Colonial Emigration From The Bengal Presidency

Basdeo Mangru

Description

Colonial Emigration from the Bengal Presidency is an abridged version of the exhaustive 1883 unpublished report of George Grierson. In late 1882, this Indian government civil servant conducted a comprehensive study of issues relating to the export of Indian labour overseas from the Presidency. This primary source, ferreted out from the Emigration Proceedings of the Government of India, is an invaluable addition to the existing literature on the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean and elsewhere. It is perhaps the definitive study of recruiting operations in the Bengal Presidency.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Southeast Asia
• History of Asia
• History
• Migration

Informations

• Publié par: Hansib Publications
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910553213
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in 2014 by Hansib Publications Limited
P.O. Box 226, Hertford, Hertfordshire, SG14 3WY United Kingdom
www.hansibpublications.com
Copyright Dr Basdeo Mangru, 2014
ISBN 978-1-906190-88-0 eISBN 978-1-910553-21-3
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in Great Britain
For Dr Mary Noel-Menezes Professor Emeritus, University of Guyana Mentor, scholar, historian
The Indian s whole life is one long labour - he never has a moment s rest When [he] is transported to a tropical colony, he finds himself in a place quite beyond his experience. He finds a soil capable of yielding good crops with hardly any cultivation, and he naturally applies to it all the labour and all the skill and industry which is inherent in him. The result is an outturn such as would be impossible in India, and such as he had never even dreamed of before.
G.A. Grierson
CONTENTS
Map of the Indian Union 1993
Principal Recruiting Districts in the Bengal Presidency
Preface
Introduction
CHAPTERS
1. Introductory
2. Historical and General
3. Arrangements and Management of Local Depots, as ascertained by Personal Inspection
4. Enquiries as to the Recruiters employed, of what Class they are, and what is their Character; and, as far as possible, what is their Method of Recruiting
5. The Feeling of the Native Community on Emigration
6. The Labour Market of the Recruiting Fields, is it overstocked in Ordinary Years?
7. Does the present system of Registration admit of any Reform, and if so, what system can be proposed?
8. Does the system of Recruiting Females need reform?
9. Is there any hope of inducing Families to Emigrate?
10. The Objections of Natives to Emigrate. Can they be overcome?
11. Is Coolie Emigration more popular in some Districts than in others, and if so, why?
12. Miscellaneous
Appendices
Excerpts from Grierson s Diary
Glossary
Further Reading
Index

