriage.18
16 As the bearer of cultural baggage or gathari, the individual carries it into unfamiliar
cultural settings where he segregates through his personal experience and calibrates to his
surroundings in a foreign land. This ethnic identity, which is based on ancestry, family,
a shared language of expression, historical and ingenious remembrances, and religious
convictions, has served as a shield to defend, maintain, and advance the ethnic culture.
17 Gautam, M. K. (2013). Indian Diaspora: Ethnicity and Diasporic Identity (MEA
Report).
18 Ramsarran, P. (2008). The Indentured Contract and Its Impact on Labor Rela-
tionship and Community Reconstruction in British Guiana. International Journal of
Criminology and Sociological Theory.
K. Hazareesingh19 says it is true that among several of the early immi-

grants to Mauritius, a huge proportion could be perceived as guardians
of their motherland’s cultural heritage. He writes in his article that he
stumbled upon a document in the Mauritius Department of Immigra-
tion’s records indicating that most of the immigrants brought religious
scriptures from India with them, including the Mahabharata, Ramayana,
and Gita Puran. There had been a proliferation in religious zeal among
the inhabitants, and the Indian immigrants who landed in Mauritius in
the mid-nineteenth century were fully cognizant of their ancestry and
referred to the ‘Shastras ’ for religious enlightenment. He also added that
there were few festivals revived to share a common descent and cultural
identity. The ‘phagwa’ (Holi), ‘Diwali,’ ‘Durga Puja,’ and ‘Shivaratri’
were among the prominent festivals and events of the Hindu commu-
nity observed on plantation. ‘Ramanavami’ was principally recognized
by women. The Tamils performed a fire walking ceremony, while Muslims
commemorated Eid. Every estate had a Baithka (village club or an
informal gathering) which was arguably the most critical social institution
in the Hindu community at the time.
Badri Narayan Tiwari in collaboration with Maurits Hassankhan20
completed one humungous project on Kahe Gaile Bides: Why did you go
overseas? wherein both discuss that this bidesia 21 (foreigner) community
who were leaving for unknown destinations carried away both tangible
and intangible cultural heritage as a part of their cultural memory. They
were traveling with copies of Hanuman Chalisa, Ramayana, Quran,
Kabir poems, etc. The girmitiya community preserved the language and
culture of their homeland. The prime aim of preserving their cultural
heritage is to strengthen the bonds between the Bhojpuri-speaking
community who are living in India and across the globe. Parbattie
Ramsarran22 mentions Seecharan who asserts that this Hindu religious
literature (Ramayana, Mahabharat, and Bhagavad Gita) gave enslaved
19 Hazareesingh, K. (1966). The Religion and Culture of Indian Immigrants in Mauri-

tius and the Effect of Social Change. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8(2),
241–257.
20 Hassankhan, M. S. (2013). Kahe Gaile Bides: Why Did You Go Overseas? An Intro-
duction in Emotional Aspects of Migration History: A Diaspora Perspective. Man in
India, 93(1), 1–28.
21 The word bidesia originated from the word ‘bidesh’ which means foreign.
22 Ibid. (16).
laborers the instructions and rituals they needed to build a new congre-
gation outside of India.
The present book aims to critically engage in documenting the history,
experiences, culture, patterns of assimilation, acculturation, cultural
preservations, and formulation of new identities of the girmitiya commu-
nity. It also critically analyses the articulation, projection, and production
of their experiences of migration, their narratives, tradition, culture, reli-
gion, and memory. It also explores how this labor community formulated
into a diaspora community and re-connected/created the home (land)
and continues to do so in the wake of globalization and ICT (Information
and Communication Technology). The proposed book is an attempt to
bring the intriguing neglected diverse historical heritage of colonial labor
migration and their narratives into the mainstream scholarly debates and
discussions through trans- and interdisciplinary perspectives. The book
covers various forms of the production of girmitiya culture and liter-
ature. This book assesses the routes of migration of the old diaspora,
and it explains the nuances of cultural change among the generations.
Although, they have migrated centuries back, absorbed, assimilated, and
got citizenships of respective countries of destinations but it’s pertinent
to know how they are (re)connected/ing with their homeland in the age
of globalization and ICT and the growing long-distance nationalism in
the twenty-first century. How the approaches of Indian diasporas toward
India and India’s approaches towards its scattered diaspora engage and
re-engage these scattered communities to their roots, culture, identities,
and home(land). The chapters in this book analyze the longing, and the
constant struggle of the diaspora to preserve identities and connections
with their homeland through their sociocultural and art practices such as
religious festivals, arts, music, songs, language, food, and dress, folklore,
and literary manifestations.
The narratives of the Indian diaspora deal with the voices of their
struggle. In this struggle, these subjects often find themselves trapped in
defining their affiliation with their homeland and loyalties to their respec-
tive land of residence. This struggle is heart-wrenching as the concept
of home has become a contested category. This feeling of half here and
half there still made them feel that they are battling for their association
and newly formed (hyphenated) identity. Stuart Hall23 stated in his 1996
23 Hall, S. (1990). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. 1990, 222–237.

essay ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ that cultural identity is not solely a
result of ‘being’ but also of ‘becoming,’ ‘belonging as much to the future
as it does to the past.’ Identity, according to Hall, is always transforming
and spanning time and location. This book envisages understanding how
diasporic subjects despite having the feeling of existential crisis endeav-
ored to focus on the process of continuity to keep alive the memories of
their homeland and passed down the ancestral cultural legacy to the next
generation to maintain a shared belief and common ancestry.
We picked the phrase ‘Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture, and
Identity’ as the title for the edited volume because it appears to encom-
pass a broad spectrum of labor relations between free and unfree labor. It
gives us space to accommodate and explore the experiences of girmitiya
by negotiating the past, reviewing the relationship, and recognizing the
subjective realities. The question arises here, why do we need to study
the traditions? Traditions connect us to the past which helps us to under-
stand where we stand. Memory plays an imperative role in the process of
connecting to the past. Memory serves as the cornerstone of individual
and collective identity because it provides a framework to accommodate
human experiences and space for cultural dialogue. As Vijay Mishra24
argued that the term ‘girmit’ is unusual given the experience of Fiji’s
Indian plantation. The girmit ideology can be effectively interpreted as a
‘sign’ that provides a theoretical framework for the experience of the ‘old’
Indian indenture diaspora. This is why, one of the major reasons for this
book is to critically investigate who the girmityas are. It talks about the
history of girmitiyas, their memories of homeland, diaspora conscious-
ness, and their experiences in new cultural surroundings. It also studies
how their traditions and cultures traveled with them to colonies and
preserved/changed/hybridized/assimilated/acculturated/re-rooted over
a period. The book also analyses how girmitya arts, music, songs, litera-
ture, and folklores both oral and written struggle depict their longing,
cultures, beliefs, traditions, identity, memories, nostalgia, pain, and hard-
ships. And how does the idea of a home play a significant role in shaping
and reshaping their diaspora imaginaries, identities, and psyches in the
diasporic space?
Some of the interesting aspects this book covers are the conceptual-
ization of the idea of girmitya and girmitya literature. The book explores
24 Mishra, V. (2007). The Literature of the Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic
Imaginary. Routledge.
different facets of girmitya studies through the cultural process. In insti-

tutions, we study colonial and postcolonial literature, it has been noticed
that ‘third world’ countries emerged as nation-states due to colonial rule
and this world has witnessed the anti-colonial struggle as well as the social
and cultural impact of colonization on the life and culture of natives.
It is interesting to know how these natives responded to cultural alter-
ation and how they survived their culture and identity. The destruction
of culture and identity left an indelible mark on their psyche. This book
tries to interrogate the effects of colonialism, and attempt to rewrite the
history of girmitya, and it also tries to evaluate how the concept of home,
history, and memory are represented in the writings and other forms
of cultural productions and manifestations. The book also covers the
oral(ity) tradition of the girmitya community. The practices of conveying,
telling traditions, and narrating histories or stories are almost on the
verge of extinction. But this practice was very much dominant among
the communities of girmitiyas, who were illiterate initially and did not
have a practice of writing down traditions, stories, and histories. It is a
reliable source of literature that defines their rituals, cultural practices,
the community of practice, lifestyle patterns, etc. The presence of Indian
culture was observed and preserved in oral form among the indentured
laborers in the colonies. The oral tradition of Indians in the British
colonies has evaluated the importance of oral culture. These oral forms are
used not only to entertain but also to educate a generation and to confirm
cultural continuity. It only expresses emotions but represents the various
aspects of Indian cultural life as attitudes, history, customs, values, eating
habits, dress, songs, music, dance, drama, etc. As Da Vinci says History is
always a one-sided account, therefore, it is important to show how histor-
ical changes affect everyday life activities. Anyone interested in studying
the girmityas’ struggle, their oral traditional practices, and interested in
re-interpreting the history of girmitya will find this book indispensable.
The interdisciplinary account of the book also adds a unique dimension
to this book. The book is divided into three sections: Part I: Language,
Literature, and Identity, Part II: Culture, Music, and Songs, and Part III:
Migration and History.
Part I: Language, Literature, and Identity

