DSA ‘Archives Week’ exhibits indentured migration theme
Kolkata: The Directorate of State Archives (DSA) is celebrating ‘Archives Week’ with a unique exhibition on the theme of ‘Indentured Migration’.
The exhibition inaugurated on Tuesday will continue till February 24 at the Shakespeare Sarani office of the DSA. It portrays the phase of indentured labourers, post 1830s to the beginning of 20th century.
In the early 19th century slavery was banned in Britain. It was soon followed by other European countries. A new labour system was needed for the profitable plantation colonies such as Suriname, British Guiana, Mauritius etc – all key outposts of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean on the way from Europe to the East, from where the labourers were brought to these islands, which had lost their erstwhile slave labour base. In due time, the contract labour system was criticised as a continuation of the slave system. Speaking on the theme, Simonti Sen, director of DSA said that the textbooks on nationalist struggle rarely deal with the theme of indentured migration, barring a few references in Sumit Sarkar’s ‘Modern India which speaks of the Indian Association taking up the cause of indentured labourers in Assam Tea Gardens in 1880s, and Mahatma Gandhi’s movement with such labourers in South Africa.
“However, with Calcutta Port being one of the chief ports through which labourers migrated, the West Bengal State Archives is noticeably rich in related holdings. I am hopeful that this exhibition will help bridge the gap in our narratives,” added Sen. The four panels chronologically arranged in the exhibition deal with shipment to Mauritius; regulations about settlement to British Guiana and Fiji; post landing in different countries and end of the indentured labour system.
DSA, the official custodian of all non-current records of the government, is a specialised wing of the department of Higher Education. It is the oldest repository of colonial and post-colonial records and its collection is growing with the passage of time.
