Abstract
Ceylon’s contribution to a new paradigm of global and Indian history of labour and migration is twofold. First, the study of Ceylon helps to shift our focus from the overarching shadow of Indentured colonies in the Caribbean, Pacific, and western Indian Ocean—which have been the dominant regions of study of Indian labour migration—towards the British colonies in the Indian Ocean’s Bay of Bengal rim, which were the largest recipients of colonial Indian migration. Second, after Burma, Ceylon was the largest recipient of Indian labourers during the period 1840–1940, with approximately eight million individuals. The aim of this chapter is to scrutinize and reappraise the parameters that have conventionally defined the characteristics of Indian migration during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chapter critically explores the intricate pattern, functioning, and nature of the Indian emigration to Ceylon which took place largely under the informal regulations of the Kangany system. It also intends to complicate the Eurocentric perspective on non-European/Indian migration in the framework of global migration studies.
I am thankful to the professors and colleagues at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), Gottingen University, where I was a Global History Fellow, 2017; Weatherhead Initiative on Global History (WIGH), Harvard University, where I was a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow 2017–2018; and the Department of History, University of Delhi, where I remain as a doctoral candidate. Earlier drafts of this chapter were presented at WIGH, Harvard University; EHESS, Paris; ECSAS, University of Warsaw, Poland; and V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, Noida, India. I am thankful to the commentators for their feedback.
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Notes
- 1.
Kingsley Davis, The Population of India and Pakistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951).
- 2.
Report by W.G.A Ormsby Gore, M.P, on his visit to Ceylon, Malay and Java, 1929, National Archives of India (hereafter NAI).
- 3.
‘Recruitment of Coolies for the Pioneer Labor Force in Ceylon,’ Department of Commerce and Industry (hereafter C&I), Emigration Branch, NAI; Edward Jackson, Report of a Commission on Immigration into Ceylon (printed and confidential), 1939, Department of Education, Health, and Lands (hereafter EHL), L&O Branch, NAI.
- 4.
Colvin R. De Silva, Ceylon Under British Occupation, 1795–1833: Its Political, Administrative and Economic Development, 2 vols. (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries, 1953), 1: 40, 152, 190.
- 5.
Memorandum, Ceylon Indian Association to the Immigration Commission, 1935, EHL, L&O Branch, NAI.
- 6.
‘Recruitment by the Ceylon Government of men in South India for Ceylon PLF and for the Railways and Irrigation works in that Colony,’ 1904, Department of Revenue and Agriculture (hereafter R&A), Emigration Branch, NAI; ‘Recruitment of Coolies for the Pioneer Labor Force in Ceylon,’ 1914, NAI.
- 7.
‘Revised Statement of Information relating to the colony of Ceylon for the use of Indian Immigrants,’ 1930, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 8.
Kris Manjapra, ‘Plantation Dispossession: Tracing the Global travels of Caribbeanity,’ (lecture, University of Delhi, January 2016); Roland Wenzlhuemer, ‘Indian Labour Immigration and British Labour Policy in Nineteenth-Century Ceylon,’ Modern Asian Studies 41, no. 3 (2007): 575–602.
- 9.
The majority of Sinhalese labourers were of the peasant class who generally owned a few acres of land or shares in a small plot, which provided them with their means of livelihood and deterred them from becoming estate labourers. The reluctance to work on plantations was reinforced by strong family ties and existing religious beliefs among the Sinhalese that agriculture was an occupation dignified in Buddhism, and entirely in accord with the natural inclination of the people. Thus, the Report on the Census of Ceylon (1891) mentions that despite being forced to undertake other occupations for subsistence, the Sinhalese preferred to call themselves cultivators. A further reason, as mentioned in Edward Jackson’s report (1937), was the conflict between lowland Sinhalese and highland Kandyans, which deterred labour mobility.
- 10.
The geographical and cultural proximity with the south of India, the caste system and the intense social oppression and ostracism faced by the lower castes, and recurrent famines were some significant push factors. The famine of 1877 affected large parts of South India, and about 380,000 Tamil labourers migrated to Ceylon in search of employment on coffee plantations. The colonial land revenue policy and the monetization of rural economy and cash nexus also drew many into indebtedness and led to the dispossession of their holdings. These push factors were coupled with the pull factors created by prospects of continuous employment with better wages, and the possibility for an entire family to work together on one plantation, especially with the growth of tea plantations in Ceylon.
- 11.
Patrick Peebles, The Plantation Tamils of Ceylon (London: Leicester University Press, 2001), 24; H.P. Chattopadhyaya, Indians In Sri Lanka: A Historical Study (Calcutta: O.P.S Publishers, 1979), 14; W. Arthur Lewis, ed., Tropical Development, 1880–1913 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970), chap. 2.
- 12.
N.E. Marjoribanks and A.K.G. Ahmad Tambi Marakkyyar, Special Officers for Emigration Enquiry, Report on Labour Emigrating to Ceylon And Malay (Madras: Government Press, 1917), held at C&I, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 13.
The first indications of the decay were presented in the foliage, which assumed a yellow colour and ultimately became black, after which the leaves dropped. Subsequently, the twigs and the fruit were affected, and this generally occurred before the ripening of the fruit. The diseased trees that were not treated in a timely manner died immediately, and some of those that were treated later developed all the previous symptoms. See ‘Coffee leaf disease,’ CO 137/479, The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom (hereafter TNA).
- 14.
‘Tea and Rubber Industries in Ceylon and share of Indians in their development,’ March 1926, Pros. No. 2–4-B, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI; Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, para. 4, 10. The area under tea and rubber cultivation reached 481,340 acres and 537,000 acres, respectively, by 1933: see, ‘Confidential Memorandum on Position of Indians in Ceylon,’ 1934, EHL, L&O Branch, NAI.
- 15.
Annual Administrative Report of the Controller of Indian Immigrant Labour (AARCOIIL), 1936, August 1937, NAI.
- 16.
Census of India, 1911, Madras, vol. XII, Part I: 26, 28; Census of India, 1921, Madras, vol. XIII, Part I: 49.
- 17.
Annual Report of the Agent of Government of India in Ceylon (ARAGOIC), on the working of Indian Emigration Act, (IEA) 1922, the rules issued thereunder and of the Labour Ordinances of Ceylon during the year 1930 (Calcutta: GOI Central Publication Branch, Calcutta, 1931), held at EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 18.
P.R. Ramachandran Rao, India and Ceylon (Calcutta: Orient Longman, 1954), 33; Chattopadhyaya, Indians In Sri Lanka, 37, 106–8.
- 19.
ARAGOIC, 1925, September 1926, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 20.
R. Jayaram, ‘Indian Emigration to Ceylon: Some Aspects of the Historical and Social Background of the Emigrants,’ IESHR 4, no. 4 (December 1967): 332.
- 21.
ARAGOIC, 1930, January 1932, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 22.
Though the Government of India assumed that Plantation Tamils in Ceylon would have the opportunity of guaranteed access to land, as was available to Indentured labourers, no such arrangements existed for the ‘free’ labourer. Peebles, Plantation Tamils of Ceylon, 50–1.
- 23.
ARAGOIC, 1928, paragraph 30, September 1929, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 24.
Report of a Commission appointed by the Government of Ceylon to enquire into the condition of immigrant Tamil labourers in the planting districts in the province of Sabaragamuva (Ceylon: Government Printer, 1916), C&I, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 25.
