{"id":53715,"date":"2019-11-05T12:08:46","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T06:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?page_id=53715"},"modified":"2019-11-05T12:08:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T06:38:55","slug":"answered-why-indentured-labour-was-taken-by-the-british-from-india-to-their-colonies-have-they-been-able-to-preserve-their-cultural-identity-over-there","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/answered-why-indentured-labour-was-taken-by-the-british-from-india-to-their-colonies-have-they-been-able-to-preserve-their-cultural-identity-over-there\/","title":{"rendered":"[Answered] Why indentured labour was taken by the British from India to their colonies? Have they been able to preserve their cultural identity over there?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Demand of the question<\/strong>
Introduction. <\/strong>Contextual Introduction.
Body.<\/strong> Mention various reasons for indentured labour being taken by the British to their colonies. Discuss whether indentured labour been able to preserve their cultural identity or not?
Conclusion. <\/strong>Way forward. <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

Indentured labour was a bonded labour under contract to work for an employer for a specific amount of time, to pay off his passage to a new country. It was instituted following the abolition of slavery throughout British Empire in 1833 as newly free men and women refused to work for low wages on sugar, tea plantations and rail construction projects in British colonies of West Indies, Fiji, Mauritius and Ceylon. Indians were recruited and transported to many labour-importing colonies of Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reasons\nfor <\/strong>indentured labour being\ntaken by the British to their colonies:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Industrial\nDemand: <\/strong>The industrialisation of\nBritain followed by the other European countries accelerated the flow of trade,\nlabour and capital across the world. The growing urbanism in Europe especially\nin Britain increased the demand for food and agricultural goods since most of\nthe labour force was consumed by the factories and firms. Colonies in Africa\nand Asia became the lucrative destinations for investing in agricultural and raw\ncommodities.<\/li>
  2. End of\nslavery:<\/strong> This provided for the\nimmediate background for the Indentured labour system all over the world.\nBritish needed the labour to work in the plantation fields of African colonies.\nHundreds of thousands of Indian and Chinese labourers went to work on plantations,\nin mines, and in road and railway construction projects around the world.<\/li>
  3. African worker\nreluctance: <\/strong>The natives of African\ncountries were self sufficient and completely relying on cattle farming. They\nwere reluctant to work in the British factories and farms, so Indians became\nthe obvious choice. The main destinations of Indian indentured migrants were\nthe Caribbean islands (mainly Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam), Mauritius and\nFiji. Closer to home, Tamil migrants went to Ceylon and Malaya. Indentured workers\nwere also recruited for tea plantations in Assam.<\/li>
  4. Availability\nof labour: <\/strong>Most Indian indentured\nworkers came from the present-day regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,\ncentral India and the dry districts of Tamil Nadu. In the mid-nineteenth century\nthese regions experienced many changes \u2013 cottage industries declined, land\nrents rose, lands were cleared for mines and plantations. All this affected the\nlives of the poor. They failed to pay their rents, became deeply indebted and\nwere forced to migrate in search of work.<\/li>
  5. Escape\nfrom poverty:<\/strong> Many migrants agreed\nto take up work hoping to escape poverty or oppression in their home villages.\nAgents also tempted the prospective migrants by providing false information\nabout final destinations, modes of travel, the nature of the work, and living\nand working conditions. Often migrants were not even told that they were to\nembark on a long sea voyage. Sometimes agents even forcibly abducted less\nwilling migrants. Nineteenth-century indenture has been described as a \u2018new\nsystem of slavery\u2019.<\/li>
  6. Indian\nlabour suitability: <\/strong>Indian workers\nwere perceived as being quiet, docile and industrious by colonists and suitable\nfor working in many plantation and construction works in different colonies of\nBritain. The recruitment and arrival were done by private parties initially\nlater British government regulated the recruitment of indentured labour.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Have\nthey been able to preserve their cultural identities?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Many of\nthe indentured labourers did not return to their native countries and settled\nback in the colonies. They came to these colonies with hope and expectations.\nOn arrival at the plantations, labourers found conditions to be different from\nwhat they had imagined. Living and working conditions were harsh, and there\nwere few legal rights. But workers discovered their own ways of surviving.<\/li>
    2. Many of\nthem escaped into the wilds, though if caught they faced severe punishment.\nOthers developed new forms of individual and collective self expression,\nblending different cultural forms, old and new.<\/li>
    3. In\nTrinidad the annual Muharram procession was transformed into a riotous carnival\ncalled \u2018Hosay\u2019 (for Imam Hussain) in which workers of all races and religions\njoined.<\/li>
    4. The\nprotest religion of Rastafarianism (made famous by the Jamaican reggae star Bob\nMarley) is also said to reflect social and cultural links with Indian migrants\nto the Caribbean. <\/li>
    5. \u2018Chutney\nmusic\u2019, popular in Trinidad and Guyana, is another creative contemporary\nexpression of the post-indenture experience.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      These forms of cultural fusion are part of the making of the global world, where things from different places get mixed, lose their original characteristics and become something entirely new. Most indentured workers stayed on after their contracts ended, or returned to their new homes after a short spell in India. Consequently, there are large communities of people of Indian descent in these countries. For example V.S Naipaul, Noble Prize winner writer had Indian roots. At the same time many of those who stayed back in the colonies elevated to highest positions after the process of decolonisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Demand of the question Introduction. Contextual Introduction. Body. Mention various reasons for indentured labour being taken by the British to their colonies. Discuss whether indentured labour been able to preserve their cultural identity or not? Conclusion. Way forward. Indentured labour was a bonded labour under contract to work for an employer for a specific amount… Continue reading [Answered] Why indentured labour was taken by the British from India to their colonies? Have they been able to preserve their cultural identity over there?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":49132,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-53715","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}