Naukari, Networks, and Knowledge: Views of Indenture in Nineteenth-Century North India

Abstract

This paper explores ideas about the colonial indentured labour system from the perspective of the rural Bihari communities from which many migrants came. In particular, it seeks to position indenture within a longer history of labour migration amongst North Indian peasants and workers, linking socio-cultural awareness of pre-colonial migratory behaviour to nineteenth-century understandings of indenture. Humanitarians, anti-slavery groups, Indian nationalists, and traditional historiographies have all argued that Indian labour migrants were ill-informed about the system of indenture and the locations to which workers were transported, presenting them as passive victims of colonial labour exploitation. More recently, revisionist scholars have challenged this long-held perspective, arguing that indentured workers were able to exercise considerable agency and benefit economically from the system. This paper contributes to ongoing efforts to view indenture from the migrants’ perspective by exploring the complex ways in which potential recruits engaged with and experienced the idea of indenture. In the process, it will demonstrate the varied sources of information (and misinformation) that helped to shape decisions about whether to engage in indentured labour migration.