Girmitiya or Jahajis were indentured Indian labourers whom the British Empire sent to Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, and the Caribbean (mostly Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, and Jamaica) to work on sugarcane plantations for the benefit of European settlers.
Etymology
The word girmit represented an Indian pronunciation of the English-language word "agreement" - from the indenture "agreement" of the British Government with Indian labourers.[1] The agreements specified the workers' length of stay in foreign parts and the conditions attached to their return to the British Raj.[2] The word Jahāj refers to 'ship' in Indic languages (from the Arabic/Persian Jahāz/جهاز), with Jahajhi implying 'people of ship' or 'people coming via ship'.[3]
In Fiji, Governor Arthur Hamilton-Gordon discouraged Melanesian Fijians from working on the plantations in an attempt to preserve their culture.[1]
See also
- Indian indenture system
- Indo-Caribbeans
- Indians in Fiji
- Fiji Hindi
- Fijian Indian diaspora
- Coolitude
- Global Girmit Museum
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Girmit History. www.fijigirmit.org. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
- ↑ Article 2. www.fijigirmit.org. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
- ↑ Chalo Jahaji – on a journey through indenture in Fiji, Lal, Brij V.. New Girmit.org. Retrieved 2021-01-15.
Further reading
- Fiji's Indian migrants : a history of the end of indenture in 1920{{#if:Gillion|, Gillion}. Oxford U.P.(1962)
- The Pacific Islands : an encyclopedia{{#if:|, }. University of Hawai'i Press(2000). ISBN 082482265X
- Girmitiyas : the origins of the Fiji Indians{{#if:Lal|, Lal}. Fiji Institute of Applied Studies(2004). ISBN 978-0-8248-2265-1
- Gaiutra Bahadur (2014). Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture. The University of Chicago. Template:ISBN
- Coolitude : an anthology of the Indian labour diaspora{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Anthem. ISBN 1843310031
- Praveen Kumar Jha (2019). Coolie Lines. New Delhi: Vani Prakashan. Template:ISBN
External links
- South Asian Indentured Labor - Online Archive of Research and Resources - an online archive and living syllabus of text-based resources related to Indian indentureship, with country-specific resources and material related to global Indian indenture diasporas
- Interview of Mahendra Chaudhry about Girmitiyas in FIji