Contesting colonial rule: Politics of exile in the Indian Ocean

Abstract

This paper examines the compulsory relocation of anti-colonial nationalists from other parts of the empire to Seychelles during British colonial rule. It explores how these colonial policies of forced expulsion that were used to contain anti-colonial political activity unintentionally enabled political exiles to create new trans-imperial networks of resistance. From the late 1800s, the British Colonial Government exiled to Seychelles over 500 anti-colonial leaders and their followers from Egypt, Somaliland, Ethiopia, Gold Coast, Palestine and other colonies; the last political exile was Greek Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios who arrived in Seychelles in 1956. Based on archival and empirical research this paper examines their experiences of exile and how, despite feelings of loss and isolation, they continued to challenge colonial authority by mobilising new forms of contestation. Through a colonial geographical imaginary, Seychelles was constructed as distant, remote and isolated, a place where political agitators could be safely confined and prevented from infecting others with their anti-colonial sentiments. Instead, however, these movements brought colonised people together from across the empire and created spatially extended networks of ideas that became significant in connecting these ‘remote’ islands to other places. Exiles disrupted the authority of the British Colonial Government through mundane and small acts of resistance in which they made constant, almost daily, demands for their right to return home and better living conditions. This study, on a much under-researched form of imperial mobility and confinement, contributes to debates on colonialism, space and resistance by identifying networks produced by colonised people and, through an exploration of translocal subaltern agency and resistance, confounds place-bound notions of politics.