The call for the paper of this book received an overwhelming response
from distinguished scholars who worked and are working on indentured
migration across the world to explore various aspects and dimensions

of girmitiya scholarship. Quite often the girmitiya scholarship is merely
associated with the Hindi/Bhojpuri-speaking indenture migration to the
island countries like Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, and Tobago. But
there is a substantial migration under the indentureship from the South
Indian states and united India (today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh) to other
than island countries in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. It has been
noticed that these are often not discussed in the girmitiya scholarship.
This may be due to a lack of clarity among the scholars to be or not to be
the situation to call Kangani and Maistry migration as girmitiya migration.
Girmitiya migration includes all forms of contract labor migration during
colonial times. One of the papers, ‘Language, Literature and Cultural
Identity: A Narrative from the Malaysian Tamil Diaspora’ by Mahalingam
attempts to fill up this kind of academic vacuum. It explores the history of
various colonial labor migrations (traders, free passenger migrants, labor
migrants, sepoys, etc.) from mostly Tamil-speaking regions to Malaysia
and how this community preserve and negotiate its linguistic and cultural
identity in the multicultural and multiethnic Malaysia. The paper high-
lights the significance of the Tamil language and literature in the Federal
Constitution of Malaysia and the Malaysian school curriculum. It also
highlights the importance of various community-based organizations,
societies, and Tamil media in promoting, sustainably preserving, and
protecting the growth and development of the Tamil language, litera-
ture, and cultural continuity of Tamils in Malaysia. Like Hindi, Urdu,
and Bhojpuri in Island countries like Mauritius, Trinidad, Tobago, and
Fiji—the Tamil language served the linguistic comfort, aspirations, and
identity of people from the Tamil region to Malaysia. Mahalingam’s paper
attempts to do justice to the Tamil language and its role in shaping the
cultural identity of the diaspora.
Crossing the Kalapani encapsulates a journey that is both emotional
and physical and has cultural significance. In the context of girmitiya,
kalapani did not mean the Black Water/Black Sea—it is a symbolic
crossing of water which also means crossing of the sociocultural setting
for the Indians. The Kala/Black also resonates with the impurity and
mingling where the social dominant practices like caste were highly
impossible, particularly for the upper caste Hindus which further led
to the dismantling of the idea of purity and caste hierarchies. Crossing
boundaries and borders, identity shifts and reinventions occurred. The
trauma of traversing the Kalapani/ black waters quickly replaced the
Middle-Passage paradigm in terms that are more distinctly Hindu. The

severe circumstances of the encounter would have been made even more
traumatic by leaving the Indian region and crossing the ocean. Mathieu25
cites Appanah who portrays the destruction of Hindu cultural symbols
aboard the boat, where mingling is both forced (resulting in isolation,
misery, and shame) and irreverent considering Hindu philosophy. The
indentured laborers were immediately exposed to a noxious confiden-
tiality irreconcilable with caste identity because they were constricted
in the boat and detached from their societal structure, which was
orchestrated in compliance with Hindu ritual purity necessities. The
re-construction of the first family unit on the boat created a bond
in the name of jahaji Bhai/Behan. Sailing on the same boat with a
different methodology Anjali Singh looks at the production of identity,
belonging, and poetics of migration critically. She discusses how identities
are dis-rooted/dislocated (emigration), deconstructed (being onboarded
on a vessel—all Caste Hindu and lower caste Hindus, Muslims placed
together—thus breaking all caste and religious identities), and recon-
structed (emerging new identities as ‘coolies,’ ‘girmitiyas,’ ‘jahaji bhai or
behen,’ etc.) in this process of indentured emigration. She looks at the
Hindu caste identity while crossing the Kala Pani and how the voyage,
vessels, and resettlement into host societies worked as the leveler of social
hierarchy and status and thus, a way toward new identities. She also tries
to document the unheard voices of women in the indenture and how
they were branded as ‘shamelessly immoral.’ They also faced medical
conditions and shipwrecks on board and on host land. In nutshell, her
paper argued that the sea voyage undertaken is an essential component
in indenture poetics. Crossing land borders/Kala Pani is a very tangible
experience. However, while border crossings over water are fraught with
trials and tribulations, they are also sites of ambivalence—belonging both
here and there, and in a sense, nowhere. Thus, indenture becomes a
dynamic place of destruction and creation of identity, which is prelimi-
nary to putting down roots in the host country. Using literary text as a
point of analysis Pulkita Anand tries to understand and trace the history,
dislocation, various issues, and challenges experienced by labor under
indentureship. His paper critically applies the postcolonial perspective to
study the idea of home, homeland, belonging, and the development and
25 Claveyrolas, M. (2017). ‘Indo-Mauritians’ and the Indian Ocean: Literacy Accounts

and Anthropological Readings. Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 13(2), 174–189.
transformation of the self as depicted in the select text whereas Rabindra

Verma’s paper used personal testimony and offered a critical analysis of
the imperial and parochial powers, nostalgia, emotional sustenance, and
traumatic experiences narrated in Totaram Sanadhya’s My Twenty-One
Years in the Fiji Islands. Amba Pande mentions that we can’t study the
repercussion of migration without the inclusion of women as a unifying
force of inquiry. Keeping in mind this thought of her, Rabindra uses the
Kunti episode in Fiji is considered the most brutal example of the phys-
ical exploitation and sexual harassment of women by the planters and their
agents. The heartbreaking account of Kunti’s attempted rape serves as a
platform for protesting the sexual and physical harassment of women.
Part II: Culture, Music, and Songs

Robin Cohen says, thus, there are many different conceptions of a dias-
pora. All diasporic populations, however, who have made their homes
away from their actual or imagined home countries, accept that ‘old
country- a concept frequently submerged in customs, language, religion,
folklore-always does have some stake on their allegiance and sensitiv-
ities.26 ’ To comprehend the construction of new identities, it initially
appears as a consolation that Mauritius and India are connected. Inden-
tured laborers wanted to rebuild a location where they could symbolize
what they had lost after losing their culture and yearning for their
own country. It has been stated by Brij Lal, a luminary in the use of
numerical data, that while scientific study offered meaningful informa-
tion about patterns and attitudes, it did not delve into the narratives
on the underlying aspirations and viewpoints of the immigrants them-
selves. The memory of migration is also whimsical, traversing worldwide
in people’s thoughts, ideas, and knowledge and it also remained in the
visions, melodies, and performances of those who witnessed others leaving
for foreign shores.27 There are many literary studies including stories,
26 Cohen, R. (2008). Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Routledge.

27 Narayan, B. (2018). Migration and Cultural Productions: Documenting History
of Cultural Practices. In Culture and Emotional Economy of Migration (pp. 133–152).
Routledge India.
poetry, and autobiographies that deal with sociopolitical and economic

aspects of migration, but it is important to understand the consequence
of migration that unbridles an inundation of emotions. On the same
lines, Anisha Badal-Caussy and Jayganesh Dawosing’s chapter tries to
add the aesthetic, cultural, and psychological dimensions to the concept
of girmitiya by analyzing the girmitiya consciousnesses through history
and the select folksongs. While analyzing Calcutta Se Chootal Jahaaj
rewritten by Suchita Ramdin and performed by the Roots Foundation
(2019) in Mauritius, Girmitiya Kantraki by Raj Mohan in Suriname,
and Fiji Bidesia by Late Master Santa Prasad Bahadur in Fiji the
researchers observe that the girmitiya consciousness, not only, becomes
a site of exchange of history, but also, an exchange of the cultures
and languages spread across borders in the songs. The authors have
selected very carefully these three songs to understand the triadic rela-
tionship between three components that symbolize the folkloric history of
migration/separation (Chotal ), indentured contract (Kantrak), and the
settlement and becoming immigrants (Bidesia). The Bhojpuri was one
of the major literary and cultural heritage that the Girmitiya from the
Bhojpuri-speaking region in India maintained, developed and preserved
with them in the diaspora. Chutney Music is like Salman Rushdie’s
Chutney English, which is a mixture of (Bhojpuri) Indian and Caribbean
folk Music. Kumar Mahabir’s chapter ‘The Poetics of Unsung Chutney
Singer Lakhan Karriah of Trinidad’ tried to trace one of the neglected
Trinidad and Tobago-based local chutney singers Lakhan Karriah. He
tries to analyze this chapter through the lens of subalternity, marginality,
literary theory, and Ethnic Studies. His chapter brings the Chutney
musical tradition of the Bhojpuri girmitiya to the academic discussion
and its singers. He compares Karriah with Sunderlal Popo Bahora and
argues that he is no less than Popo. This chapter attempts to document
and analyze Lakhan’s contribution to the genre of chutney music and
the poetics of his songs. He argues that the existing scholarship on this
music genre has consciously or unconsciously neglected Lakhan’s contri-
bution. Kumar also critically analyzed some of his songs such as ‘Windsor
Records” label with Moean Mohammed as the producer and “Doh Doh
Sundar Popo’ from a literary perspective. Beebeejaun-Muslum’s paper
exclusively provides the history, sociocultural profile, customs, and reli-
gion of indentured laborers in Mauritius. Her close contact with Indians
and personal experiences with this community provided a base for her
solid understanding of various religious and linguistic diversities within
the Indian Diaspora community in Mauritius. She also provided a brief

