22 Colonial period: free migration

1. INTRODUCTION

Indians migrated to various British colonies in the form of labour (indentured) and in various other forms – as merchants, agents for shipping companies, clerks, teachers, shop owners andretail sellersespecially for South Africa. The majority, as is well-known, went as indentured labour to sugar plantationsin South Africa, Mauritius, Surinam, British Guyana and Trinidad. Many servants and traders were habitual travelers: one ayah, it is reported,travelled 50 times to Britain. Lascars played a vital role in the maritime trade to and from India. During the colonial period sepoys were often caught up in the vacillating fortunes and internecine struggles of rival empire builders (Carter: 2006:57).But there was a higher number of other types of migrants, teachers, shopkeepers, retails, hawkers, merchants, interpreters, labourer (workers) also who went on their own expenses.It is important to mention here that indentured labourers were recruited by the British agents and in free migration or passengermigration as it is also called, Indians went on their own, paying for their passage. But they went a little later than the indentured labour.

2.  CATEGORIES OF INDIAN MIGRANTS IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD:

2.1 Passenger Indians, Free or Wage labour and Indentured labour

The major point of difference to distinguish between these two – indentured and passenger/free immigrationis the form of their migration over a period of time. Indentured labour as I mentioned earlier was recruited by the British rulers or agents on behalf of thecolonial power. Free / passenger migrants went on their own expenses and the colonial rulers did not have to take care of them or be responsible for their travel expenses as they did in the case of indentured labour. There is no exact definition to distinguish who was the Passenger Indian. Many British documents call them ‘Free Indians’ because some of them had finished their indentured periods and came back as free labour. Other documents refer to the ‘Passenger Indians’. Indentured labourhas been covered much in writing compared to the Passenger Indians. As Bhana and Brain comment,theworld of Passenger Indians was hardly documented or written about. It is documented in a very small published work on passenger Indians (Bhana and Brain 1990). Passenger Indians were not only traders, businessmen or other occupational communities like clerks and agents. Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie’s (2009) writing shows that there were a large number of Passenger Indians who worked as free or wage labour.They were not only from North and South India.Indentured Indians were predominantly from these two regions. But free or wage labour came also from Punjab and other places too. So Passenger Indians were not just traders. And therefore although all under the category were ‘free’ or passengers in the sense that they paid for their travel passage, some were wage labour and others were in trade and several other occupations.

Bhana and Pachai (1948: 2) definePassenger Indians as follows:

‘It is common knowledge that Indians came to South Africa in two categories as indentured Indians and as free passenger Indians. The former came as a result of a triangular pact among three governments and the latter mainly traders ever alert to new opportunity abroad, came at their own expenses from India, Mauritius and other places’.

2.2 Passenger Indians includes wage labour

The term ‘Passenger Indians’ was not widely used in earlier writings in South Africa. As Mesthrie writes, in her piece on Passenger Indians as workers, it was Gandhi (1928) who mentioned two categories of Indians in South Africa – indentured labour and free Indians (and their free servants (clerks etc.)). He further says that free servants came to serve Muslim traders. Gandhi clearly mentions that traders and servants, who were serving Indian traders and indentured whose contract had expired were absolutely free. But there are scholars who use different terms to denote these new forms of migrants. They (Joshi 1942; Burrows 1943; Wetherell 1946 cited in Mesthrie 2009: 113) employ the word ‘free Indians’. Mabel Palmer (1957: 42-43 cited in Dhupelia-Mesthrie) writes about the ‘free immigrants – Muslim and Hindu traders’ and argues that they be distinguished from others classes of free Indians; those who had served their period of indenture were commonly called Passenger Indians. Later the majority adopted this definition while Hilda Kuper (1960: 3) defines it as follows: ‘Passenger Indians were those who entered the country under ordinary immigration laws and at their own expense’. So in a nutshell one can say that there were three categories of Indians who were living in these countries 1. Indentured Indians who were still in contract 2. Ex-indentured who had finished or served their indentured periods and 3. Those who came from India especially for economic reasons on their own expenses.

Majority of the free passengers to South Africa were Muslim. Bardlow (1979: 134) says that Indians in Cape Colony were exclusively passenger Indiansin origin and that lacking skill of other kinds, the Cape Indians almost without exception became traders and shopkeepers. Muslims tended to become wholesale and retail, general dealers and butchers while Hindus became fruit and vegetables hawkers and shoemakers (leather workers) in Cape colony. There was an impression that there were only two categories – indentured labour and traders, while as Mesthrie suggest in her writing, there was another category of workers within the category of free/passenger Indians.

