Indenture System and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- [e-mail];

[e-mail]                                    

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

 

Indenture System and Mahatma Gandhi

The Indian indenture system was an ongoing system a form of debt bondage, by which over a million Indians were transported to various colonies of European powers to provide labour for the plantations, especially sugar. It started from the end of slavery in 1833 and continued until 1920. At the close of a year we are apt to look back on the way we have come and it is a good thing if we are able to find something over which we can rejoice. What has happened during this year that can be said to have affected the Indian community? The first week of January brought the welcome news from Calcutta that the Government of India had decided to issue a notice in April prohibiting the further emigration of indentured Indians to Natal from July, This decision was carried out; and now we have seen the last of indentured Indian immigration to these shores. It is impossible at this time to say what the effect will ultimately be, but we have good reason to believe that many employers of Indian labour have awoke to the necessity of treating their work people with some consideration and providing them with decent housing accommodation. We hope to see more improvements as time goes on, including the establishing of schools for Indian children living on the estates. This, however, does not blind us to the many evils of the indenture system, and we have not forsaken our ideal of freedom for all. This will come in time when the people themselves are ready for it. Better treatment and healthier conditions, which are now being offered as inducements to re-indenture, will in the course of time lead to freedom of contract between labourers and employers. 1

If half of this woman’s story be true, it is indeed “an unfortunate case”. It must be considered unfortunate, too, by supporters of the indenture system that such cases are brought to light. Even one such case condemns the whole system, because it shows what horrible things are possible in the outlying districts. We have to thank the Magistrate, Mr. Gibson, for having prevented the further punishment of this poor woman. 2 If any further testimony were needed to bring home to the mind the evils of the indenture system, Miss Dudley’s letter, which we reproduced from India elsewhere in this issue, would supply it. This lady’s experience of fifteen years’ missionary work in Fiji leads her to say that the system is past mending, and to entreat her readers not to be satisfied with any reforms but to continue to use their influence against the system until it is abolished. We are grateful to Miss Dudley for her outspoken letter. Such independent testimony is worth much. Other European friends, we are sure, could add their testimony against the system and so bring nearer the end which is almost in sight. We are confident that the Hon. Mr. Gokhale means to see this thing through. The National Congress, only the other day, again brought forward a resolution dealing with this matter, Mr. Gokhale being the mover. So long as women and children can be dragged away into a state of slavery under the guise of indentured labour, with results too horrible to mention, so long must we continue to advocate the total abolition of this most iniquitous, cruel, and immoral system. 3

On 23rd October, 1916, the third and concluding day of the Bombay Provincial Conference at Ahmadabad, Gandhiji moved the following resolution: That this Conference strongly urges the necessity of abolition of the indenture system as early as possible, the system being a form of slavery which socially and politically debases labourers and is seriously detrimental to the economic and moral interests of the country. Mr. Gandhi, in moving the resolution, spoke in Gujarati explaining the various difficulties existing at present. 4 This Conference emphatically urges that nothing short of a complete abolition of the indenture system of recruitment of labour in any form will meet the evils of the system which is a form of slavery which socially and politically debases the labourers and is detrimental to the economic and moral interests of this country. Mr. Gandhi spoke in Hindi and giving a resume of the indenture system referred to the degrading effects which it had produced on our people in the Colonies. He also described how it had lowered India and Indians in the estimation of the European peoples. He condemned the Inter-Departmental Committee’s recommendations on this question and said in an emphatic manner that the system should go once for all and that no reservations whatsoever should be made. It was far from my desire to get the employer punished. I simply wanted Balasundaram to be released from him. I read the law about indentured labour. If an ordinary servant left service without giving notice, he was liable to be sued by his master in a civil court. With the indentured labourer the case was entirely different. He was liable, in similar circumstances, to be proceeded against in a criminal court and to be imprisoned on conviction. That is why Sir William Hunter called the indenture system almost as bad as slavery. Like the slave the indentured labourer was the property of his master.  In March 1916 Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviyaji moved a resolution in the Imperial Legislative Council for the abolition of the indenture system. In accepting the motion Lord Harding announced that he had ‘obtained from His Majesty’s Government the promise of the abolition in due course’ of the system.

I felt, however, that India could not be satisfied with so very vague an assurance, but ought to agitate for immediate abolition. India had tolerated the system through her sheer negligence, and I believed the time had come when people could successfully agitate for this redress. I met some of the leaders, wrote in the Press and saw that public opinion was solidly in favour of immediate abolition. Might this be a fit subject for Satyagraha? I had no doubt that it was, but I did not know the modus operandi. 5 How can I disregard your request? But you know that I don’t accept any responsibility in a casual manner. I agree to be the president of a meeting only when I have control over its proceedings and have faith in it. Perhaps you do not know how much I contributed to the formation of the Association and to carrying on through it the agitation against the indenture system. Probably Natarajan is acquainted with the history of it. Vaze was not there at that time. 6

 

References:

 

1. Indian Opinion, 30-12-1911
2. Indian Opinion, 1-6-1912
3. Indian Opinion, 18-1-1913
4. The Bombay Chronicle, 24-10-1916
5. Young India, 8-5-1918
6. Letter to Purushottamdas Thakurdas, January 8, 1937