historical account of the arrival of Indians along with the introduction of
indenture on this tiny island. Sushma Pandey studies the brief history of
various patterns, routes, and features of Indian migration to the colonial
British plantations. Her paper has paid specific attention to the inden-
tured migration pattern and looks at the process, form, impact, reasoning,
etc. of Indian indentured migration from India. She highlights how the
cultural identity of Indians made them outsiders. She argued that the
Indian Diaspora in Fiji is still not in good condition because of racial
discrimination. They are forced to migrate from Fiji to other countries like
Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the world. The reconfigura-
tion of a family system, their religious beliefs, and explicitly acceptance of
Ramayana as the indispensable manuscript of the Hindu diaspora are three
characteristics that Bhikhu Parekh28 claims were unique to Hindu inden-
tured workers and helped them to build a distinct and unique diasporic
subjective experience. The Brahmins were at the vanguard of the struggle
to re-establish a customary ceremonial belief structure on Hinduism as the
religion of the diaspora.29 Similarly, the essence and presence of the holy
Ganga River in Mauritius is an example of ‘migratory instinct’ wherein
Anshuman Rana critically analyzed the significance of the Hindu culture,
rituals, ceremonies, festivals, and some sacred places in the life of both
Indo-Mauritians and Indian Hindu community. He tried to study how
Gangajal, and River Ganga are considered pious and play a significant
role in religious Hindu sacraments. And how the Girmitiyas of Mauri-
tius tried to recreate the Ganga of Banaras in Mauritius which came to
be known as the Ganga Talao. In this paper, he has tried to understand
the symbolic importance of Ganga and Gangajal and how it is re-created
in the diaspora. The paper is a comparative study of the Ganga (India)
and Ganga Talao (Mauritius) and how both played a significant role in
the cultural and religious nurturing of a Hindu community at home and
abroad.
28 Parekh, B. (1994). Some Reflections on the Hindu Diaspora. Journal of Ethnic and
Migration Studies, 20(4), 603–620.
29 Ibid. (22).
Part III: Migration and History

In the last part ‘Migration and History’: The South Asian labor migration
visibly started with the introduction of the indentured labor system after
the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833. Histor-
ically, the dates of labor migration in various forms including slavery
during the time of French and Dutch administration can be traced back to
1772. The official documents produced by the government, or the colo-
nial elite serve as the foundation for colonial history of Indian migration.
Additionally, the imperial and colonial ruling elites’ perspectives overshad-
owed the history of colonized people for so long. The fact that many
authors have a deep interest in what occurred to migrants from the period
of their enrollment to the moment of their settling in the different desti-
nations countries is a significant aspect of current historiography. This is
a fundamental rebuttal to colonial historiography, which concentrated on
the system and how it operated to further the colonial objectives and
the interests of the dominant classes.30 The competing groups enable a
reinterpretation of history through archival records and a global perspec-
tive. In this way, the experience of contractual agreement has a wide and
fresh audience outside of the academic setting thanks to its approach-
able voice. Amit Kumar Mishra’s chapter ‘Girmit as a Global Labour
Regime: Essentials, Expansion, and Exceptions’ is one of them wherein
he critically engages in the colonial history of the Indian indentured
labor regime. It highlights how the agrarian labor regime contributed to
colonial capitalist expansionism and colonial hegemony across the world.
His analysis provides an insight into the commodification of labor and
constitution of labor as an analytic category in interconnected histories
of global capitalism under the aegis of imperialism. He underscores, that
although there were different dimensions to the colonial labor regime, the
servitude and subalternity of laborers continued in the indentured labor
system albeit with certain adaptations to realize the changing require-
ments of the capitalist production process and mollify the political-moral
archetypes of the colonial authorities. Girmit provided the laborers to
escape certain social-economic subjugations at home as it has been often
argued, but a comprehensive analysis of the labor regulation under the
30 Hassankhan, Maurits S. (2013). Kahe Gaile Bides: Why Did You Go Overseas? An
Introduction in Emotional Aspects of Migration History: A Diaspora Perspective. Man in
India, 93(1), 1–28.
indentured regime makes it clear that they were simultaneously drawn

into a more ruthless structure of moral and physical domination. The
definition of girmitiya covers not only the indentured laborer who signed
the contract but also those who did not sign the contract but migrated
to various indentured colonies of the British empire during the inden-
ture period (1834–1920). Some scholars are reluctant to apply the term
girmitiya to those who did not sign the contract such as the lawyers, free
migrants/passenger Indians, civil servants, sepoys, etc. Aparna Tripathi
discusses one of the important dissensions of the definition of Girmi-
tiya in her paper ‘Convicts’ as the Indentured Labour: Contribution of
Indians to the Development in Southeast Asia.’ She highlights the role
and contribution of Indian Indenture Laborers as ‘Convicts’ for the devel-
opment of colonial settlements in Southeast Asia. She draws our attention
to an interesting segment of the migration of convicts to various colonies
of the British Empire in Southeast Asia which is later also considered the
indentured migration. She traces the displacement of 4000–6000 convicts
to Bengkulen between 1787 and 1825 and 15,000 to the Straits Settle-
ments between 1790 and 1860. After providing a brief history of various
patterns of the Indian migration to Southeast Asia such as the ‘Kan-
gani,’ Maistry, ‘free’ and ‘unfree labor’ or ‘passage’ emigration of traders,
clerks, bureaucrats, and professionals. She analyzes the reasons behind
the convict migration to Southeast Asia due to the demand for labor
in sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, rice, and rubber plantations. Her paper also
analyzes the trajectories and various faces and roles of those convicts in
various colonial development projects in these countries and subsequently
contributes to the broader identity of Indian Indentured migration to
Southeast Asia. She observed that the convicts were crucial to South-
east Asia’s economy in the early years as a regular source of cheap labor
capital. Dhanya Joy in her chapter traced the colonial history of Fiji and
revealed its complex social, economic, racial, and political problems and
rivalries between the Fijians and Indo-Fijians and how Britishers insti-
gated the Fijians against the Indo-Fijians. With its varied ethnic groups,
the island country remains a potpourri of different cultures. The troubled
past and the uncertain present of Indo-Fijians constitute one of the vexing
problems that the country faces. She briefly sketches the history of girmi-
tiya migration to Colonial Fiji and analyzes the power struggle through
the Foucauldian theory of power. It also covers how Indi-Fijians strug-
gled and strike for their rights, identity, culture, and equality. Another
field-based study of Dhanraj Gusinge provides a brief history of Indian
migration to Mauritius with a special focus on linguistic identities within

broader pan-Indian identity among Indian diasporas. It tries to study
the people who migrated from-Bombay presidency (now Maharashtra
state) and those who speak the Marathi language. The paper discusses
the history of Marathi as a language and people’s migration to Mauritius
and how this Marathi identity emerged and was preserved in Mauritius. It
also describes the present situation of the Marathi community in Mauri-
tius. Moreover, it also focuses on their political participation. Indians are
in majority in Mauritius and the Marathi community in minority, but they
preserve their cultural identity and language. He also uses data from his
field visit and other secondary sources.
In a nutshell, the present book covers interesting topics, importantly
these topics are driven by the ongoing research or research degrees of
distinguished scholars across the globe. Many chapters are based on
primary data collected from fieldwork in various countries wherever the
Indian Diaspora resides, particularly the indentured diaspora. The book
adopts multidisciplinary approaches as it covers various topics and subjects
from Humanities/Arts and Social Sciences. It provides scholarly input
into the growing demand for colonial indentured labor migration across
the disciplines.
PART I
Language, Literature, and Identity

