Inside Indian Indenture

Many were filled with hopes as high as Mahjoub's stars as they crossed the Indian Ocean, making their way from India to Durban in southern Africa in the late 1800s. Yet, realising the dream of a better life and returning home triumphant was not to be for many. Thousands returned with less than they had started out with, only to find that home was no longer the place they had left. The travellers, too, had changed irrevocably: caste had been transgressed, relatives had died and spaces for reintegration had closed up as colonialism tightened its grip. Home for these wandering exiles was no more. Inside Indian Indenture is a timely and monumental work that makes a significant contribution to understanding South African history. It tells the story of the many beginnings and multiple journeys that made up the indentured experience. The authors seek to trespass directly into the lives of the indentured themselves. They explore the terrain of the everyday, focusing on religious and cultural expressions, leisure activities, power relations on the plantations and the weapons of resistance and forms of collaboration that were developed in relation to their Natal's colonial government and its coercive paternalism. Fascinating accounts brimming with desire, skulduggery and tender mercies, as much as with oppression and exploitation, show that the indentured were as much agents as they were victims and silent witnesses. To read this book is to enter their world, to meet real people in all their complexity as they danced along the uncertain edge between improvisation and resignation. The title substantially revises the contours of South African Indian historiography and starts to weave these themes into the mainstream of southern African studies. It also makes the South African experience available to scholars of comparative work on indenture.

“Inspired research. Beautifully written. A captivating narrative.” - Fatima Meer, Emeritus Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal and fellow of the London School of Economics, Anti-apartheid and Human Rights Activist “Bold and imaginative writing characterised by what can only be called outstanding research.” - Uma Mesthrie, Associate Professor of History, University of the Western Cape “A very valuable contribution to the historiography of South Africa, that will be a reference for many years to come.” - Bill Freund, Professor Emeritus, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal “Inside Indian Indenture is a timely and monumental work which makes a significant contribution to our understanding of South African Indian history.” - Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor of African Literature & Co-ordinator: South Africa-India Research Group, University of the Witwatersrand Eloquent, informative, sensitive and moving, Inside Indian Indenture is an unparalleled exploration of a world now vanished beyond recall: the world of Indian indenture in all its gruesome and maddening complexity. This book is an achievement of singular importance unlikely to be surpassed in our time, and destined to find a permanent place in the scholarship on the subject. - Brij V Lal, Professor of Pacific and Asian History, Australian National University and General Editor of The Enclyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora “The story of the global migration of Indian indentured labour is one of the most poignant and central narratives of the nineteenth century. That story, the subject of many new works, has never been told better than by Goolam Vahed and Ashwin Desai in Inside Indian Indenture. Focusing on South Africa, Vahed and Desai go far beneath the surface to reveal not only the brutalities of indenture but also the near heroic lives of those who made the passage from India and their descendants. Drawing on an unusually wide and impressive array of sources, this book is remarkable for the depth of its insights, the empathy with which it casts an eye on indentured laborers, and the richness of its historiographic contribution.” - Vinay Lal, Professor of History, Delhi University & University of California, Los Angeles “These pages are replete with engaging story after engaging story of disillusionment and despair, of complicity and stark survival, but also of resistance, agency and triumph. The narratives are rendered in the most compelling prose, indisputably displaying how ideas and feelings meld in passionate scholarship.” - Devarakshanam Govinden, Senior Research Associate, Faculty of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, “Inspired research. Beautifully written. A captivating narrative.” - Fatima Meer, Emeritus Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal and fellow of the London School of Economics, Anti-apartheid and Human Rights Activist “Bold and imaginative writing characterised by what can only be called outstanding research.” - Uma Mesthrie, Associate Professor of History, University of the Western Cape “A very valuable contribution to the historiography of South Africa, that will be a reference for many years to come.” - Bill Freund, Professor Emeritus, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal “Inside Indian Indenture is a timely and monumental work which makes a significant contribution to our understanding of South African Indian history.” - Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor of African Literature & Co-ordinator: South Africa-India Research Group, University of the Witwatersrand Eloquent, informative, sensitive and moving, Inside Indian Indenture is an unparalleled exploration of a world now vanished beyond recall: the world of Indian indenture in all its gruesome and maddening complexity. This book is an achievement of singular importance unlikely to be surpassed in our time, and destined to find a permanent place in the scholarship on the subject. - Brij V Lal, Professor of Pacific and Asian History, Australian National University and General Editor of The Enclyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora “The story of the global migration of Indian indentured labour is one of the most poignant and central narratives of the nineteenth century. That story, the subject of many new works, has never been told better than by Goolam Vahed and Ashwin Desai in Inside Indian Indenture. Focusing on South Africa, Vahed and Desai go far beneath the surface to reveal not only the brutalities of indenture but also the near heroic lives of those who made the passage from India and their descendants. Drawing on an unusually wide and impressive array of sources, this book is remarkable for the depth of its insights, the empathy with which it casts an eye on indentured laborers, and the richness of its historiographic contribution.” - Vinay Lal, Professor of History, Delhi University & University of California, Los Angeles “These pages are replete with engaging story after engaging story of disillusionment and despair, of complicity and stark survival, but also of resistance, agency and triumph. The narratives are rendered in the most compelling prose, indisputably displaying how ideas and feelings meld in passionate scholarship.” - Devarakshanam Govinden, Senior Research Associate, Faculty of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Ashwin Desai holds a Masters degree from Rhodes University and a doctorate from Michigan State University. He is currently a senior researcher at the Centre for Sociological Research at the University of Johannesburg. He was previously a Visiting Research Fellow in the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. One of South Africa's foremost social commentators, Ashwin's work is internationally celebrated for its courage and clarity of vision and for its focus on the lived experience of oppression and resistance. His previous books include We are the poors: Community struggles in post-apartheid South Africa and Inside Indian Indenture: A South African story, 1860 – 1914.Goolam Vahed is Associate Professor in the department of Historical Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He holds a PhD in History from Indiana University (Bloomington, USA) and has taught widely in the fields of African, American and World history. His research interests include transnational history, religion, culture and ethnicity, as well as sport and history. He is best known for his current work on the early history of indentured Indian labourers in South Africa, culminating in the co-edited book of 2007 (with A. Desai) Inside Indenture: A South African Story, 1860-1914. Among his other books are Blacks in Whites: a Century of Cricket Struggles in KwaZulu-Natal (with A. Desai, V. Padayachee and K. Reddy), The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893-1914 (with S. Bhana) and Dear Ahmedbhai, Dear Zuleikhabehn: the Letters of Zuleikha Mayat and Ahmed Kathrada (compiled with T. Waetjen).

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