Compiled from AARCOIIL for 1938, Ceylon, 1939, NAI; AARCOIIL for 1933, Ceylon, 1934, NAI; AARCOIIL for 1925, Ceylon, 1926, NAI; ARAGOIC for 1939, NAI. The Census Commissioner of 1921 wrote ‘No reliable figures of the non-estate immigration, or of estate emigration, are available […] there appears to be considerable migration through smaller ports. Up to 1910, the data represents only estate labourers, which constitute only half of the total immigration and emigration. Moreover, it is not clear how much, if any, passenger traffic from India to port other than Mannar is included in the statistics. Also, several smaller ships which carried both cargo and passengers arriving from Karaikal, Negapatnam, Madras, Cochin, Koilpatam, Silawatore, Muttopatta, Tiromalevasel, Kilakari, and so on, touching various ports before reaching Colombo were recorded as “schooners” and “brigs”.’ Peebles, Plantation Tamils of Ceylon, 31; R. Jayaraman, ‘Indian Emigration to Ceylon: Some Aspects of the Historical and Social Background of the Emigrants,’ IESHR 4, no. 4 (1967), 331.
- 26.
ARAGOIC, 1939, 1940, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 27.
Through an environmental-economic analysis, Peebles showed the months of arrival and departure did not follow the coffee harvest, but instead followed periods of rice cultivation in Tamil Nadu. Similarity in the patterns of arrival and departure, though with lesser relative intensity, even during later plantation (tea and rubber) periods in Ceylon, tends to affirm this argument. Peebles, Plantation Tamils of Ceylon, 80–4.
- 28.
Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, 1917; H.C. Cottle, The Labour Commission (Ceylon: Government Printer, 1908); Frank Heidemann, Kanganies in Sri Lanka and Malaysia: Tamil Recruiter cum Foreman as a Sociological Category in the Nineteenth Century (Munchen: Anacon, 1992), chap. 4; R. Jayaraman, Caste Continuities in Ceylon: A Study of the social structures of three plantations (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1975), 57–61; Jayaraman, ‘Indian Emigration to Ceylon,’ 353–4.
- 29.
Maistry, like the kanganies in Ceylon, were recruiter cum supervisors for the Indian migrants who went to Burma. The term is said to have its origin in the Portuguese word mestre, which means master. It is also said to be derived from the word mistry, which means an overseer or master. Though the operation of the system was based on similar indices to the Kangany system (advances, contracts, intermediary’s informal regulations, and debt), there were multiple differences in the structure as well as substance of the two systems. For details, see Ritesh Kumar Jaiswal, ‘Ephemeral Mobility: Critical Appraisal of the facets of Indian Migration and Maistry Mediation in Burma (c.1880–1940),’ Almanack, no. 19 (May–Aug 2018), 41–80.
- 30.
‘Confidential Note by Department of Revenue and Agriculture regarding Emigration from India to Ceylon,’ June 1922, R&A, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 31.
Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, 22; Brij V. Lal, Peter Reeves, and Rajesh Rai, Rajesh (eds.) The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007) 54.
- 32.
Apart from various other legal and illegal deductions, the kanganies extracted 1d/diem from the daily wage of each member of his gang who turned up to work, which was more than ten per cent of men’s wages, who generally received 8–9 d/diem during this time, and an even higher percentage from that of women and children who received 6-7d and 4-5d per diem, respectively. See Rates of wages paid to the coolies…working on estates in Ceylon, 1873, NAI.
- 33.
Jayaraman posited that the lower caste kanganies generally had under them men of their own caste, whereas this was not always the case with the non-Brahman head kanganies, who controlled multiple caste-based gangs recruited and supervised by a sub-kangany of that particular caste (Jayaraman, ‘Indian Emigration to Ceylon,’ 354). However, Heidemann asserted that with the increased demand and recruitment for labourers ‘the group became more heterogeneous, often the labourers hailed from various villages, and in many cases the members had no personal contact before the departure’ (Heidemann, Kanganies in Sri Lanka, 17).
- 34.
In her record of daily events at the estate, Mary E. Steuart from the Ranee thottam estate, near Kandy, talked about the importance of caste among the estate labourers. Analysis of her accounts highlights not only that the upper caste non-Brahmin labourers worked alongside the pariah labourers on the same estate but also the role played by the upper caste labourers, and not only the kanganies, in maintaining caste practices. Mary E. Steuart, Everyday life on a Ceylon Cocoa Estate (London, Forgotten Books, 1906 [2013]), 47–8, 95–6.