CHAPTER 2
Language, Literature and Cultural Identity:

A Narrative from the Malaysian Tamil
Diaspora
M. Mahalingam
Introduction
Malaysia is a multicultural and multiracial country located in the South-
east Asian region of the world. The diverse Indian community is the third
largest ethnic group after the Malays (also known as Bumiputeras) and
the Chinese immigrant communities. The major Indian ethnic group is
the Tamils, who form approximately ‘eighty percent of the total Indian
population’. Given the majority of Tamils among the Indian ethnicity,
‘Tamilness’ is asserted in Malaysia’s culture, religion and political repre-
sentation.
The migration of Indians to the Malay Peninsula can be traced back
to historical antiquity, given its physical proximity to India (Arasaratnam,
1970; Tinker, 1974; Sandhu and Mani, 1993; Mahalingam, 2016).
M. Mahalingam (B)
Faculty of Law, SGT University, Gurugram, India
e-mail: mahalingamcpa@gmail.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 23

Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
N. Singh and S. Chapparban (eds.), Literature of Girmitiya,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4621-9_2
24 M. MAHALINGAM
Nevertheless, the settlement of the Indian/Tamil community in Malaysia

was a reality under the British colonial regime as the mass influx of
unskilled labourers, and a few professionals met the demands of the
British plantation capital. They are now categorized as ‘old Indian Dias-
pora’ or ‘People of Indian Origin’ (PIO), which is an official jargon of
the Indian government.
Aftermath Independence, the Tamil language has been recognized in
the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, though not as an official language
of independent Malaysia. Tamil language and literature are a part of the
curriculum in schools and universities in Malaysia. Tamil media plays
an active role in sustaining the growth and development of the Tamil
language, literature and cultural continuity of Tamils in Malaysia.
As the Malaysian Tamil community is proud of its civilization and
culture, various civil society groups work to preserve Malaysia’s Tamil
language and culture. In the wake of Malay majoritarian cultural poli-
tics after independence, the Malaysian Tamil community has been trying
to protect its socio-economic and cultural identities through negotiations
and compromises with the Malaysian state. Further, the Malaysian Tamil
community has been a pioneer in starting various movements among the
global Tamils to preserve Tamil cultural identity. This chapter attempts
to analyse the Tamil language, literature and cultural identity of the
Malaysian Tamil community. Research data collection is drawn from field
observation, primary and secondary sources. The study has adopted to
case study method and interpretative method for the analysis.
Theoretical Outline
Diasporas are forcefully or voluntarily dispersed, displaced and deterri-
torialized national communities (See for details Sheffer, 1986; Safran,
1991; Basch et al., 1994). Diasporas’ identification with its real or puta-
tive homeland entails a new type of consciousness (Vertovec, 1997)
and ‘ethnic identity’ assertion ‘in the host lands’. They are involved
in a ‘triadic relationship between the diaspora, the host country, and
the homeland’ (Sheffer, 1986: p. 8). Therefore, they live in transna-
tional social fields (Schiller, 1999). They are ‘exemplary communities
of the transnational moment’ (Toloyan, 1991: p. 5). Diasporas are thus
imagined transnational communities.
The advent of globalization has complemented the transnational
aspects of diaspora. Globalization accompanied by the advancement of
2 LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURAL IDENTITY... 25
transport, communication and information technologies has reinforced

and sustained the national identification and the intensification of transna-
tional practices of diasporas with the actual or putative homeland. Steven
Vertovec captures the phenomenon of transnationalism by giving the
following transnational framework ‘(a) transnationalism as the recon-
struction of “place” or locality, (b) transnationalism as the movement of
capital, (c) transnationalism as a mode of cultural reproduction, and (d)
transnationalism as a site for political engagement’ (Vertovec, 1999).
Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch and Christina Blanc-Szanton define
‘transnationalism as how immigrants build social fields that link their
country of origin and their country of settlement’ (Schiller, 1999, pp. 26–
27). Apart from economic, political and social relations across the space,
Appadurai argues that transnational cultural flows span across nation-
states under the guise of globalization (Appadurai, 1997). Based on the
above premises, we try to analyse the cultural identity of the Malaysian
Tamil community.
Formation of Indian/Tamil Diaspora in Malaysia

Malaysia has had close social, economic, political and cultural connections
with India since its inception as a nation-state. The process of Indianiza-
tion happened through the spread and influence of Indian religions like
Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and the rule of Chola kings of the
Tamil region. Thus, Malaysia bears a strong mark of Indian civilization
in its culture and language. Moreover, the prolonged presence of Indian
traders in the coastal areas of Malaysia has cemented the link between
both countries throughout history. Though the presence of Indian traders
in Malaysia was visible earlier, the Indian settlement came into being
due to the mass influx of Indian labourers with the advent of British
Imperialism.
The East India Company, as an ensemble of British traders under the
patronage of the British government, took over Penang, Melaka, and
Singapore in the Straits Settlement between 1786 and 1824. By 1914, the
whole Malay Peninsula was under British influence. The British encour-
aged plantation agriculture in peninsular Malaysia, catering to the needs
of the British Industrial Revolution. But, plantation agriculture demanded
a cheap labour force.
The British planters did not prefer the Chinese in Malaysia as they
knew they had an unruly and independent mind. The locals were not
26 M. MAHALINGAM
interested as they found the plantation sector jobs de-skilling and chal-
lenging. Under these circumstances, India became an ideal destination
to outsource its cheap labourers given its geographical proximity. Among
the Indians, especially, South Indian Labour was preferred ‘because of its
docility’, in the words of Sandhu,
South Indian Labour was also considered the most satisfactory type of labour
because of its docility, which created a relationship of dependence between
employer and coolie. The south Indian peasant was malleable, worked well
under supervision, and was easily manageable. He was not as ambitious as
most of his Northern Indian compatriots. Certainly, nothing like Chinese
(and) was the most amenable to the comparatively lowly paid and rather
regimented life of estates and government departments. He had fewer qualms
of religious susceptibilities, such as aversion to crossing the dreaded kalapane
and food taboos… and costless in feeding and maintenance. (Sandhu, 1969,
pp. 47–48)
The British carried out the labour exodus through innovative, cheap
immigration mechanisms such as Kangani1 and other contractual systems,
which helped meet the ever-increasing demands of labour on the planta-
tions. The British imported labourers not only for plantation works but
also for building roads, railways and ports.
Along with labour immigrants, other skilled professionals, unskilled
people, and traders also immigrated voluntarily in large numbers to take
up jobs in the colonial government. For instance, Sikhs were hired as
policemen, a paramilitary force, security guards, watchmen and caretakers
by the colonial authorities and the private sector. But, they were ‘free
migrants’ unlike the labour migrants, who had embarked on the journey
independently. Apart from Sikhs, other North Indians were primarily
merchants, traders, shopkeepers and peddlers. Gujarati traders were espe-
cially visible in the urban landscapes of Malaysia, selling silk and other
textile goods in exchange for tin and other spices. They were also involved
in financial trading systems like the Chettiars of Southern India. Among
the traders, the South Indian Chettiars played a significant role in devel-
oping the plantation sector through money lending; they also acted as
money transfer agents to remit the labourer’s money back home.
1 “Kangani means ‘foreman’ or ‘overseer’ in Tamil in the Malaysian plantations. As

per the Kangana system, the already employed kangani on the plantation was sent by his
employer to recruit labour from his village”.
The third leading urban Indian group was the English-educated South
Indians and Sri Lankan Tamils recruited as Junior or subordinate admin-
istrative staff in the clerical and technical sectors. They served as inter-
mediaries between colonial administrators and labourers. But, the Tamils,
followed by Telugus, monopolized the plantation sector as working class
and Malayalees as supervisory staff on the plantations. Tamils became an
inevitable labour force of the plantation economy given their numerical
majority and the presence of Tamils on the plantations.
The Indian ethnic minority is a heterogeneous group, along with Sri
Lankan Tamils, consisting of south Indians, mostly Tamils (80%), Malay-
alis, and Telugus; beside North Indians, mainly Sikhs; and a sprinkle of
Sindhis as well as Gujaratis. Thus, it is divided along regional, linguistic
and religious lines and caste categories. The descendants of the early
Indian immigrants are now 1.90 million Malaysian Indians, as reported in
the 2010 census. The Malaysian Indian community is scattered across the
length and breadth of peninsular Malaysia. Tamils are predominant, albeit
economically marginal ethnic group among Indians as most of them had
arrived as unskilled plantation labour immigrants to Malaysia. The Indians
are the third-largest ethnic group after the majority of local Malays and
the immigrant ethnic minority Chinese in the multicultural society of
Malaysia at present.
The Advent of Tamil Language

