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Indentured and Post-Indentured Experiences of Women in the Indian Diaspora pp 1–17Cite as

Indentured and Post-Indentured Indian Women: Changing Paradigms and Shifting Discourses

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Abstract

The Indenture and similar systems led to the migration and settlement of Indians in various British, French and Dutch plantation colonies around the world. Women, although lesser in number, formed an essential part of these migration processes and settlement. However, the initial theoretical and empirical discourses on the Indenture and similar systems either downplayed women’s voices and experiences under homogenised meta-narratives or they revolved around two major trajectories. The first positioned women in the victim/victimizer frame of reference wherein they were perpetually exploited, subjugated and powerless victims and the second operated within the patriarchal frame of purity, morality, and honour. Located in both European as well as the native patriarchal frameworks, women were projected stereotypically as objectified and sexualized categories. Over the past two decades, feminist and subaltern interventions brought women from margins to the centre and shifted the established paradigms to bring out the multiple facets and agency of indentured and post-indentured women. It highlighted the ways these women negotiated with the exploitative conditions and the established patriarchal norms at the plantations to build a successful life for themselves and for the generations to come. This chapter will situate women within the larger discourse of indenture and other migration systems during the colonial period in India. The chapter will also give an overview of the established discourses in the realm of indentured and post Indentured Indian women and explore the changing paradigms in the epistemological understanding of indenture.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    One of the very appropriate expressions come from the famous writer Premchand in his story Booddhi Kaaki. He writes

    “Bhateeje ne sampatti likhwaate samay to khoob lambe – chaude vaade kiye, parantu ve sab vaade keval kulee dipo ke dalaalon ke dikhae hue sabzabaag the. …lekin vastav me boodhee kaakee ko pet bhar bhojan bhee kathinaee se milata that” (When the nephew was getting all the property transferred in his name from the old aunt, he made tall promises, but they turned out to be false dreams like those shown by ‘Coolie Depot’ middlemen. Later old Kaki seldom got enough to eat.

  2. 2.

    Similar story was narrated by Pandit Kamlesh Arya about his grandfather, in a personal interview in Suva, Fiji, 2003.

  3. 3.

    A similar story was narrated by the former Commonwealth Secretary-General Shri Dat Ramphal, about his great grandmother, in his speech on Pravasi Diwas in 2002.

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  1. School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi, India

    Amba Pande

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    Amba Pande

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Pande, A. (2020). Indentured and Post-Indentured Indian Women: Changing Paradigms and Shifting Discourses. In: Pande, A. (eds) Indentured and Post-Indentured Experiences of Women in the Indian Diaspora. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1177-6_1

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