- 35.
Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, para 32.
- 36.
The Labour Commission, 1908.
- 37.
Colonial British legislation used archaic legal instruments to maintain a large continuous supply of docile labour on Ceylon’s plantation. See Daphne Simon, ‘Master and Servant’ in John Saville (ed.) Democracy and the Labour Movement: Essays in Honour of Dona Torr (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1954), 160–200. The last consolidation of the British Master and Servant laws in 1823 formed the basis of Ceylon’s Ordinance 5 of 1841, better known as the Master and Servants law (see Peebles, Plantation Tamils of Ceylon, 86). The Master and Servant law was first drafted in the 1830s in Ceylon and was simply intended to apply to servants in a narrow sense, but by 1841, it was aimed at controlling the plantation labour force, too. See R. Weerakoon, The Evolution of Labour Law in Sri Lanka: Tea Plantation to Free Trade Zone (Colombo: Ceylon Federation of Labour, 1986), 12–13.
- 38.
According to Ceylon Ordinance No. 5 of 1841 every verbal or unwritten contract would be deemed as an engagement of no longer than one month, which could be terminated by one week’s previous notice by either party that he/she had no intention to renew it. The written contract could be entered for a maximum of one year and needed one month’s notice for termination.
- 39.
Ordinance of 1865 amended one-week previous notice in cases of verbal contracts to one month, while for the written contracts the maximum period of a contract was made three years and the contract could not be repudiated before the expiry of the period.
- 40.
Ordinance of 1889 also subjected employers to punishment, but it was only limited to the refusal to pay labourers’ wages in full on lawful termination of the contract. Employers were to be imposed with a fine of up to ₹50 on first conviction, and ₹200 for the second, and so on. Moreover, the ordinance extended the definition of employer to the current superintendent of an estate, thus solving practical problems frequently arising in the implementation of the laws due to absentee planters. Additionally, the amendment legally recognized the long-standing practice of verbal contracts. Ceylon Acts, 1885–1889, as cited in Wenzlhuemer, ‘Indian Labour Immigration,’ 588.
- 41.
Dualities of colonial state regulations were based on contractarian model of ‘free labour’ on one hand and criminalisation of labour through the ambiguous provisions of the Breach of Contract Act, vide Prabhu P. Mohapatra, ‘From Contract to Status? Or How Law Shaped Labor Relations in Colonial India, 1780–1880,’ Chapter IV, p. 116, in India’s Unfree Workforce: Of Bondage Old and New (eds.) Jan Breman, Isabelle Guérin, and Aseem Prakash, OUP, 2009.
- 42.
Kanganies, like the superintendents, were reputed to abuse labourers physically, but according to some evidence, they relied more on moral coercion. See Vijaya Samaraweera, ‘Masters and Servants in Sri Lankan Plantation: Labour Laws and Labour Control in an emergent Export economy,’ IESHR 18, no. 1 (1981), 150–1.
- 43.
The kanganies were legally considered ‘labourers’ from 1858; however, to attain greater control over labourers’ productivity and mobility, they acted like employers and attempted to prosecute workers for violating labour laws. Samaraweera, ‘Masters and Servants,’ 134–9.
- 44.
Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour.
- 45.
Professional recruiters were subject to practically no control in India, and thus they recruited all sorts of unsuitable people like dhobies, barbers, weavers, town-loafers, and criminals. They were also infamous for resorting to malpractices like abduction, trafficking, and so on, to fulfil their recruitment obligations. Such persons recruited were totally unfit and unsuited for plantation work. Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour.
- 46.
