Girmitiyas: The Making of Their Memory-Keepers from the Indian Indentured Diaspora
edited by Brij V. Lal
| HB ₹ 1595 |
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INFORMATION
- EDITOR : Brij V.Lal
- HB ISBN : 978-93-5572-074-0
- POD ISBN : 978-93-5572-075-7
- Year : 2022
- Extent : 342
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They are scattered around the globe now, descendants of girmitiyas, indentured labourers, and other subaltern groups of Indians. The journey of their forebears, from India to the tropical sugar colonies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was fraught, but they emerged from the debris of subalternity to lay the foundations of many a colony, from South Africa to Suriname and many places in-between. For the most part, however, they have been ignored by history books as a people without agency or humanity, unworthy of consideration. This picture has been changing in recent decades largely as the result of scholars such as those represented in Girmitiyas. They have shifted the focus of research from the imperial discourse of policy and high politics to the lived experience of people in the colonies and their concerns, hopes and struggles. A new historiography was thus born. In the essays in this volume, scholars from the Indian subaltern diaspora write about their improbable journeys and serendipitous transformations in the face of great odds, of the influences that shaped their thinking and approach to the study of the past of their forebears. This is scholarship up close and personal, not desiccated and dry. Fascinating, often moving stories in themselves, the essays collectively provide indispensable insights into the emergence of a field of history which their intervention has rescued from certain obscurity. In the process, both the writers and their forebears are ennobled.
The Editor:
Professor Brij Vilash Lal (1952-2021) was Professor Emeritus at the Australian National University and Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. He has written extensively on the history and politics of his native Fiji and on the history and culture of the girmitiya diaspora.
Contributors
Ashwin Desai • Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie • Ruben Gowricharn • Kaplana Hiralal • Brij V. Lal • Rajend Mesthrie • Céline Ramsamy-Giancone • Lomarsh Roopnarine • Brinsley Samaroo • Clem Seecharan • Goolam Vahed
‘This marvelous and original collection of essays is the first to connect the
history of diaspora to the diaspora of historians and history. It is simultaneously
a window into the self-narration of indentured labourers from India to distant
places, but also a brilliant set of reflections on the contingencies, aspirations
and conjunctures that have allowed this history to be told from the inside.’
— A R J U N A P P A D U R A I , Goddard Professor of Media, Communication and Culture (Emeritus), New York University
‘Girmitiyas is a remarkably evocative and well written book, a mature set of reflections on the connections between the ancestry, life histories and academic careers of the researchers who have contributed to it. Historians often talk about the importance of life stories and oral histories, but they rarely practice it. This book serves the double purpose of encouraging people to write about their family histories as well as documenting the careers of leading scholars in a way that will hopefully inspire future generations of researchers. An important book.’
— C R I S P I N B A T E S , Professor of South Asian History, University of Edinburgh
‘Girmitiyas is a remarkable volume of bio-essays by historians of and from the girmitiya diaspora, whose scholarship has defined the field of indenture and labour historiography and given it a distinctive identity. In these essays, at once moving and humbling, they reflect on their astonishing journeys from the most improbable of beginnings in the subaltern strata of society to the very pinnacle of their profession. A landmark volume from an exceptional group of scholars. This effort to humanize the subject and the author is inspirational.’
— D A V I D D A B Y D E E N , Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick