An Exploration of Resistance and the Plight of Indian Indentured Labourers in Reuben Lachmansingh’s A Dip at the Sangam

Abstract

This study debunks the Eurocentric portrayal of the workings of indentured labour. By focusing on three major Caribbean Islands: Trinidad, Guiana, and Surinam, the study foregrounds the migration process of indentured labourers and how they were able to adapt to/and resist colonial influences. The study adopts the qualitative method of research; hence it examines through a contextual reading, interpretation and analysis of the text under study. In the same breath, it references critical essays and other non-literary resources that discuss the Indo-Caribbean indentured labourer system. The theory of Migration is used to (re)present a perspective that reiterates Everett Lee's modification of Ravenstein's migration theory of push and pull factors. The study shows that though Indentureship played an important role in Indian civilization,  the  whole  system,  it  is  based  on  deception  and  a  play  of  superior  power  over  an underdeveloped society. In addition, it shows the gloomy side of Indentureship in for example: how men and women are auctioned like animals to the highest bidder; the nostalgic experiences of Indians in a foreign  land;  deceitful  and  forceful  kidnap  to  Indentureship  and  the  resistance  to  the  forceful acculturation on the plantations. Therefore, the study concludes that the journey of indentureship is purely based on dominance and suppression of the Indian race, and though it offered the Indians in the presumed new world the space to create their own identities and rise above the caste system that had existed in India, the entire system is a brutal/disguised form of slavery, which the Indians resisted rather than accepted the policy as portrayed by Eurocentrists.