Sparling, as well as the Agent of Ceylon Planters’ Association at Trichinopoly, Mr. Rowsell, believed that what made Ceylon such an unpopular place with labourers was the advance system and all its attendant evils. The labourers’ view was that going to Ceylon meant piling up debt and the heavy stoppage of pay. Haraprasad Chattopadhyaya, Indians in Sri Lanka (Calcutta: O.P.S. Publishers, 1979), 48–9.
- 47.
ARAGOI for 1925 (Calcutta: GOI, Central Publication Branch, 1926), held at EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 48.
Rates of wages paid to the coolies…working on estates in Ceylon, 1873, NAI.
- 49.
K. Natesa Aiyar, Indian Labor in Ceylon (Colombo: The National Publishing Co., 1922).
- 50.
The labourer’s debt only increased as they borrowed money for remitting to their relatives or to buy land at home, for which they borrowed about ₹200–300. Chattopadhyaya, Indians in Sri Lanka, 52.
- 51.
Quoted in Chattopadhyaya, Indians in Sri Lanka, 53.
- 52.
AARCOIIL for 1926 (Colombo: Government Printer, 1927), L/E/7/1199, British Library, UK (hereafter BL).
- 53.
The average debt of a labourer in Ceylon was estimated by experienced planters to be about ₹70. On estates visited by Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, it averaged from ₹10–50. In individual cases figures were much higher. For example, there were tundus that showed debt per labourer of over ₹200. On some estates the accounts of debts going back to 1908 or thereabouts found little variation, and on others there was a distinct increase. Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, para. 31.
- 54.
‘Memorandum on the Tundu,’ 1922, R&A, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 55.
The term ‘crimping’ was similar to ‘enticing’ in Assam wherein the labourers were persuaded by the intermediary recruiters-cum-supervisors to quit without completing their contracts in order to take up work on another plantation. Bolters generally found work on a different plantation with the help a ‘crimp’ kangany, vide Rana Behal, ‘Coolies, Recruiters and Planters: Migration of Indian Labour to the Southeast Asian and Assam Plantations during the Colonial Rule’, Crossroads Asia Working Papers, No. 9, July 2013, p. 17–20).
- 56.
‘Memorandum of Information of regarding the Indian plantation labourer in Ceylon, the Federated Malay States and the Straits Settlements prepared for the Royal Commission on Labour,’ (confidential), September 1930, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 57.
See the Baki system in which advances and attachment/bondage were used by the labourers as effective bargaining tools against employers; advances not only bonded the labourers but employers, equally. See Geert De Neve, ‘Asking for and giving Baki: Neo-bondage, or the interplay of bondage and resistance in the Tamil Nadu Power-loom Industry,’ in Jonathan Parry, Jan Breman, and Karin Kapadia, The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour, vol. 9 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2000), chap. 13.
- 58.
All the charges were initially borne by the Ceylon government who subsequently recovered from the estates the cost of transit (railway and steamer) at concessional rates as well as half of the food charges in quarantine camps and on the subsequent journey. Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, para 19.
- 59.
The Commissioner had under him an Assistant Commissioner and agents who oversaw the agencies scattered over the recruiting areas in South India. The Commission had 29 agencies grouped in four circles, namely the Headquarter circle, Salem Circle, Madura Circle, and Arcot circle, and two forwarding agencies at Dhanushkodi and Colombo, which were feeding places for labourers returning from Ceylon. Each circle was under the supervision of a European official who, along with the Commissioner and his assistants, made periodical inspections to the agencies to see that the rules of the Commission were being carried out efficiently.
- 60.
‘Confidential Note by Department of Revenue and Agriculture regarding Emigration from India to Ceylon,’ 1922, NAI; Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, paras. 22–25.
- 61.
‘Question and Answers in the Parliament regarding Labour Emigration to Ceylon and Malay,’ July 1918, C&I, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 62.
This ordinance was passed in consequence of the 1908 CLC Report, which stated that wages shall be paid monthly into each labourer’s hand, and that each superintendent shall certify having done so to the Government Agent under a heavy penalty for default. Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, para. 29.
