Girmitiyas, (Bhojpuri: đđ±đ©đ§đ±đđ±đšđ°) also known as Jahajis, were indentured labourers from British India transported to work on plantations in Fiji, South Africa, Eastern Africa (namely Mauritius, Seychelles, RĂ©union, Tanganyika, Kenya, and Uganda), Malaysia, Singapore, and the Caribbean (namely Trinidad and Tobago, Guiana, and Suriname) as part of the Indian indenture system.
Etymology[edit]
The word girmit represented an Indian pronunciation of the English word "agreement" - from the indenture "agreement" of the British Government with labourers from the Indian subcontinent.[1] The agreements specified the workers' length of stay in foreign parts and the conditions attached to their return to the British Raj.[2] The word JahÄj refers to 'ship' in Indic languages (from the Arabic/Persian JahÄz/ŰŹÙۧŰČ), with Jahaji implying 'people of ship' or 'people coming via ship'.[3]
In Fiji, Governor Arthur Hamilton-Gordon discouraged Melanesian Fijians from working on the plantations in an attempt to preserve their culture.[1] Activist Shaneel Lal argues that Girmitiya were deceitfully enslaved by the British.[4]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b "Girmit History". www.fijigirmit.org. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
- ^ "Article 2". www.fijigirmit.org. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
- ^ Lal, Brij V. "Chalo Jahaji â on a journey through indenture in Fiji". New Girmit.org. Retrieved 2021-01-15.
- ^ "Shaneel Lal: The Royal Family stole my ancestors". NZ Herald. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
Further reading[edit]
- Gillion, Kenneth (1962). Fiji's Indian migrants : a history of the end of indenture in 1920. Melbourne: Oxford U.P.
- Brij V. Lal and Kate Fortune, ed. (2000). "Girmitiya". The Pacific Islands : an encyclopedia ([Repr.]. ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. pp. 110â111. ISBN 082482265X.
- Lal, Brij V. (2004). Girmitiyas : the origins of the Fiji Indians. Lautoka, Fiji: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies. ISBN 978-0-8248-2265-1.
- Gaiutra Bahadur (2014). Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture. The University of Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-21138-1
- Carter, Marina; Torabully, Khal (2002). Coolitude : an anthology of the Indian labour diaspora. London: Anthem. ISBN 1843310031.
- Praveen Kumar Jha (2019). Coolie Lines Archived 2022-01-18 at the Wayback Machine. New Delhi: Vani Prakashan. ISBN 978-93-88684-04-0
External links[edit]
- South Asian Indentured Labor - Online Archive of Research and Resources - an online archive and living syllabus of text-based resources related to Indian indentureship, with country-specific resources and material related to global Indian indenture diasporas
- Interview Archived 2022-06-18 at the Wayback Machine of Mahendra Chaudhry about Girmitiyas in Fiji