and Culture in Malaysia
The Tamil language is now widely spoken in Malaysia as Tamils are the
majority ethnic group. The Tamil language was allowed to flourish during
the colonial period as part of the British colonial strategy to keep the
labour force from desertion. Tamil labour immigrants demanded Tamil
schools and temples be given to them as they were a transient labour
force, so that on their return from Malaya, they would be accepted back
in the homeland. As part of the labour code, the plantations were encour-
aged to start Tamil primary schools on the premises of estates. Though
it was done half-heartedly by the estate management, the Tamil schools
started functioning informally, as a day-care centre, for estate children.
Over time, through legislation and policy measures, they were upgraded
and recognized as a part of national education.
28 M. MAHALINGAM
The establishment of Tamil schools is as old as the arrival of Indian

immigrants to Malaysia. As the Tamils were the majority of immi-
grants, Tamil schools became an inevitable reality. Tamil school education
completed 190 years of its existence in 2007 (Arumugam, 2008, p. 399).
Initially, various Christian Missionaries and some individuals ran Tamil
schools. The first regular Indian school was the Tamil school attached to
the Penang Free School (PFS), founded in 1816. Gradually, it sprang up
in many places of Indian settlements.
As the rubber and coffee plantations were under expansion, a massive
flow of Tamil labour immigrants to the plantations necessitated the estab-
lishment of Tamil schools on the fringes of the estates. The start of
Tamil schools on the estates was not to educate or empower the chil-
dren of the labouring class; the main intention was to retain the cheap
labour force to avoid desertion. Whatever the reason, it paved the way
for Tamil schools’ proliferation on the estates. In 1956, the numbers of
Tamil schools were 902 (Anbalakan unpublished manuscript). Though
the Tamil schools existed, the infrastructural facilities were nominal. The
schools had wooden sheds or estate temple annexes without partitions for
different sections (Arasaratnam, 1970; Marimuthu, 1987; Ramachandran,
1995).
Case Study: 01---The Malaysian

Movement for Tamil Culture
It is part and parcel of the world movement for Tamil culture. It functions
from a ‘Tamil Panpagam’ building on Tun Sambanthan Street in Kuala
Lumpur, and M. Mani Vellaiyan now heads it. The membership is open
to anyone interested in participating in the movement. It conducts Tamil
Neri (Tamil Way of life) meetings every Sunday. In collaboration with the
Tamil Literary Society of Malaysia and Chennai Manavar Mandram, it
offers courses like Diploma in Tamil Studies (Tamil Mani Pulavar). It also
ties up with global Tamil culture organizations in connection with popu-
larizing Tamil culture and language. Since 1990, it has propagated the
Tirukkural way of life to the general public. It lays emphasis on Tirukkural
Neri Valvu (Tirukkural Way of life). The movement has conducted many
seminars, workshops and conferences to promote Tirukkuaral ideolo-
gies. The members are requested to chant Tirukkural twice daily, i.e.,
morning and evening. For this, on 25 June 1997, an audio cassette was
released with methods of chanting. It introduced Tirukkural songs and
commentaries on Tirukkural by various scholars. It has plans to set up

the Tirukkural secretariat and permanent Tamil centre.
This movement propagates ‘Tirukkural is the Tamil’s epic’. It docu-
ments and provides ample information on Tamil history, Tirukkural
philosophy, culture, language, and economics for research scholars and
institutions. It is involved with conducting, reviving, and popularizing
Tamil’s life cycle ritual functions—giving Tamil names to a newborn child
on the third day of the birth, ear piercing and birthday, introducing
Tamil vowels, conducting weddings, housewarming, death anniversary
following the Tamil rituals, etc. The movement strives for the usage of
pure Tamil words in day-to-day life. They popularized and started using
Tamil names for weekdays and months. It framed an action plan for Tamil
culture and language promotion. The ideals are as follows:
1. Propagation of Tirukkural philosophy to the general public, irre-

spective of race.
2. Publishing of an organ-Tamiliam to promote the ideologies. This
has to be brought out in Tamil, English, and French.
3. Formulation of Tamil customs, wedding-death rituals, etc., with
the assistance of Tamil scholars all over the world.
4. Conducting training and dialogues sessions—Tirukkural corre-
spondence course.
5. Conducting Tamil Mani Pulavar—Diploma in Tamil Studies and
Degree courses to the Tamil-speaking public worldwide.
6. Formation of an Open University to promote Tirukkural studies
and Tamil studies—language, literature, art, culture, economy,
politics and philosophy.
7. Production of books and cassettes, propagating the fundamentals
of the Tirukkural concept.
8. Encouraging Tamil scholars, creators, writers, poets, teachers and
authors to increase interest in these things.
9. Formation of Tamil cultural families following Tirukkural concept
of lifestyle.
10. RM 5 million projects for the institute’s foundation for Tirukkural
Consciousness.
The aim of setting up the Tamil centre is to provide up-to-date infor-

mation on the Tamil language in terms of creating new Tamil words for
30 M. MAHALINGAM
new products discovered and invented. It has a memorandum of under-

standing with Tamil University in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, with assistance
from the Tamil Nadu government. As said earlier, it has plans to put up a
Tirukkural Permanent Secretariat that would serve to propagate the noble
ideals of Tirukkural. Regarding this, many memoranda have also been sent
to the Minister of Unity and Social Development to recommend to the
Ministry of Education to include Tirukkural in the Tamil school syllabus.
The audio cassettes on Tirukkural have been released to make Tirukkural
learning very simple and easy. In the Words of Mani Vellaiyan.2
The Malaysian movement for Tamil culture conducts ‘Tirukkural’ classes

every weekend at a chosen member’s house in Malaysia to propagate
Tirukkural way of life. At this special gathering, all members come along
with their wives and children to read and understand the ‘Tirukkural’
couplets. Our Vedam or Marai is Thirukkural. ‘Kural Neri’ is not the
scripture of any popular faith and has no religious susceptibilities. It is for
humanity to live in peace and order. At these meetings, the members not
only read ‘Thirukkural Couplets’ but also do meditation and discussions
on moral ethics depicted in ‘Kural’ and enjoy a free sumptuous vegetarian
feast hosted by the respective member. Such gatherings not only foster
unity but also helps to erase the political, economic, religious differences
and caste consciousness among people.
It has organized the following conferences for the promotion of Tamil

language in general and Tamil literature in particular:
Panther Bharathithasan centenary celebration in 1991.

Ravana Kaviyam Literary conference in 1992.
International symposium on Devaneyam Tamizh Neri in 2002.
International Tirukkural Conference in 1996.
International Conference on Silappadhikaaram Literature in 1999.
To enrich and widen the horizon of the Tamil language, it has been
publishing a Bimonthly Tamil journal called ‘Agaram Tirukkural’. The
Malaysian movement for Tamil culture also publishes a quarterly called
2 Phone Interview with Mani Vellaiyan, Ex-president of Malaysian Movement for Tamil
culture, dated 15th March 2022.
Tamizhism. The other civil society group, ‘Tamil Literary society of

Malaysia’, works to promote the Tamil language.
At present, there are 543 Tamil primary schools all over the country.
However, the physical infrastructure is not satisfactory, and there is a
persistent demand for incorporating Tamil schools as government-aided
schools. It has catered to the Tamil language’s growth and development
needs since its arrival in Malaysia. Moreover, the Indian Studies Depart-
ment was begun in 1956 at the University of Malaya which is attached
to the Faculty of Social Sciences. Tamil literature, Tamil grammar and
Tamil language courses are being offered. So, Tamil literature is taught,
and research is being carried out. Since its inception, it has had eight
well-trained faculty members with expertise in the Tamil language and
literature.
Further, the Tamil language was sustained since the plantations were
cut off and isolated geographically. Most of the labour belonged to
the Tamil linguistic group; they conversed in and maintained the Tamil
language. The linguistic and racial isolation helped for nurturing the
Tamil language. Later, the Tamil language was recognized in the federal
constitution of Malaysia. In the national schools where Malay is a medium
of instruction, Tamil is offered if there is a petition from fifteen students
to learn in. Tamil language and Tamil literature are taught at the
University of Malaya.
In addition to this, Tamil language-based civil society groups like
Malaysia Dravida Sangam, Malaysian Tamil Literary Society, Malaysian
Tamil Youth Bell clubs, Tamil foundation, and other socio-cultural,
Hindu religion-based civil society groups are at the forefront to preserve
Tamil language; they use the Tamil language to preach the religious
texts, cultural values and cultural education. For instance, ‘Devaram’
(Tamil hymns on Lord Shiva) classes are common in the Malaysian Tamil
community. There was so much movement to preserve ‘chaste Tamil’
and Tamil culture within the Tamil community. They organize confer-
ences, symposiums, and exhibitions, emphasizing popularizing the Tamil
language and Tamil culture within the community. There is a strong wave
among the Malaysian Tamil community members to learn ‘Tirukkural’ as
it teaches and reflects the tenets of Tamil culture.
32 M. MAHALINGAM
Case Study: 02---The Tamil