The term ‘Passenger Indian’ got associated with traders and rich merchants in South Africa. Maureen Swans’ (1985:8 cited in Dhupelia-Mesthrie) work is focused on rich merchants and not other categories of traders like retailers and hawkers. Other scholars like Padayachee and Morell (1991) define passenger or free Indians as falling into two categories : wealthy merchants and small traders and hawkers. Kalpana Hiralal (2000:135-136) defines free or passenger Indians as being traders. Joy Brain (1983:243-245) compiles a list of Christian passengers to Natal which include traders, teachers, interpreters, catechists etc. Kuper (1960) also provides an important detailthat there were some whose contracts expired; they went India and came back as free passengers along with the other passengers to South Africa. Some scholars write that passenger Indians were male while Bhana and Brain (1990) suggest that passenger Indians included females too.Dhupelia-Mesthrie (2009:114) mentions that there were female migrants also, though they were in small numbers before 1910. She (2009:115) emphasizes that most of the earlier writing either ignores other forms of migration or does not pay much attention to it, and this means groups like small shopkeepers, hawkers, shop assistants, accountants, priests, women and children.

2.3 Sepoys and Lascars

Marina Carter, while writing on ‘Free Migration’ in The Encyclopedia of Indian Diaspora, gives importance to the migration of sepoys and lascars.She writes “despite the British tendency to categorize Indians in social and occupational groups, in practice there was a great deal of overlap. Many male and female servants ended up as indentured labourers, some of whom went on to further migrate as free or trade migrants, while lascars occasionally found themselves enslaved or forced to take on work as servants. Similarly sepoys often had a peasant or servant background and once discharged could also become an indentured or free migrant. (Carter: 2006:57).

Sepoys played very important role in British conquest over many places several times. They were part ofAnglo French warfare, ofraids on trading settlements in Bencoolen (Malaysia, Singapore), in 1789. They played an important role in 1795 in Moluccas and in Egypt in 1800 and they also served at Macao. Carter (2006: 57) mentions that soon after all this conquest, they were mobilised to conquer Mauritius in 1810, and participated in theexpedition of Java in 1811. Many sepoys became permanent overseas migrants because of the nature of work and migration.

Recruitment for sepoys was not only for outside India mission but within country too. Saran District in Bihar was known for sepoy’s recruitment during Robert Clive’s tenure in India. By the mid-19th century around ten thousand Saran people had become sepoys. Even in South India, members of Pallan and Paraiyan castes joined as sepoys, and later migrated as indentured labourers. Most of those who enlisted for indentured migration were sepoys; it shows that sepoys were the first choice because they were already working and had been tested. In Mauritius many ex-sepoys were found as plantation worker recruits. By the 19th century, sepoys could be found anywhere wherever Indian migration took place. Some sepoys went as indentured labour to avoid the repercussion of 1857 mutiny in India. In 19th century, more specifically after 1857, most of the sepoys were recruited from Punjab. Gul Mohamed Khan in 1877 got recruited as police officer in British Guiana. Many sepoys did not return to India even after their term ended, they were further sent from one place to another. They went to work in the Ugandan railways too. During World War I, around 80,000 sepoys served in France, East Africa, and Mesopotamia. Lascars who arrived in England had to sometimes wait for many months to get passes to return to India. Lascars story of their stay in place wherever they went was not very happy, arrangements to provide them lodging and boarding was not always good and poorly fed. As Martina Carter (Carter 2006:58) writes “the mortality among the lascars were as much as 10 per cent of their total number annually in 19th century. Their plight reached such proportions that some took to begging and others to crime”. In later phases, lascars arrived in Australia as convicts. Today many Muslim communities around Indian Ocean have root in lascar seafaring traditions.

The story of free/passenger Indianmigration to South Africa is different from the other colonial destinations like Mauritius, Trinidad and Guyana. Indians in South Africa were granted ‘free passage’ after finishing the contract (indenture ) period, the option was that either they could stay back in South Africa or they could go home (India). Majority stayed back in South Africa. Some went back to India and after some time again went back to South Africa. Second travel of these ex-indentured was at their own expense. So this was twice migration of the same person who went earlier as labour and now in different forms, as worker or for business. Free passenger Indianshad more freedom of mobility and occupation compared to the indentured Indians.I shall discuss in a later section how the South African colonial government pushed through many laws to control Indian passenger or free migration to South Africa.

