Remembering Gandhi's forgotten satyagraha to free bonded labourers from the British

As the government launches its centenary celebrations of the Champaran Satyagraha, the centenary of another struggle remains largely forgotten in India.

Mahatma Gandhi had launched his satyagraha against the British rule in Champaran district on April 10, 1917.

The indenture system that took Indians to work as agricultural labourers to British colonies came to an end in March 2017 as a result of a long struggle by nationalist leaders in India and resistance by the workers in the colonies.

While the Union ministry for culture has a series of grand events, including restoring railway stations, planned for the Champaran centenary, there is no official commemoration of the centenary of the end of indentured servitude.

However, countries that have large communities of descendents of indentured workers are holding commemorative functions to mark the centenary of a significant historical event.

Guyana held a commemorative function that was inaugurated by its president David Granger, while Trinidad and Tobago’s international conference was opened by its prime minister, Keith Rowley.

Events to honour the indentured workers, seminars, literary and cultural conferences, are being held in Fiji Islands, Suriname, Sydney, London and New York to mark the abolition of the system.

Despite the NDA government prioritising its outreach to the diaspora, there are no government functions in India to mark the centenary.

Gandhiji had taken up the cause of the poor tenant farmers in Bihar who were forced to grow the indigo crop at the cost of food grains.

Farmers were not only forced to plant indigo, but also poorly paid for their produce and heavily taxed for any failure to plant indigo.

They were not allowed to plant food crops even after the indigo was harvested.

In protest against the indigo regulations, the farmers of Champaran district refused to plant the crop.

The Champaran Satyagraha was Mahatma Gandhi’s first major political agitation in India.

But before taking up the plight of the poverty-stricken peasants of Champaran, Gandhiji had taken up the cause of the indentured labourers.

Gandhiji’s political activism began in South Africa when he sought to draw attention to the pitiable conditions of the indentured workers.

After his return to India from South Africa, Gandhiji got involved in the nationalist struggle to end the indenture system.

Over a million Indians were taken to work in foreign lands to grow sugarcane, which was the main engine of growth of the colonial economies.

The indenture system came into being after slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834.

The abolitionists’ agitation brought an end to slavery, but the emancipation of slaves resulted in a sharp labour shortage in the plantations.

Plantation owners in the Caribbean islands, who had influential friends in London, sought replacement workers for their sugarcane estates from India.

The British Indian government agreed to send Indian workers on indenture contracts to work in the colonies.

It was a voluntary migration, but implemented through deception, duplicity and sharp-dealing.

The migrants signed or put their thumb print on the indenture contract, but the largely unschooled village folk had little idea of what they had signed on.

Inveigled by the arkatis (recruiters) with visions of abundant land available for tilling, fanciful tales of a comfortable living, many did not know where they were going, that they were going abroad or the length of the contract.

The workers were confined to the plantation for five years, conditions on the plantations were harsh with long working hours and low wages.

Many of the practices on the plantations were carried over from the days of slavery.

Overtasking with punitive fines made life miserable for the workers, and mortality and suicide rates were high.

The indentured workers described their indenture period as "hell". When stories of the ill-treatment of indentured workers reached India, prominent Indian nationalists called for ending the indentured migration.

Indian migrants sent petitions and plantation workers resorted to strikes, but these were put down by force by the colonial authorities.

Several resolutions were introduced in the Legislative Council in India to bring an end to the practice. When Gandhi returned to India, he took the lead in the struggle.

By 1915, the campaign against indenture had become part of the nationalist discourse against the British colonial government.

Nationalist groups sent representatives to the colonies to report on the conditions of the indentured workers.

Father CF Andrews, an associate of Gandhiji, sent reports about the conditions in Fiji, which raised a furore in India.

Magazines and journals brought out especial editions on the indenture system.

The nationalists’ agitation and pressure from other groups in India and the UK eventually forced the British India government to stop indenture recruitment in 1917.

As popular anger against indenture recruitment increased, people rallied against the hated labour migration and it led to the first mass movement in India.

Around the time the indenture system was abolished, the Champaran Satyagraha was launched.

In 2014, Mauritius had celebrated the 180th anniversary of Indians' arrival in Mauritius with an International Conference that flagged off the International Indentured Labour Route project, funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The Indian government had supported the project.

The indenture system and the prolonged campaign against it is an intrinsic part of the emotional and ethnic history of the migrants and their descendents.

But it has faded in Indian memory and it has been left to non-governmental organisations such as the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and other such avenues associated with the diaspora to hold seminars and academic discussions.

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