Literary Society of Malaysia
It was founded in 1970 to preserve and nurture the Tamil language and
culture. The main objective of the Tamil Literary Society states, ‘Tamil
school is our body, and the Tamil language is our life’. Owing to drastic
changes in the Malaysian education system, the importance of the Tamil
language is diminishing as Tamil students have to switch to Malay from
the sixth standard onwards. Realizing this, it started to offer Tamil Studies
for those interested in having a depth of knowledge in Tamil literature
in collaboration with Chennai Maanavar Mandram. Approximately 250
students have gone through the programme. To improve the Tamil teach-
ers’ professionalism, it offers the ‘Tamil Mani Pulavar course’ to upgrade
their expertise in the subject. The course is available through correspon-
dence mode. It organized seminars in 1972, 1980, 1985, 1990 and 1995
to discuss ways to improve Tamil teaching in schools, usage of Tamil
in schools and University teaching, enhancing the pedagogy of Tamil
syllabus, and sorting out the inherent problems of Tamil school teachers.
Case Study: 03---Tamil Foundation

The Tamil Foundation was founded on 14 July 1990 and was regis-
tered on14 February 2003 by a committed professional from various
fields to help the development of Tamil education and Tamil schools.
The organization aims to empower communities through Tamil educa-
tion and culture and conduct research on the development and uses of
Tamil in various sectors. It is a leading advisory body on Tamil education
in Malaysia. Being a leading Tamil educational research and development
body, it organizes flagship programmes namely total immersion camp,
young scientific explorers, a science fair for young children, young nature
campers, project read, head start-preschool programme, English Enrich-
ment programme, conducting drama, theatre and arts, parents assuring
students success and so on for Tamil school students.
Hindu Temples and the Formation

of Tamil Cultural Identity in Malaysia
The early Hindu religious influence dates back to the ancient period when
the Indian kings conquered the Southeast Asian region during their expe-
ditions. The remnants of Hindu temples in Bali of Indonesia and Bujong
valley in the Kedah state of Malaysia are classic examples of Hindu influ-
ence. Later, Hindu temples were constructed by the trading community
before the British colonized Malaya. During the British occupation, the
plantation labour migrants were welcomed and encouraged by the British
colonial authorities as the plantation capital demanded a cheap labour
force to work on the plantations. It has been noted that ‘Hinduism was
“re-created” as a significant minority religion in Malaya as an outcome
of the waves of Indian migration, which followed the British coloniza-
tion and continued up until the very eve of the pacific war’ (Belle, 2008,
p. 457).
The colonial authorities of Malaysia guaranteed three Ts, i.e., Tamil
school, Toddy shop and Temple on the plantations to the intending
labour immigrants. As a result, one could find many temples on the
fringes of plantations built by the Tamil labour immigrants. Besides Tamil
labour migrants, traders—especially Nattu kottai Chettiars of the Tamil
community, professionals, North Indians and Ceylonese Tamils—built
Hindu temples. The immigrants were interested in building temples to
keep the Hindu culture, identity and tradition alive on alien soil.
Further, Tamils have a strong belief, cultural conviction and practice
that there should be a temple wherever there is a settlement, village, or
small; otherwise, life is incomplete for a Hindu Tamil. To support this
belief, the author would like to cite an adage by Tamil poetess Avvaiyar,
‘[D]o not live in a place where there is no temple (as in Tamil, kovil
ellatha uril kudierukka kudathu)’ and another saying ‘the temple worship
will make everything good’ (Alayam tholuvathu salavum nandru).
Hence, Malaysia’s topography is dotted with innumerable Hindu
temples in urban and rural areas. Broadly, the Hindu temples of Southern
India can be categorized into two types: Agamic temples and non-Agamic
temples or village or folk deities. The Agamic temples have elaborate
rituals based on Sanskritic and Tamil Agama texts. The Brahmins, or
well-trained priests, perform the rituals. The Agamic gods are Shiva,
Vishnu, Murugan, Mariamman, etc. Malaysia has lots of Agamic temples,
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Granfer, and One
Christmas time
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
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you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Granfer, and One Christmas time
Author: Eleanora H. Stooke
Illustrator: E. Woolmer
Release date: September 29, 2023 [eBook #71759]
Language: English
Original publication: London: National Society's Depository, 1903
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRANFER, AND ONE

CHRISTMAS TIME ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
MR. NORRIS TAKES UNA TO SEE THE LAMB.

GRANFER
AND
ONE CHRISTMAS TIME
BY
ELEANORA H. STOOKE
AUTHOR OF
"THE HERMIT'S CAVE," "LITTLE MAID MARIGOLD," ETC.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY ETHEL WOOLMER
LONDON
NATIONAL SOCIETY'S DEPOSITORY
BROAD SANCTUARY, WESTMINSTER

NEW YORK: THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE
[All rights reserved]
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
CONTENTS
GRANFER
CHAPTER I. IN THE FARM-KITCHEN
CHAPTER II. NEW NEIGHBOURS
CHAPTER III. VISITORS AT LOWERCOOMBE FARM
CHAPTER IV. THE BOOK-MARKER
CHAPTER V. UNA LEARNS A SECRET
CHAPTER VI. UNA'S ACCIDENT
CHAPTER VII. GRANFER'S HEART'S DESIRE
CHAPTER VIII. GRANFER'S EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY
ONE CHRISTMAS TIME
CHAPTER I. CONCERNING A DOLL IN AN AMBER-COLOURED

GOWN
CHAPTER II. HOW THE DOLL WAS RECEIVED IN THE BLUNDELL

FAMILY
CHAPTER III. CONCERNING JIM BLEWETT AND HIS LANDLADY
CHAPTER IV. MAGGIE IS INVITED TO A PARTY
CHAPTER V. PREPARING FOR MRS. METHERELL'S PARTY
CHAPTER VI. MRS. METHERELL'S PARTY

CHAPTER VII. JIM BLEWETT VISITS THE BLUNDELLS, AND
INTERFERES IN THEIR CONCERNS
CHAPTER VIII. THE RESULTS OF JIM BLEWETT'S INTERFERENCE

GRANFER
CHAPTER I
IN THE FARM-KITCHEN
IT was spring. The bright March sun in a cloudless blue sky was shining into
the kitchen of Lowercoombe Farm, upon the spotless china on the dresser,
the glistening tin ware on the mantelpiece, and the old copper warming pan
hanging from its accustomed nail against the wall. The farm-house kitchen
was a pleasant place: the stone floor was kept scrupulously clean, and the
large deal table was as white as scrubbing could make it, whilst the oak
settles by the fire-place and the few chairs placed at equal distances around
the room shone with the constant application of 'elbow-grease,' as the
housewives call rubbing and polishing. On the hearth burnt a large wood fire,
over which in an iron crock simmered a savoury stew which Mrs. Maple, the
farmer's wife, who was engaged in getting up her husband's shirts at the table,
put down her iron to stir occasionally.
The mistress of Lowercoombe was a comely, middle-aged woman, with a

pleasant, ruddy face, and bright blue eyes that were in the habit of looking
kindly upon every one and everything. Her husband often said that if she
could find no good to say of people they must be either very disagreeable or
very wicked, for his wife had a way of finding out folks' good qualities, and
always tried to think the best of those who crossed her path in life.
Now, as she held up the last of the shirts at arm's length to survey her work
better, she heard a footstep approaching the kitchen door, which opened
straight into the yard, and in another moment her father, who had made his
home at Lowercoombe since her marriage to the farmer, entered, and going to
the fire-place, sat down in a corner of the settle.
He was a tall old man of nearly eighty, with a pair of shrewd dark eyes and a
stern face. Jabez Norris was known as honourable and upright, but was
considered a hard man. Many years ago he had turned his only son, David,
then a lad of eighteen, out of his house, because he wished to become an
artist, instead of following in his father's footsteps, and being a farmer. From
that day to this, Mr. Norris had never seen nor heard of his son, but whether
this was a trouble to the old man or not nobody knew, for he rarely mentioned
David to any one, and even his favourite daughter, with whom he lived, and
who had loved her brother dearly, spoke of him but seldom.
"Are you tired, father?" asked Mrs. Maple in her bright, cheerful tones. "I
always think these days of early spring are trying!"
"Ay, ay, to folks of my age, no doubt. I'm beginning to feel the weight of years,
Mary!"
"You are a wonderful man for your age, father; every one says so."
"I'm not complaining, but at my time of life, I must expect to be failing. It is a

