Dr Radica Mahase
As T&T celebrates 181 years since the arrival of the first group of Indian indentured labourers, and given that both our Prime Minister and President are descendants of these labourers, I find it fitting to write about the women who came during Indian indentureship. From 1845 to 1917, approximately 147,600 Indian labourers immigrated to Trinidad under the indentureship system. Of this group, female labourers comprised 29 per cent, or roughly 42,800 women and girls. In 1917, when the Indian indentureship system officially ended, only about 25 per cent of female labourers were repatriated to India. The majority remained in the colony and made Trinidad their home.
Often, when we examine the labour scheme, we assume that men and women shared the same experiences. But this was far from true. The indentureship system affected women in particular ways, and they faced challenges that were specific to them. Yet we do not speak enough about these experiences, or about how Indian women entered a world that tried, at every stage, to control them.
First, it was not easy for women to migrate on their own. India was a deeply patriarchal society. Women were not always free to register or leave India on their own. Thus, the number of female emigrants remained low, with a ratio of 40 women to 100 men. After 1879, for example, magistrates often refused to register single women unless they had the permission of their fathers, husbands or sons and they often asked the local police to investigate the background of women who wanted to migrate. Yet Indian women also found ways to negotiate these restrictions. Some married Indian men at the immigration depot in Calcutta so they could migrate as part of a couple rather than as single women. This shows that even within a system designed to control them, Indian women found ways to exercise agency and create possibilities for themselves.
Second, some women were kidnapped, tricked or forced to migrate in order to fill quotas on the ships. Of course, the official records did not always include these cases. After all, Indian indentureship came in the aftermath of African slavery, and it was very important for the colonists to present it as something different. But interviews with survivors, court documents and letters sent to relatives in India tell another story.
Dharajia remembered that one day a group of arkatias, or recruiters, came to the river where she and three other women were washing clothes. They told the women that they had to go with them to Calcutta and forced them onto a bull cart. No one was around to stop them. When they reached Calcutta, they were taken to the Garden Reach depot and registered. They tried explaining their situation to the magistrate, but he did not understand Bhojpuri, and the interpreter did not tell him what they were saying. One of the women stopped off in South Africa because she was pregnant and the ship’s journey was too much for her. The others continued to Trinidad.
Third, women gave themselves agency and reinvented themselves in Trinidad’s plantation society. Here, the story became even more complex. Whereas in India their labour often went unrecognised, in Trinidad they were compensated in monetary form for their work. Their wage-earning status gave them a sense of self-worth. Women also became landholders as they acquired Crown land through the commutation system, which was implemented in 1869 to encourage time-expired Indian labourers to settle in the colony. Under this scheme, they could give up the right to a free return passage to India in exchange for land or cash. From 1869 to 1889, 1,873 Indian women chose the land grant rather than a return passage to India.
Many Indian women took advantage of other opportunities that existed and, upon completion of their contracts, they moved towards the town areas seeking employment as midwives, seamstresses and domestic servants. Some Indian women returned to India and then re-migrated as ordinary passengers, paying their own passage back to the colony. During the period 1881 to 1892, 141 men paid their passages to Trinidad while 97 women did the same. Thus, we see where Indian women were not merely surviving, they were actively creating a secure future for themselves and their children.
Indian women also renegotiated social life. Because there were fewer Indian women than men in the colony, women had some leverage in marriage and relationships. Some changed partners, left marriages in which they were unhappy and had children with more than one man. Widows were no longer completely ostracised and could find other partners. This knowledge was enough to empower Indian women. But this agency also came at a terrible cost. Indian men were not always able to deal with these changes. Violence, physical abuse and wife murders became part of the history of indentureship. The issue of “horning” and jealousy was not simply about morality. It was also about men trying to regain control in a society where women were beginning to make choices for themselves.
After indentureship, Indian women continued to create space for themselves. Some became midwives, seamstresses and domestic servants. A small group of educated women became visible as teachers, clerks and professionals. Over time, Indo-Trinbagonian women moved into politics, medicine, law, business, education and public life.
This brings us right back to where we are today. T&T is now led by women who are descendants of these Indian indentured women. Their great-grandmothers helped to pave the way. They were strong and courageous women who navigated poverty, patriarchy and plantation life, while passing on values of hard work, resilience and ambition. Their stories remind us that Indian Arrival Day is about resilience, hard work and sheer courage. Let us honour their lives.
Happy Indian Arrival Day, T&T.