What follows is specific case studies of select destinations.

3.MIGRATION TO SOUTH EAST ASIA

As I mentioned before Indians migrated in three different forms. As indentured labour, asfree labour and as merchants and businessmen (small retail traders, hawkers shopkeepers etc.as well as big merchants.

Indian migrants were present in many parts of the world even before the century of European colonialism began. Indians were present abroad even in the 16th century. But more permanently they started living and establishing business and other sorts of professions in the19th century. It is said that non-labour migrants alone to Malaya were 6,43,000 between 1844-1931 (Carter 2006:). Burma and other places witnessed the same type of influx of migrants. Later decades saw a dramatic change in the type and nature of migration, now people started coming in large numbersand they not only settled in port areas but also in the hinterland of the particular places they went to. New migrants, unlike indentured labour, were free to chose their destinations and could enjoy more freedom comparedto the earlier migrants. It is said that around 20 per cent migrants went to Burma for business/trade purpose from India (ibid. p.58).

Majority of migrants to South East Asia were from South India, the majority from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, especially Nattukottai Chettiars from Ramnad district’s Pudukottai region. They migrated to Malaya, Burma, Siam, Java, Indo-China and Northern Sumatra. Chulias migrated from Kerala; Muslim communities were the Dawoodi Bohras.They migrated from Surat to Bankok in the 1850s. Khojas migrated from Kutchh to Strait Settlements in the 19th century. Late arrivals were the Sindhis who migrated to Singapore then Dutch East Indies and then Penang and Manila (Carter 2006:59).

3.1 Indian migration to Singapore. Before it became modern day Singapore, the country was part of Malaya for a while. Prior to that it was known as Singapore. India’s contact with Malaya goes back to the pre-Christian era as pointed out by Karnial Singh Sandhu Some aspects of Indian settlement in Singapore 1819-1969 included regular contact with India and exchange through intermarriages and cultural exchange. This led to a large number of Indians in Singapore.Almost every aspect of life in Singapore bears some stamp of Indian culture. During British colonial periods, majority of migrants were labourers. There were migration from other sections too including clerks, teachers, small entrepreneurs, merchants and tradesmen etc. It was the era when these categories found a opportunity to grow in Malaya rather than to remain in colonial India as pointed out by Sandhu (1969:193). Labour immigration was stopped before World War II and it decreased after the post war period. India connection with Singapore goes back to its day of foundation by Raffles in 1819. Raffles entourage included 120 sepoys and lascars. Two years later there were already 132 Indians in total population of 4, 727 (ibid. p. 194). By 1871, the Indian population in Singapore reached to 11 501. For a very long time Singapore became the penal centre for Indian convicts. After the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, Indian convicts (around 600) were transferred from Bencoolen to Singapore. The first batch of these convicts arrived in Singapore in 1825. By 1860 there were some 2275 Indian convicts in Singapore (Sandhu 1969). According to rules every year 10 per cent prisoners were released. A few remained in Singapore and some went to India. Those who remained in Singapore married locals and it added to the mixed population of Singapore. Indians, while they were in jail, were taught many skills and were engaged in various tasks asagricultural labourers, snake and tiger killers, firemen, drain and road makers, nurses, signalmen, masons and printers. These convicts contributed in the construction of the state.

Indian Singaporeans, though they were contributing to the economy of Singapore, were the target of local British. British had resentment against the use of Singapore as dumping ground for convicts. It got so much so much attention that finally the colonial government had to close down the jails in Singapore. All the remaining convicts were shifted to andmans island by 1873 (Sandhu 1969:195). Indian migration to Singapore had virtuallyceased by 1950. Singapore got separated from Malaysia in 1965. After separation, it created more stringent controls over immigration.

Singapore has all ethnic and religious groups from India. But majority, chiefly, are from South India. South Indians form 80 per cent of the Indian population in Singapore. Among the South Indians, Tamilsform the largest number. As far as North India is concerned, Punjabis are in highest number.

Most of the South Indians are Chettiars and Tamil Muslim traders, financier, shopkeepers and boatmen. The next largest group includes largely Sindhis, Gujaratis and Sikh cloth merchants, Guajarati and Muslim textile and jewellery merchants. Indians can be found in Singapore in the High Street area, Arab street region, East of Singapore River and around the docks and railways. Singapore was European dominated area while Indians were relegated to the peripheries of this central focus.

