Typology of Indentured Indians and Their Plantation Experience

Abstract

This chapter underscores that although the majority of indentured Indians were landless peasants and were from Northeastern India, they differed in their overall status. They were from the low and middle caste as well as from Hindu and Muslim religions. Men were the majority, and women were the minority. A third of the laborers were teenagers. The chapter also reveals that the experience of Indians during their five years of contract labor was notoriously bad. Their wages were cut, their rations were delayed and medical attendance and housing were inadequate; this was coupled with poor supervision, neglect and ill-treatment on the estates from the planter class. Indentured Indians relied on their own strength, such as the reconstruction of their culture and the practice of their religion, to cope with plantation life.