lovely day, but, as you say, trying. Summer in the sun, and winter in the
shade!"
"It's time for Nellie and Bessie to be home from school," Mrs. Maple remarked,
adroitly changing the conversation as she glanced at the grandfather's clock
that ticked loudly in a corner of the kitchen.
Nellie and Bessie were her two little daughters, aged respectively eleven and
nine. Mr. Norris was very proud and fond of them both, and his stern face
softened at the mention of their names.
"How fast they do grow!" he exclaimed. "Why, they'll be women almost

directly. Nellie is like her father, but I don't think Bessie takes after either you
or your husband, Mary!"
"No," Mrs. Maple answered; then she added, in a lower tone, "but I know who
she is like, though!"
"Who's that?" enquired the old man with a sharp glance at his daughter.
"Why, David, to be sure! Every one remarks the likeness! She has his soft
brown eyes, and his winning manner, and her very voice seems to have an
echo of his!"
Mr. Norris was silent, his eyes fixed on the flames which leaped and danced
on the hearth. His daughter plucked up her courage and continued:
"Have you forgotten what day it is, father? The third of March! David's
birthday! I wonder where he is now! I would give a great deal to know! An only
son, and brother, and to think we have neither seen nor heard of him for
fifteen years!"
"That is his fault, Mary!"
"I don't know about that! You were hard on him, father, and told him never to
show his face at home again, and he took you at your word!"
"It is his pride that has kept him silent!" the old man exclaimed angrily. "It is to
be hoped that your Bessie does not take after him in disposition as well as in
appearance, or you'll have trouble with her yet!"
"Oh, father, how can you speak like that when she's such a good child?" the
mother cried in reproachful accents. "She has never given me a moment's
anxiety! But, speaking of David, I do wonder what has become of him, and
whether he is married or not!"
At that moment two pairs of light footsteps were heard in the yard, and Nellie
and Bessie entered, rosy with struggling against the March wind.
"Well, children," their mother said in greeting, as she turned her bright face
with its welcoming smile upon them, "are your appetites ready for dinner?"
"Oh, yes!" they both answered, and Nellie went to the hearth and peeped into
the crock, remarking:
"How good it smells!"
Bessie sat down on the settle by her grandfather's side and slipped her little,
warm fingers into his cold palm.
"How grave you look, Granfer!" she exclaimed, calling him by the name she
and her sister had given him. "What have you and mother been talking
about?" she added coaxingly.
"About some one you never saw—your Uncle David!" the old man responded,
much to the surprise of his daughter, who had never known him mention their
uncle to the children before.
"Oh, I've heard of him!" Bessie cried. "He wanted to be an artist, and he went
away and never came back again! He used always to be painting pictures,
didn't he, Granfer?"
"Yes; neglecting his work and idling his time! He cared nothing for the farm,
but was for ever with a pencil or a paint-brush in his hand!"
"Painting was his talent," Mrs. Maple remarked quietly.
"Then I suppose God gave it to him," Bessie said thoughtfully. "It wouldn't
have been right if he had not been an artist, would it, Granfer?"
"What do you mean, child?"
"I think I understand," Mrs. Maple interposed, seeing her little daughter hardly
knew how to explain. "You mean that if your uncle David had not used the
talent God had given him, he would have been like the man in the parable
who hid his talent in the earth!"
"Yes," Bessie said eagerly, "he ought to have used it, and instead he put it
away so that it was no good to any one!"
Mrs. Maple glanced at her father somewhat anxiously. He was looking at

Bessie attentively and gravely, but not as though he was angry.
"So you think my son was perfectly right in disobeying me," he said. "I wanted
him to be a farmer, and he would not!"
"He knew he could never be a good farmer," Mrs. Maple put in quietly. "We
must be just, father!"
"Ay; but I don't forget how he defied me."
"What became of him?" asked Nellie. "Do you think he has become rich,
Granfer?"
The old man laughed disagreeably.
"I never heard of a rich artist yet!" he declared.
"Oh, but, Granfer, sometimes artists make a lot of money; they do really!"
Nellie cried eagerly. "They are not all poor, you know. The girls at school the
other day were speaking of a great artist who was introduced to Queen
Victoria!"
"It has sometimes crossed my mind that David may have been successful,"
Mrs. Maple said thoughtfully. "I'm sure I hope he has! I wish we knew
something about him—poor David!" and she sighed regretfully. There were
tears in her kind blue eyes as she spoke of her brother, for she had treasured
the memory of his handsome boyish face and winning ways in her heart for
many a long year; and, rich or poor, if he had returned at any time he would
have found his sister's love the same.
"Don't you wish Uncle David would come home, Granfer?" Bessie asked
softly. "I do!"
"Yes, I should like to see him once more," the old man acknowledged, "for
though he defied me, he is my only son."
His eyes rested thoughtfully and wistfully upon Bessie's face; and as he saw
the likeness to that other countenance that had passed out of his sight in
anger, more than fifteen years before, he sighed regretfully too, and his
daughter caught the murmured words:
"Perhaps I was to blame as well as the boy. As the child says, it was his one
talent! I wish David would come home!"
CHAPTER II
NEW NEIGHBOURS
NOT five minutes' walk from Lowercoombe Farm, situated a little back from
the high road, was a large-sized, detached cottage called Coombe Villa,
standing in its own grounds. It had been unoccupied for some months, but
one day towards the end of March, as Nellie and Bessie Maple went by on
their way to school, they noticed a large furniture van drawn up in front of the
garden gate, and several men engaged in carrying different articles of
household furniture into the cottage. They paused a moment to watch, and
then ran on to make up for lost time, wondering who the new inhabitants of
Coombe Villa were, and wishing they knew all about them.
On their return journey they found the van had gone, and an old man was
sweeping up the straw and litter that strewed the garden path, whilst a
maidservant stood at one of the open windows looking out.
The children went home in some excitement to inform their mother that
Coombe Villa was occupied again; and during the time the family was seated
at dinner the conversation was mostly about the newcomers.
"The cottage has been taken by a Mr. Manners," the farmer said. "I was told
so in the village this morning—in fact, Mr. Manners was pointed out to me, and
a fine-looking gentleman, he seemed, with a pleasant face. They tell me he is
a widower with an only child, a little girl of about the same age as our Bessie, I
should think."
"Oh, have you seen her?" the children enquired with great interest.
"Yes; she was with her father this morning. They had evidently been shopping
in the village, for they were laden with parcels. They look nice people, but of
course one cannot always judge by appearances."
Nellie and Bessie were very curious about their new neighbours, and felt the
advent of strangers to the parish to be an exciting event, for, like most country
children, they rarely saw a face they did not know, unless on the few
occasions when they went with their parents to the nearest market town. So
they peeped into the garden of Coombe Villa every time they passed, in the
hope of seeing the little girl, but nearly a week elapsed before they caught
sight of her. On that occasion she was at play with a black and white fox-
terrier, and laughing merrily as the dog frisked around her delighted with the
game.
She stood inside the gate looking through the bars as Nellie and Bessie came
within view, and when she met their eager glances she smiled a little shyly,
and said: "Good morning!"
"Good morning!" they echoed, and passed on slowly.
Once they looked back, and perceived the little girl gazing after them with her
face full of lively interest. Next morning she was there again—this time
evidently watching for them. She greeted them in the same manner as before,
adding quickly:
"Oh, please, do stop a minute!"