Indians contributed to every aspect of Singapore life. They have a presence in all aspects of the economy, whether it is textiles, piece-goods wholesale and retail trade, money lending (Chettiars) and labour. Indians investment in Singapore was mainly in wholesale, retail, small scale enterprises.Wholesaletextile sales was mainly controlled by Asians.

In the money lending sector, Indians were present from a very long time, and in large numbers, since 1947. It is very important to mention here that Chettiars were the most prominent money lenders in Singapore. Their clients were not just Indian traders and contractors but Europeans plantation owners and Chinese miners and businessmen, and Malay civil servants also. It is widely documented that in Singapore many use to borrow from Chettiars, andthis included Chinese firms too. Many things have changed over time between Singapore and India. Only emotional bond remains at a certain level for Indian origin people, while mosthavebecomeSingaporean citizens. Actual bonding with India is blurring. You can find much decorated Hindu temples and banana leaf vegetarian shops. Indians have had a long innings in Singapore. They worked as labour, assistants, artisans, security guards etc. Chettiars played a great role by establishing the economy by providing fund to entrepreneurs in the region whether it was Chinese or others.

4. INDIAN MIGRATION TO SOUTH AFRICA

Majority of the indentured labour belonged to South India (especially Tamil Nadu, Andhra) and North India (UP and Bihar) while free passengers came from Gujarat and to a lesser extent from Punjab.Passenger Indians who went South Africa were from a different background. They were mostly from labour, merchant and trade background. Free servants were the Hindu accountants; they came to serve Muslim traders and businessmen in South Africa. Traders and accountants were really free compared to the indentured Indians who had completed their tenure and remained in South Africa.Mabel Palmer (1957:42-43 cited in Dhupelia-Mesthrie) has been the first academic to define the Passenger Indian. She distinguishes between Passenger Indians and free Indians. She definesPassenger as those who were traders and merchants and free Indians as those who had finished their indentured period and stayed in South Africa. Majority of migrants were Muslims (traders) while free Indians were labourers and they engaged in work at docks and railways and on farms. Later Passenger Indians weremore in trade. Indians living in Cape Colony were Passenger Indians; most of Cape Colony Indians became traders without much skills. Muslim became wholesale and retail traders while Hindus chose fruit and vegetable hawking and shoe making. There were smaller traders and hawkers who were dependent on merchants and traders for loans. Passenger Indians were very influential in the region compared to free Indians (Dhupelia-Mesthrie 2009:114).

It is an impression that passenger Indians were only males, while Bhana and Brain (1990:23 cited in Dhupelia-Mesthrie) writes that bothen and womens arrived in South African shores on their own expenditure. So it was not male only migration to South Africa. Colonial government in Africa was against the increased use of Indian labour; they advised that instead of Indian labour they must look for black labour and white labour too if need be. Employers were asked to do so and abide by the imperial laws which said that blacks should be selected as labour and whites as skilled labour. Transvaal was populated mainly by Indians, most of whom preferred the city of Kimberley.Later, Indians settled in cities like Port Elizabeth and Cape Town etc.

Indians to Cape Town came primarily from Bombay Presidency, the districts of Surat and Bharoch and the districts of Colaba and Ratnagiri. Others were from Punjab, Bengal Presidency and Madras Presidency. Principal languages were Gujarati, Urdu, Konkani, Marathi, Hindi, and Tamil. Tamil speaking Indians went to places like Kimberley and Port Elizabeth. Majority Indian migrants were poor farmers. Many took to hawking. Like the earlier rules to recruit local and whites by the employers, colonial imperial government came out with The Emigration Act 1902, to restrict Indian migration to the colony. It prohibited any persons who could not write out application or sing in English and who could not provide evidence of some financial means (minimum £ 5-20) to support him/her. Male or female who were prostitutes were also prohibited. This new law does not apply who were already the domicile of the South Africa. How many Indians were working in South Africa can be counted on statistics but impression is that large number of Indians were general dealers and hawkers and significant number of people were workers in the colony (Dhupelia-Mesthrie 2009:118).

There was a section of returnees to India who wished to go back to the colony after the visit. They were given passes to return. This document was the most important ticket to return, it was like the visa today. Returnees had to return within the given time, if they exceeded they would not be allowed to enter.. Many Indians lost their passes and they had wished to come back, but they were not allowed to enter without pass (Dhupelia-Meshrie 200:126).

5. INDIANMIGRATION TO EAST AFRICA

Indian communities went to East Africa,in particular to Uganda, Kenya, Zanzibar and Tanzania. Many went earlier for the Ugandan railways as indentured labour while later migration took place in the form of merchants, businessmen, traders etc. The famous Mehta and Madhwani families are known as East Africa’s Indian merchant princes. Gijsbert Oonk (2005) talks about the Gujarati business community in East Africa wrote who were well-known for their hard work, long hours of labour and far-sighted business vision. They were famous for their entrepreneurial successes too. Further Oonk says that Indians outnumber local businessmen because of their credit facilities as well as the family support. It is a very widely accepted fact that Indians came to Zanzibar as traders with no money or very little money with them. But they with their hard work earned money and made a big name in East Africa in the business community. They started with small enterprises or shop and later went to all business fields in East Africa (Ibid2005:2077).

Indian businessmen lent money to locals and even to Arab traders and also to the owners of clove plantations, they also supported the import-export business with Chinese. Indians served as middlemen between American and German traders in East Africa. Earlier Indian businesses failed in the initial stage in East Africa. After this initial failure many went back to India while some remained there and started work in shops or other suchventures. Very little is known about the migrants who didn’t make it to business success.Destinations like Kenya, Uganda were known to Indian migrants a little later but Zanzibar, Malindi, Mombasa, Bagamoyo and Kilwa port were known to Indian and Arab traders since long time. Dhows were the common source of transport those days which use to travel between Novembers to March from Indian coast to African coasts and from April to October from African coast to Indian coast. Business in spices, ivory, cotton textiles was profitable. As Oonk mentions in his work ‘Business was profitable but dangerous, many did not return home safely’ (Oonk 2005:2078).

Trading business got further strengthened when Arab ruler Seyyid Said moved his capital from Oman to Zanzibar in 1832. Ruler appointed an Indian, Jairam Shivaji, as Collector of Customs. Many fellow Indian traders flourished during his tenure. Establishment of British consulate in Zanzibar strengthened these ties further (Oonk 2005). British wanted security as well as mediators to deal with Arab aristocracy. Majority of traders in East Africa were Muslims, while very small numberwere Hindus too. As Oonk(p.2078) writes ‘The number of South Asian traders in Zanzibar grew steadily from 2500 in (1870) to 6000 in early 1900’. Majority of the orthodox Hindus thought that migrating to Africa by crossing the ocean (known as kaala paani would compromise their ritual purity.. If we see the migration cycle mostly (though not exclusively) lower caste people migrated as indentured labour.. Most of the traders were Muslim (Khojas and Ithnasheries); they settled with family in East Africa while Hindus did not. The golden period for Indian merchants was their soujourn in Zanzibar.Oonk (2005: 2078)points out that almost entire trade in Zanzibar was in the hands of Indian traders, specially Khojas, Bohras and Banias.

Majority migrated for better earnings and livelihood. Their conditions of living were not very goodboth in India and South Africa. But hoping for better times to come, they stayed there for a very long time. Many returnees stayed back in South Africa and East African countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. A few came back to India and went back again in the form of traders or merchants and translators or as security guards, translators/interpreters and workmen on ship etc.

6.CONCLUSION

Free and Passenger Indians were two different sets of migrants in same period. ‘Free’ were the migrants who went after they completed their indenture period and got free passes to go home or settle in the colony where they went, especially South Africa. Indians who migrated to the British colonies (sugar plantation and railways work) mostly remained in the host countries and some they came back and few of the returnees went back to the colony they had come from.

When Indians migrated, they were in very difficult situation in India; they found migration to the different countries as an opportunity to change their fortunes. Some lost their lives en route to the colonies they headed for. Those who reached their destinations faced different kinds of abuses and difficulties in alien places. A new place, new language and most important communicating with different castes and religions. Migrant were from very different backgrounds with different languages and etc. The impact on the free and passenger migrants was more psychological than the other. They had no way to communicate with the people back home. The time of indentured period was so long that within that time many people lost the contact with home completely. Few who went back home could not find the places they lived earlier, famine drought and adverse conditions to life made their life miserable to live there or changed the places they lived earlier. Migration for free/passenger Indians was lesser problematic because for them there was no such restrictions and they enjoyed their stay in colonies. They did travel as often they liked. They had more respect and influence in colony comparing the indentured labour in the same places.

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