Status of Indian Guyanese

Deareditor

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Contrary to some recent comments,IndianGuyanese were shipped out from a British India that had been pillaged and looted (not coincidentallyaHindiword) with its native cottage industries, especially in textiles, destroyed to create millions of peasants as “surplus labour” that sought a “vent” Irrespective of particularorigins,theywere othered into “coolies”: persons at the bottom of the social ladder to provide labour on plantations. After theabolitionofslavery,inan era of supposed “progress”, they were subject to an “agreement” specifying the conditions of their labour It isthisagreement,whichthey pronounced “Girmit” that they defined themselves as “Girmitiyas - people of the agreement This act of namingwastheirseminalact of signaling their appropriationofagency

Theyknew itwas a onesided contract But they “bandedtheirbelly”tofulfill their side of it because it opened more opportunities than in British- ravaged India. To which most chose nottoreturn-confidentthat after they finished their indentureship, they had the ability “to produce two blades of grass where there wasbutone”.

They were labeled “docile” for “keeping their word”butwhentheplanters broke theirs, they rebelled. These are shown by the number of court cases filed against Girmitiyas and the number of strikes they stagedeveninthefaceofthe “leadenargument”.

Girmitiyas marked the transition from a world in which slave labour was abandoned but the world of “free labour” had not yet beenborn.

They were kept in that intermediate state of being neither slave but certainly notfreedmen.

The transition was not forhumanitarianreasons,as thecolonizerswouldhaveit, but for the more prosaic reason of greater profits for the empire. However, as immigrantsescaping British generated landlessness, joblessness, famines and debt, they were determined toworktheirwayupandout even when other groups balked. Their motto, as one scholar put it, became “laboro ergo sum” – “I am becauseIwork”.

Girmitiyas became the inaugural “Indian” since in the colonies it didn’t matter which region or rank one originated: they were all “coolies”. When a group is ostracized it becomes more cohesive: solidity of the g r o u p i s d i r e c t l y proportional to the impressed pressures But they became also less bogged down by the deadweight of caste etc From the moment they stepped into the Depot in Calcutta and handed those new clothes they were liberated from the caste semioticsofclothesandhow theywereworn.

When Girmitiyas were shipped to the various Imperialcoloniestoworkon thesugarplantations,ineach case they encountered groupsalreadythere.

The constant were the ruling Europeans who exercised total control through their laws, coercive forces and hegemonic, discursivestructuresalready deployedinIndia.Itisnowa sociological truism that groups placed in proximity with each other will engage in a “social comparison process” While initially Girmitiyas were placed at the bottom of the social ladder, they inexorably elevatedthemselvesbecause of the same derided culture that conferred the value of hardwork.

But it exacted its price in suicides, alcoholism and domesticviolence.

However, as Girmitiyas became the progressive, upwardly mobile group it created a negative sense of groupworththosedisplaced. In response, the latter claimed greater legitimacy to the national patrimony, t h r o u g h Christianity/westernization, earlier arrival, or “greater suffering” etc In the d e c o l o n i z a t i o n , “democratizing”wave,after WWII, these factors led to the present politics of entitlement” against the background of Girmitiya unprotectedness. While the British had ostentatiously arranged for a “Protector of Immigrants”, which, with some notable exceptions took over from the “Protector of Slaves in the Amelioration Period”, these operated more in the breach than not. It left a lasting legacy of Girmitiyas not expectingmuchjusticefrom “law and order”. But more insidiousweretheformation of armies and Police Forces staffed exclusively from non-Girmitiyas, that further exacerbated the tensions betweenthesegroups.

Thestate,however,isthe property of all citizens that includes Girmitiyas and must be manned by what Hegel called a “universal class”representingall.

In plural societies this demands that the groups be proportionally represented inthem.

If not, leaders from the dominant elements will always be tempted to seize power or demand partiality in political conflicts Girmitiyascannotacceptthe principle of opponents that “what we have is ours and what you have is negotiable”.

Sincerely.

RaviDev