Indentured labour migration

Geography glossary

Also called: Girmitiya · Topic: Population of India: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Indentured labour migration was a colonial system that ran from 1834 to 1917. An "indenture" was a written contract that bound a worker to labour for a fixed number of years. Under it, over a million Indians were taken to work on plantations, mostly sugar plantations, in British and other colonies. Most came from Bihar and eastern UP, and some came from south India. The workers called themselves Girmitiya, from "girmit", their way of saying "agreement". Many never came back. Their descendants form large Indian-origin communities abroad today.

Example

In Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, and in Fiji, in the South Pacific, people of Indian origin now make up a large part of the population. Most of them descend from indentured plantation workers. Other destinations included Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname and South Africa.

Don't confuse with

  • Gulf migration: this began in the 1970s. It is voluntary contract work in oil-rich states, and most workers return home. Indentured migration was colonial plantation labour, and most workers settled abroad for good.

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