- 63.
Marjoribanks and Marakkyyar, Report on Labour, para. 33.
- 64.
Labourers received a mere 8 annas as the balance of their wages after two months work, and they were not allowed to leave the plantations until they discharged a ‘debt’ of ₹50 each. Incidences of physical torture were common when the labourers expressed a desire to return or when they bolted. ‘Alleged Improper recruitment of certain coolies from Mysore for work on Ceylon plantation,’ April 1912, C&I, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 65.
Ordinance No. 43 of 1921, June 1922, R&A, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 66.
ARAGOIC for 1932, 1933, EHL, Land and Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 67.
In one case, the Agent was informed that, after his active involvement in the matter, a labourer had received their discharge certificate two and a half months later, while the compensation of ₹80 required a great deal of correspondence and took over one year. ‘Suggestion made by the Agent of GOI in Ceylon for the abolition of the Discharge certificate and Discharge Certificate Agreement,’ 1932 & 1933, EHL, L&O Branch, NAI.
- 68.
‘Irregular deduction of advances from the wages of Indian labourers in Ceylon,’ 1932, NAI.
- 69.
K. Natesa Aiyar, ‘Indian Labor in Ceylon–“Veil Unveiled”’ (Colombo: National Publishing Co.,1922), pamphlet held at NAI.
- 70.
‘Evidence of K. Natesa Aiyer of Ceylon before the Standing Emigration Committee,’ September 1922, R&A, Emigration Branch, NAI.
- 71.
The Secretary of the Government of Madras, in a dispatch to the Secretary to the GOI, stated that ‘to secure effective control over the recruiter and their operations in both the colonies it will be necessary to amend the present Emigration Act so that emigration shall denote departure by sea out of British India of a native of India where that departure is assisted by cash payments or the grant of free or aided passages and to a country beyond the limits of India.’ Enclosure to dispatch No. 31 of 1917, C&I, NAI.
- 72.
The root of discontentment was the feeling among Sinhalese that Malayalees, who were mostly non-estate workers, were depriving them of ‘their’ work by accepting low salaries. ‘Anti-Malayalee Outbreaks in Colombo, Overseas Branch,’ 1931, NAI; Times of Ceylon, December 1931, NAI.
- 73.
‘Ceylon–Indian daily paid employees in Government Department Dismissal-Ban on Emigration for Unskilled work,’ 1939, Overseas Branch, NAI; ARAGOIC for 1939, 1940, EHL, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 74.
‘Ceylon–Disabilities of Indians–Appointment of Ceylon Public Commission–Definition of Ceylonese,’ 1937, L&O Branch, NAI; ‘Disabilities of Indians in Ceylon...,’ 1936, EHL, L&O Branch, NAI; ‘Ceylon–Indian daily paid employees in Government Department Dismissal–Ban on Emigration for Unskilled work,’ 1939, NAI.
- 75.
Incidents of riots against Indians were officially trivialized as ‘unexpected and isolated incident of Rowdyism on part of some bad characters at an organized event.’ See ‘Ceylon–Riots in Colombo, Attack on Indian Shops,’ 1938, L&O Branch, NAI; ‘Ceylon–Anti-Malayalee agitation,’ 1936, L&O Branch, NAI; ‘The Sinhalese Movement to boycott Indians continued abated in the outbreak of the war and the promulgation of Defence regulation,’ in ARAGOIC for 1939, 1940, NAI.
- 76.
The Agent of the GIO wrote that ‘all attempts to employ Sinhalese on plantation have been disappointing.’ Confidential Report of Important events during the period Aug-Dec 1937 by Agent of GOI in Ceylon, 1938, Overseas Branch, NAI.
- 77.
Confidential Report of Important events during the period Jan-July 1938, NAI.
- 78.
