Girmityas' Portrayal in Ashwin Desai’s Inside Indian Indenture: An Apprehensive Study

Abstract

Indentured system was highly tormented form of slavery began when the Britishiers faced the lack of labourers at the sugar, cotton and tea plantation due to the end of African slavery . In this system millions of Indians were contracted to work in the 19 British colonies included Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana, South Africa on low wages.Girmityas refers to those bonded indian slaves who agreed to migrate to british colonies in order to escape from the poverty and famine of british india with dream of getting a life of roses without having any idea of difficulties that they were going to face .Some were also defrauded into Migration without any complete knowledge. They were recruited on different plantations by signing a contract of four to five years with the condition of providing the return amenities at the end of their contract however only seldom time it happened. Many died during the journey that took 10 to 20 weeks and many tried to return to their homeland however , failed. In Literature the representation of these turmoiled indentured labourers were first began in Caribbean literature by ARF. Webber, V.S Naipaul, Ashwin Desai etc. In Ashwin Desai’s Inside Indian Indenture we get the realistic and authentic portrayal of the biography of indentured labourers who were ignored by the history. This book seeks to give voice to those unvoiced people whose stories still remained unknown to the masses . This book is a journey through all those silenced, ignored indentured labourers who were tormented by the hardships showered on them by the proprietors.