Principal Recruiting Districts in the Bengal Presidency
Orissa
Katak
Puri
Bengal
Bardhman
Bankura
Birbhum
Howrah
Hugli
24-Parganas
Murshidabad
Nadiya
Tribal Areas
Santal Parganas
Ranchi
Hazaribagh
Bihar
Patna
Shahabad
Champaran
Saran
Darbhanga
Muzaffarpur
Gaya
Bhagalpur
Munger
Purniva
PREFACE
Colonial Emigration from the Bengal Presidency is basically an abridged version of the exhaustive 1883 unpublished report of George Abraham Grierson. In late 1882, this Indian Government Civil Servant was commissioned by the Government of Bengal to conduct a comprehensive study of issues relating to the export of Indian labour overseas from the Presidency. At its height, the Bengal Presidency, established in 1690, included almost the whole of the territory north of contemporary Madya Pradesh. In 1831, the North-Western Provinces, and Oudh annexed in 1856 under Lord Dalhousie s Doctrine of Lapse, was carved out of this vast region. Following the revocation of the partition of Bengal in 1912, the provinces of Bihar and Orissa were created. By 1919, the name Bengal Presidency ceased to exist.
This study parallels that of Major D.G. Pitcher who reported on recruiting operations in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh (contemporary Uttar Pradesh) a few months earlier. Aspects of his voluminous report are being published under separate cover. No official investigation of this magnitude was undertaken in the Madras Presidency in South India. The main reasons seemed to be the short-lived emigration from this region, and the paucity of emigrants owing to the planters prejudice against Madrasis on account of their alleged vagrant and pilfering propensities which seemed inimical to employers vested interests.
Grierson s enquiry, in conjunction with that of Pitcher, constituted perhaps the definitive study of recruiting activities in north India. Like Pitcher s study, his investigation is significant in several respects. It provides invaluable insights into such immigration issues as the class and character of colonial recruiters, the type and quality of women emigrants, population density in the principal recruiting districts, and the popularity of emigration in Bihari districts especially Shahabad. Grierson s study, concomitantly, details the varied obstacles to emigration, the extensive operations of local depots and the reasons for the lack of communication and remittances from the colonies, both British and foreign. Equally impressive are his judicious recommendations geared to actively promote colonial emigration. What is most significant is his effective demolition of the erroneous impression that colonial recruits comprised solely the lower castes, and that nothing would induce the upper castes to leave Mother India. His analysis of 1,200 entries, which classified Indians into caste groups, showed that roughly two-thirds of the Hindus belonged to higher and medium social positions and one-third to decidedly low social positions.
Grierson s report is an invaluable primary source housed in the Emigration Proceedings of the Government of India at the India Office Library, and is a part of the Collections of the British Library in London. It is mandatory reading for any meaningful study of Indian diasporic history. To accommodate students and their teachers, the general readership and those interested in their roots, I have deleted the elaborate maps, charts and diagrams but yet managed to preserve content crucial to the researcher. At the same time, I have endeavoured editorially to ensure that originality is not seriously compromised.
For a considerable period this report has been inaccessible even to the university community largely perhaps through cataloguing oversight. I have known of its existence and was fortunate to enlist the assistance of a researcher and educator, Leela Ramotar, currently tracing her ancestry in India, who requested British Library authorities to put the report on disk, apparently for preservation purposes. Besides my indebtedness to her, I wish to acknowledge my profound gratitude to the British Library, the original source of this document, for waiving applicable fees and granting Copyright Permission to reproduce aspects of the report. I thank Dr Gary Girdhari for his unstinted support and constructive criticism. I will forever cherish the enduring support, patience and valuable advice of my family in preparing the manuscript for publication.
INTRODUCTION
The importation of indentured labourers from the Indian subcontinent was a post-emancipation phenomenon geared to resuscitate the sugar industry from an impending economic crisis. With disappointing results stemming from their sustained efforts to introduce immigrant labour to supplement the truculent ranks of the Creole workforce, the planting interests soon came to rely almost exclusively on indentured Indians from the densely populated areas of north India. This vast reservoir of immigrant labour continued uninterrupted from the mid-1840s to the demise of the system in 1917, and the sugar planters never ceased to extol the virtues of Indian labour even during periods of economic distress or worker militancy.
Initially, labour recruitment was confined to Calcutta and the 24-Parganas, its industrial suburb, and the tribal areas of Chota Nagpur. The shortage of labour from these sources owing to competition from tea planters of Assam and an appalling mortality rate at sea, forced importing colonies to concentrate recruiting operations further northwestwards into the North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Bihar. 1 By the late 1880s, roughly two-thirds of colonial recruits were drawn from the former and less than one-third from the Bengal Presidency, a pattern which continued to the end of Indian emigration overseas. 2
Throughout the period of Indian indentureship (1838-1917), the recruiting system in north India was governed by laws and regulations promulgated periodically by provincial governments and the Government of India. The first consolidation of the various emigration laws passed between 1839 and 1860 occurred in 1864 when Act XIII of that year came into force. The Act, inter alia, provided for the licensing and badging of recruiters, requiring them to provide adequate transportation for recruits to the main depot. It also required mandatory establishment of a depot by recipient colonies and detailed depot accommodation and embarkation procedures. 3 For the first time the multifarious duties of the Protector of Emigrants at Calcutta were legally defined.
Nevertheless, active recruiting competition generated by the establishment of several colonial depots in the mid-1860s seemed to escalate recruiting irregularities. One glaring abuse was kidnapping and illegal confinement of recruits, particularly women. Additionally, colonial agents repeatedly complained of obstruction by mufassal magistrates who refused to register emigrants from other districts. Kidnapping scares and persistent colonial complaints coupled with mounting deceptions, abductions, unlawful detention and allegations in the local press of a revival of the infamous slave trade demanded official action. The result was the promulgation of new rules under Consolidated Act VII of 1871 to remedy defects in the 1864 Act. It was during discussion of the Emigration Bill of 1880, which was also consolidatory, by colonial authorities that Grierson was tapped to investigate emigration arrangements in the Bengal Presidency. 4
Initially, the Government of Bengal showed interest in appointing D.G. Pitcher, who investigated recruiting operations in the North-