Under these restrictions, the immigration of only non-recruited, assisted migrants was permitted, while the migrants who were recruited by kanganies, under Special Rule No. 8 of the Indian Emigration Act, were restricted. Under rule 30 (1) of the Indian Emigration Act, the non-recruited migrants included labourers returning to those estates in Ceylon where they had been once employed; their close relatives, that is, spouse, children, parents, brother, and unmarried sisters; and those who came to join their close relatives who were employed on estates. ‘Note dated 4th Feb 1938 by the Agent of GOI in Ceylon on non-recruited assisted emigration,’ 1938, L&O Branch, Delhi Records-2, NAI.
- 79.
‘Ceylon–Indian daily paid employees in Government Department Dismissal-Ban on Emigration for Unskilled work,’ 1939, NAI.
- 80.
The Annual Report of Emigration from Madras to Colonies, 1880–1900, R&A Dept., Emigration Branch, repeatedly characterised the Indian emigration to Ceylon (and Burma) under the head of ‘Free migration,’ ‘Other migration,’ ‘Unregulated migration,’ and so on. Moreover, The Controller of Labour stated in his Annual report, ‘…the expression “free Indians” used in return required by the Government of India, applies to all Indian immigrants in Ceylon as all Indians in Ceylon are free…,’ AARCOIIL, 1925, NAI.
- 81.
Mckeown, Adam. Global migration (1846–1940). Journal of World History, vol. 15, n. 2, University of Hawaii’ Press, June 2004.
Abbreviations
- AARCOL:
-
Annual Administration Report by the Controller of Labour
- ARAGOIC:
-
Annual Report of the Agent of Government of India
- C&I Dept.:
-
Commerce and Industry Department
- CLC:
-
Ceylon Labour Commission
- EHL Dept.:
-
Education, Health and Land Department
- GOI:
-
Government of India
- IEA:
-
Indian Emigration Act
- L&O Dept.:
-
Land and Overseas Department
- NAI:
-
National Archives of India
- PLF:
-
Pioneer Labour Force
- R&A Dept.:
-
Revenue and Agriculture Department
- RCL:
-
Royal Commission on Labour
Select Bibliography
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Annual Report of the Agent of Government of India (ARAGOIC) on the working of Indian Emigration Act 1922, the rules issued thereunder and of the Labour Ordinances of Ceylon, 1923–1939. Calcutta: GOI Central Publication Branch, NAI.
Chattopadhyaya, H.P. Indians In Sri Lanka: A Historical Study. Calcutta: O.P.S Publishers, 1979.
Heidemann, Frank. Kanganies in Sri Lanka and Malaysia: Tamil Recruiter cum foreman as a sociological category in the Nineteenth Century. (Munchen: Anacon, 1992)
Jackson, Edward. Report of a Commission on Immigration into Ceylon. April 1938. NAI.
Jayaraman, R. “Indian Emigration to Ceylon: Some Aspects of the Historical and Social Background of the Emigrants,” IESHR 4, no. 4 (Dec 1967).
Marjoribanks, N.E and Marakkyyar, A.K.G Ahmad Tambi. Report on Labour Emigrating to Ceylon And Malay. Department of Commerce and Industry, Emigration Branch, Pros. No. 35–36-A. Madras: Government Press, 1917. NAI.
Mckeown, Adam. “Global Migration (1846–1940),” Journal of World History 15, no. 2 (2004): 155–89.
Peebles, Patrick. The Plantation Tamils of Ceylon (London: Leicester University Press, 2001).
Report by W.G.A Ormsby Gore, M.P, on his visit to Ceylon, Malay and Java. March 1929. NAI.
Wenzlhuemer, Roland. “Indian Labour Immigration and British Labour Policy in Nineteenth-Century Ceylon”, Modern Asian Studies 41, no. 3 (2007): 575–602.
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Jaiswal, R.K. (2019). Mediated (Im)mobility: Indian Labour Migration to Ceylon under the Kangany System (c. 1850–1940). In: Campbell, G., Stanziani, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Bondage and Human Rights in Africa and Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95957-0_8
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