Indian indentured labor system

Beginning in 1834, when the ship Atlas carried laborers from Calcutta to Mauritius, planters in British colonies recruited workers from India under indenture contracts, usually five years, in return for passage, food and low wages. Between 1834 and 1920 about 1.3 million Indians, mostly from the poor regions of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madras, went to Mauritius, British Guiana, Trinidad, Jamaica, Natal, Fiji, Malaya and other places. The French, Dutch and Portuguese ran similar schemes, such as to Reunion and Suriname.¹³

The British Empire ended slavery in 1833, with a short 'apprenticeship' period, and planters of sugar and other crops faced a labor shortage, since freed people would often leave the plantations or demand wages. India, under the East India Company and then the Crown, had a large population in poverty, and recruiters, called arkatis, found workers using promises and sometimes deception. Journeys by sailing ship took months and mortality on some voyages was high. On the plantations, conditions were often harsh, with long hours, physical punishment and legal penalties for leaving work, and the system included wage and contract violations.²

The system's critics, including Indian nationalists and British officials, argued it was a kind of slavery by another name, and the historian Hugh Tinker titled his study of it A New System of Slavery. Others note that some workers chose to stay, prospered and built new communities. Mahatma Gandhi, then in South Africa, became involved in campaigns against indenture, and Indian nationalists such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale pressed for an end. The Indian government stopped emigration under indenture in 1917 and the system was formally abolished in 1920. Today millions of people of Indian origin live in Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Fiji and South Africa.¹⁴⁵