The working conditions were subhuman. In Trinidad, men were paid as little as 25 cents a day to work all day on sugar or cotton plantations, rain or shine. Women were paid 16 cents a day for various jobs such as making salt, collecting tamarind, doing housework and gathering grass for the cattle.
Men were routinely covered in blood – there are stories of men having their backs flogged for minor infractions. Women would face harassment and sexual assault from their masters. They were forced to wake up at 3 a.m. and work non-stop for long hours, which took a toll on those who were weak. Children were expected to work alongside their parents from the age of 5.
Even the smallest breach of contract was treated as a criminal matter. Workers can be jailed for leaving the property without permission. People who had completed their contract would have to carry their certificates with them at all times to prove they were not “deserting” the property.
Colonies such as Trinidad, Natal, Fiji and Mauritius had an Immigrants’ Protector department that was supposed to protect the rights of bonded laborers, but they were very ineffective due to strong pressure from wealthy plantation owners.
Furthermore, most workers were not aware of their legal rights. Even those who would escape from their plantations to report the ill-treatment to the Protector were themselves thrown behind bars and then handed over to the owner of the property.
We can only imagine what happened to them afterwards.
Fighting back
The Indians did not take this crazy oppression quietly and fought back. They would hand in petitions, carry out sabotage operations and even beat up plantation owners. Harsh punishments did not deter their comrades from fighting back, often teaming up with property owners and beating them to death.
Rahim Baksh, a former railway worker in India had found himself working under a particularly cruel master. He later shared how he got together with his fellow workers and created a fund. They would all contribute a small percentage of their salaries.
What was the fund used for? Well, it was a guarantee fund. They were determined to teach the Europeans a lesson if they tried to beat any of them, and this fund would be used to bail them all out or to bribe the police when they were arrested.
Indians are resilient, adaptable and enterprising people. Workers united, forgetting caste and religious divisions, and supported each other.
A bright young man named Bhujawan had come to Fiji with nothing but the clothes on his back and a copy of the Bhagawad Gita. Due to his hard work, he was quickly promoted to the post of Sardaar – he supervised the workers and acted as a liaison between the workers and the supervisors.
He tried to protect the people under his charge as much as possible, giving easier tasks to the weaker people and saving his people from the wrath of the overseers. He admits that for this he got into a lot of trouble with the European masters.
He also talks about celebrating Holi, singing and dancing around the fire and reading the Ramayana aloud to the community every evening. Muslim workers said their prayers in the field and held community gatherings for Eid where everyone was welcome.
They would also tell tales of India to forget their hard life for a while. Of course, not all Sardars were so benevolent and very few properties were conducive to community building.
Gafur, a student studying to become a Maulvi, was lured to Fiji on the pretext of teaching in an Islamic school. He was in for a rude shock when he was forced to work in the cane fields. The estate he worked on was particularly cruel, and unlike Bhujawan’s experience, there were no feasts or readings of the Ramayana. The Sardars he worked under were extremely cruel and women voluntarily submitted to European men for an easier life.
Despite this, workers still banded together for support: Hindus would build mosques and Muslims would build temples. of Girmitiyas clung to their beliefs with all they had; at the end of the day, it was their unyielding faith in God that enabled them to face their trials.
Setting, fitting, flourishing
of Girmitiyas eventually adjusted to life in Fiji and Trinidad. They got married and started a family. People who had finished their term would often re-secure themselves with a better position in other properties. They scraped and saved money, and as soon as they were free, they bought small plots of land and a cattle or two. They began to cultivate cereals and vegetables, and also started small sugar plantations.
In Trinidad, in the early 1900s, most Indians were free. In fact, more than half of Trinidad’s sugar exports were supplied by independent Indian plantations by 1902.
The British were slowly losing their grip on their workers; a mass strike due to appalling working conditions and wage restraint engulfed the plantations. Indian families also tried to educate their children – this started a positive cycle that generated prosperity for Indian communities around the world.
Within a generation or two, Indians who had not a scrap to their name became rich. But this put a target on his back, both for the natives and the colonial government.
Take for example the South African territories of Natal and Transvaal. Indians who had completed their tenure on the estates started their own businesses and were on the road to prosperity. They also won the right to vote. This fueled anti-Indian sentiment among the white people in Natal, and they passed legislation to “restrain the Indian trade menace”.
The Immigration Law Amendment Bill stated that Indian laborers could not be freed after their term – they either had to return to India or re-indent for two years. Indians were not allowed to own land anywhere except in designated ghettos. A strict curfew was imposed on them from 21:00.
The Franchise Amendment Bill limited the number of Indians who could vote to 300, compared to 10,000 white voters. The Black Act of 1907 was enacted, which required them to register their fingerprints with the government. Furthermore, the Supreme Court declared that only Christian marriages were legal, thus invalidating all Indian marriages in South Africa.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was in South Africa at the time, suffered some humiliations of his own and decided to fight for the cause of Indian bonded labourers.
He submitted petitions, wrote letters to newspapers, spoke to other activists, and led nonviolent protests against the various oppressive laws the colonialists had passed against Indians. He was arrested and discredited several times, but he fought undeterred.
It was here that he laid the foundation of Satyagraha. At the height of the protests, 50,000 forced laborers were on strike and thousands were in prison.
Violent clashes with the police occurred, and sugar mills, restaurants and other businesses closed due to a lack of Indian staff. In 1914, the authorities accepted all Indian demands and ended the strike.