They paused, and there was a moment's silence; then the little stranger
asked:
"Are you going to school?"
"Yes," Nellie answered.
"I thought so. I don't go to school, because father teaches me. You pass here
every day, don't you? Have you far to go?"
"About a mile—that is not far when the weather is fine, but it seems a long
way in the winter if it is rainy or snowy. We live at Lowercoombe Farm."
"That is the house down in the valley, isn't it? Is your father a farmer?"
"Yes."
"How nice! I should like to be a farmer if I were a man, and keep lots of
horses, and dogs, and cows!"
"And sheep, and pigs, and poultry," added Nellie, laughing, "but it's hard work
looking after them all!"
"I suppose it is. My name is Una Manners—what is yours?"
"I am called Nellie—Nellie Maple," the elder little girl explained, "and she,"
pointing to her sister, "is Bessie!"
"I think Nellie and Bessie are pretty names! Oh, are you going already? Can't
you stay and talk to me a little longer?"
"We should like to, but we should be late for school if we did, and that would
never do," Nellie replied, "but perhaps we shall see you another day!"
"Very likely. I will be on the look-out for you. This is my dog 'Crack.' Are you
fond of dogs?"
"Oh, yes," both children answered; and Bessie added: "We have a dear old
sheep-dog called 'Rags.'"
"I should like to see him! Oh, must you really go now? Good-bye!"
The little girls ran off and were soon out of sight. Una, after watching them till
they disappeared, opened the gate, and strolled into the road. As she went
along she gathered a bunch of primroses and a few white violets to take home
to her father.
Presently she heard a sheep-dog barking, and coming to a gateway saw a

man crossing the field towards her, bearing in his arms a little white lamb that
bleated pitifully, whilst a rough old English sheep-dog rushed towards her
growling and snarling.
Una drew back hastily with a cry of alarm, and Crack, who was close at her
heels, gave a sharp, indignant bark. The man called to his dog, and the well-
trained animal returned obediently to his side, looking up into his master's face
for further instructions.
"Don't be frightened, Missy," said the farmer, for it was Mr. Maple himself.
"Rags will not hurt you; but he saw you were a stranger, and he was
wondering what you were doing here!"
Una smiled, reassured, and as Rags came up to her again, fixing his brown
eyes on her face as though to ascertain if she was to be trusted or not, she
extended her little white hand to him. The big dog sniffed at it for a moment in
doubt, then he gave it a friendly lick, while Crack walked round him
inquisitively.
"There now!" exclaimed the farmer laughing. "Rags has quite made up his
mind to like you, and he'll know you when he sees you again. He's very fond
of children; my little maids can do anything with him; and he's really very
good-tempered, although he looks so fierce. Ah, dogs know those who
understand them."
"Are Nellie and Bessie your little girls?" Una enquired. "Then you must be the
farmer at Lowercoombe Farm?"
"Yes," he answered, "but how did you come to know that?"
"I was talking to your little girls just now," she explained. "They pass our house
on their way to school. I live at Coombe Villa with my father and Nanny—she's
my nurse. We have another servant named Polly, but she has not been with
us long. Nanny has lived with us ever since I was born. What are you going to
do with that dear little lamb?"
"Why, I am going to take it home to my wife to see if she can't rear it up by

hand. The poor creature has lost its mother."
"Oh, dear, how sad!" cried Una. "Do you think it will live?"
"I hope so. We shall do our best for it, anyway. You must pay us a visit, little
Missy, one of these days, to see for yourself how the lamb is doing. Will you?"
"Oh, yes, if father will let me, and I know he will! How kind of you to ask me!"
"My wife and children will be pleased to see you, I know," the farmer
continued; "you'll be very welcome."
"And Rags?" said Una, smiling as she put her hand on the dog's shaggy back,
"you will be pleased to see me too, won't you, Rags?"
"You are fond of animals, I can see," remarked Mr. Maple.
"Oh, yes!" she answered readily, "so is father! He says he cannot think how
any one can serve animals badly! It's so unchristian, isn't it?"
"I suppose it is, Missy, though I never thought of it in that light before!"
"Don't you remember what God says: 'Every beast of the forest is Mine, and
the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the
wild beasts of the field are Mine.' Animals belong to God just as much as we
do, don't they?"
The farmer nodded, looking with interest at the bright, animated face of the
child. She put up her hand, and softly caressed the curly fleece of the
motherless lamb.
"Dear little thing!" she murmured, "I do hope it will live! How will your wife
manage to feed it?"
"She puts the finger of a kid glove on to the spout of a tea-pot, and lets the
lambs who lose their mothers take the milk that way. She's reared many like
that, and it's wonderful how soon the little creatures get to know her."
With a cheery "Good morning," the farmer turned his footsteps homewards,
followed by Rags; and Una calling to Crack, who was rat hunting in the hedge,
ran back along the road towards Coombe Villa.
She found her father at the garden gate looking for her, and immediately
began to tell him about the farmer and his dog and the little lamb, to all of
which he listened with an amused smile. Then she spoke of her interview with
Nellie and Bessie.
"I may go to the farm one day, may I not, father?" she asked coaxingly.
"We will see about it, my dear; I dare say you may. Perhaps the little girls may
mention the matter to you; and if they do, I have not the least objection to your
going. I hear the Maples are nice people, and much respected in the district,
and I dare say the children will be good companions for you. The folks at
Lowercoombe Farm are our nearest neighbours, and I should wish to be on
good terms with them."
"Oh, yes, father! See what beautiful flowers I have gathered for your studio!
Are not the violets sweet?"
"Very," Mr. Manners answered; "I think they are my favourite flowers, for they
always remind me of your dear mother. It was Spring when she died, and
some white violets that I gave her one day were the last flowers she noticed, I
remember."
He sighed, and the shadow of a deep grief crossed his face as he mentioned
his dead wife. Una gave his hand a little, sympathetic squeeze, and he looked
down at her with a tender, loving smile as he whispered:
"Little comforter! You always understand!"
CHAPTER III
VISITORS AT LOWERCOOMBE FARM
"MARY, there's some one knocking at the door!"
It was old Mr. Norris who spoke. He was seated with his Bible open upon his
knee, in his favourite corner of the settle.
"Coming, father!" his daughter's voice responded from the dairy. And in
another moment Mrs. Maple hurried into the kitchen and opened the door to

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Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture

and Identity Neha Singh

ISBN 978-981-19-4620-2 ISBN 978-981-19-4621-9 (eBook)

1 Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture, and Identity 1

Part I Language, Literature, and Identity

Part II Culture, Music, and Songs

Part III Migration and History

Pulkita Anand is Assistant Professor of English at Shahid Chandrasekhar

Jay Ganesh Dawosing is a Lecturer from the Department of Bhojpuri,

Research (ICSSR) entitled ‘The Plight of Migrant Labourers During the

Anjali Singh holds a Ph.D. in English. Her areas of interest include

Fig. 13.1 Fiji: Ethnic Composition (2007):

Table 6.1 Traditional Girmitiya song Calcutta Se Chootal Jahaaj

Table 9.7 District-Wise North Indian migration in Fiji 156

Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture,

Neha Singh and Sajaudeen Chapparban

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

1 Lee, E. S. (1966). A Theory of Migration. Demography, 3(1), 47–57.

religiously, and ethnically multifarious regions. South Asian affiliates with

enslaving lives was a common phenomenon in world history. Early colo-

6 Burnard, Trevor G. Planters, Merchants, and Slaves: Plantation Societies in British

Madras and Bombay Presidency to recruit labor. The abolition of slavery

a mixture of castes and classes in India. David Northrup11 explicitly

11 Northrup, D. (1995). Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922.

instead preferring to reside in Fiji for sustainable development. The newly

K. Hazareesingh19 says it is true that among several of the early immi-

19 Hazareesingh, K. (1966). The Religion and Culture of Indian Immigrants in Mauri-

23 Hall, S. (1990). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. 1990, 222–237.

different facets of girmitya studies through the cultural process. In insti-

Part I: Language, Literature, and Identity

migration across the world to explore various aspects and dimensions

Middle-Passage paradigm in terms that are more distinctly Hindu. The

25 Claveyrolas, M. (2017). ‘Indo-Mauritians’ and the Indian Ocean: Literacy Accounts

transformation of the self as depicted in the select text whereas Rabindra

Part II: Culture, Music, and Songs

26 Cohen, R. (2008). Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Routledge.

poetry, and autobiographies that deal with sociopolitical and economic

the Indian Diaspora community in Mauritius. She also provided a brief

Part III: Migration and History

indentured regime makes it clear that they were simultaneously drawn

migration to Mauritius with a special focus on linguistic identities within

Language, Literature, and Identity

Language, Literature and Cultural Identity:

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 23

Nevertheless, the settlement of the Indian/Tamil community in Malaysia

transport, communication and information technologies has reinforced

Formation of Indian/Tamil Diaspora in Malaysia

1 “Kangani means ‘foreman’ or ‘overseer’ in Tamil in the Malaysian plantations. As

The Advent of Tamil Language

The establishment of Tamil schools is as old as the arrival of Indian

Case Study: 01---The Malaysian

commentaries on Tirukkural by various scholars. It has plans to set up

1. Propagation of Tirukkural philosophy to the general public, irre-

The aim of setting up the Tamil centre is to provide up-to-date infor-

new products discovered and invented. It has a memorandum of under-

The Malaysian movement for Tamil culture conducts ‘Tirukkural’ classes

It has organized the following conferences for the promotion of Tamil

Panther Bharathithasan centenary celebration in 1991.

Tamizhism. The other civil society group, ‘Tamil Literary society of

Case Study: 02---The Tamil

Case Study: 03---Tamil Foundation

Hindu Temples and the Formation

Title: Granfer, and One Christmas time