Dear Editor,
The recommendation by Devanand Bhagwan that caution should be exercised when using terminology that ignores the “historical and cultural specificity” of Indian history is sound advice (12/12/24). Bhagwan’s directive, however, that we must use the term “Hindustanis” rather than “Girmitiyas” in reference to the historiography of indentured Indians contravenes the basis for his own recommendation.
There is no question that usage of certain terms can have a deleterious effect on historical narratives. The use of ethnic group (instead of “African tribe”) or indigenous and First People (as opposed to Amerindian) are, in part, reflective of attempts by previously subaltern people to participate in creating a narrative of their own history, rather than surrendering to a dystopian European version. Anthropologist Leo Despres referred to “East Indians” and “Afro-Guianese” in his 1967 seminal study of cultural pluralism and nationalist politics in British Guiana. But Despres’ acceptance of ascriptive terms suggests that the nationality of Indians born in Guyana were still in question, thereby conveying an impression that they were immigrants, or they may not have in fact “arrived.”
Caribbean scholars like Brinsley Samaroo of Trinidad, and our own Basdeo Mangru who spent a lifetime researching, and educating us about Indian history have utilized the concept of jahajis (shipmates) to interrogate the Indian indenture experience. The term jahaji situates the kala pani odyssey into central focus, for good reason, considering that the first batch of Gladstone’s “hill coolies” spent more than three months traversing across two oceans before arriving at their Caribbean destinations.
However, the social and cultural transformation that were rooted in the holding of human cargoes of the ships (eroding caste and class boundaries, language integration, etc) may have been overemphasized in the early scholarly literature, while unintentionally deemphasizing the equally important plantation experience. The irony is that a great body of knowledge now informs us about the exploitative and dehumanizing plantation experience, compared to what we are still learning about the jahaji (ship) experience, much of which is lost forever. Indian history has conclusively demonstrated that there were more riots and rebellions on the Guyanese sugar plantations in total, compared to any other colonial holdings where Indians were taken. A similar record holds true for enslaved Africans. John Gladstone’s experiment, initiated after abolition, started with the recruitment process in British India. It did not end with the oceanic crossings, because contractual agreement/obligations extended the exploitative economic and rigid social control system for 5 or 10 years on the plantations, and well beyond the post-plantation experience.
The epistemological application of the jahaji neologism would suggest an academic constraint, and limitation to our understanding of the totality of the Indian experience in its historical and cultural specificity. But so too does the concept of “Hindustani” with its distinct usage in Suriname, and its application to the global diasporic Indian indenture experience (though I have no objection to its use in reference to the Caribbean). Contractual Indians in Dutch Guiana (referred to as Kantráki by the Dutch), were still considered British subjects until 1927, though they were governed under Dutch penal system.
In the same year, Jawaharlal Nehru drafted a foreign policy statement for the Congress Party urging Indians overseas to identify with their adopted countries. While the Dutch government encouraged the assimilation of Indians into Surinamese society by expanding citizenship rights, Indians in Suriname defined themselves as “Hindustanis.” The term was a more palliative distinction compared to the earlier reference to Indians as “immigrants.” Its use in Suriname served to preserve a historical, cultural and geographic, as well as an emotional and imaginative connection to ancestral India.
In fact, the definitive use of “Hindustani” dates back to 1910 with the formation of the Surinaamsche Immigranten Vereeniging (SIV) or Surinamese Immigrants Association, an Indian rights organization led by Sitalpersad Doobay, who Professor Chan Choenni referred to as Suriname’s “first leader of the Hindustani.” The SIV was a pioneering organization (like the British Guiana East Indian Association Guiana (BGEIA), which encouraged the use of “Hindustani,” but with some hesitancy. The hesitancy was attributed to the fact that the SIV leaders were hoping to attract members of the Javanese community into the organization, some of whom may have found the use of the word “Hindustani” and references to ancestral India objectionable. Regardless, Hindustani became a more acceptable term, as evidenced by its extensive and persistent use by the end of World War II.
It is true that “Girmitiya” is attributed to a term used by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa (he went there in 1893). In Gandhi’s own words: “…I could see that the Indians were divided into different groups… by far the largest class was that composed of Tamil, Telugu and North Indian indentured and freed labourers. The indentured labourers were those who went to natal [Natal] on an agreement to serve for five years, and came to be known there as girmitiyas from girmit, which was the corrupt form of the English word ‘agreement’. The other three classes had none but business relations with this class. Englishmen called them ‘coolies’ and as the majority of Indians belonged to the labouring class, all Indians were called ‘coolies’…”
Gandhi made a distinction between Indian laborers (largely Hindus and Muslims) from ancestral India who were tied to an agreement (the girmit) and the various groups with whom he interacted in Durban (eThekwini), Natal (KwaZulu-Natal) and Pretoria (Tshwane). Girmitiyas incorporated the recruitment process, experience at the depot, provisions of the contractual agreement, kala pani crossings, extensive colonial bureaucracy, plantation management, official records and reports regarding the indenture experience – all elements of the overall plantation system. The Harvard Law Review with the publication in 2021 of “The Agreement and the Girmitiya” provides, by far, the most exhaustive assessment of the agreement.
In Fiji, the use of “Girmitiya” (South Africa too!) has gained wide currency for its reference to indentured Indians, reinforced in contemporary academic writings on the Indian experiences. Brij Lal was the foremost Fijian historian who normalized the concept of Girmitiyas with his 1983 publication of Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians. Contemporary scholars have accepted the universalizing concept of Girmitiya beyond the Fijian experience, including Ashutosh Kumar of Banaras Hindu University who edited (along with Crispin Bates) the 2024 publication of Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora.
The use of “Girmitiya” may have contributed to group identity, ethnic consciousness and solidarity among Fijian Indians, but it is a strategically useful concept that incorporates the global indenture experience across the diaspora. This point, and the one raised above, seems to have evaded Devanand’s understanding of the global Indian experience. Gandhi was fully aware of its linguistic etymology, but he apparently did not object to its usage, which predates Brij Lal’s. For these reasons, I have incorporated the term in my own writings, always accompanied with a footnoted explanation.
Sincerely, Baytoram Ramharack
Regards, Baytoram Ramharack
