India has historically been integral to the establishment and sustenance of the British Empire overseas. The British gained a sizable pool of highly qualified people and resources to use in their colonial expansion through the conquest of India, in addition to significant material wealth and the amassing of industrial capital. Currently, behind China, the Indian diaspora abroad is the second biggest in the world. This large immigrant group’s dispersion abroad and the British subjugation of India were inextricably linked. To further their colonialist goals, the British colonial authorities sent Indian labourers to other colonies through conscription, the hiring of military personnel, the banishing of criminals, and the use of indentured labour. Numerous Indian merchants also moved there in conjunction with this boom. All of these Indian immigrants will establish the core structure and basis of today’s global Indian diaspora.
The study intends to analyze the historical patterns of India’s overseas migration and how they have a strong connection to the expansion of British imperialism. The research will also examine how, throughout the British colonial era, Indian migration aligned with the growth of British colonialism and the Empire’s efforts to uphold order in the newly conquered regions. India has a long history of immigration and overseas settlement, which can be directly attributed to the British Empire’s exploitation of its population and resources to conquer the Indian subcontinent. To further their colonial goals, the British authorities sent Indian labourers to different places of their empire through periodical conscription, as service members, as prisoners, and as indentured labourers. Of course, a significant number of Indian entrepreneurs moved during this upsurge.
Decoding the relation between Colonization and Immigration
The history of migration has shaped human history to a certain degree. Although immigration has always occurred worldwide, the “Age of Discovery” was the catalyst for the movement that eventually connected both the Old and the New Worlds. The Europeans commenced two major phases of colonial exploitation and expansion. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, English, and French were the main forces behind the first wave, which spanned the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century. The second wave began in 1870 and concluded with the start of World War I in 1914.
Since European imperialists and colonialists were themselves immigrants, the process of colonial expansion was the same as the intercontinental migrations of the colonialists from Europe. Immigration and colonialism were identical terms for Europeans. The colonial objectives of the conquerors were fully fulfilled by even the non-European immigration operations. Over the course of more than 400 years of European colonial conquest, Europeans were primarily responsible for initiating and dominating worldwide migration. For instance, in the infamous “coolie trade,” millions of enslaved Africans were transported to American colonies as a more affordable labour source. Later, Europeans imported Asian indentured labourers, particularly Chinese and Indians, under duress or force to colonies all over the world as a replacement for slave labour. These two migratory operations could not be compared to the other forms of invasion and colonization that European colonists conducted worldwide, even though they were an integral component of the global migration phenomena of this time. The passive, planned, and orchestrated migratory process under the direction of the European colonial rulers resulted in physical and psychological torment and a life of misery for both black African slaves and enslaved labourers from China or India. Historically, India was critical to the British Empire’s ability to continue its colonial dominance over other countries. In fact, without India’s assistance, Britain would not have been able to pursue its domestic industrial growth, engage in foreign colonial pillage, or expand its colonial territory. In addition to bringing enormous amounts of material wealth that were transformed into crucial capital for the growth of British industry, the British occupation of India also produced an enormous reservoir of human resources. India was a major supplier of labour, raw commodities, military hardware, and financial capital for Britain.
Colonization of the India and ‘Diaspora in Making
The sacrifices and efforts made by Indian soldiers were crucial in practically every major war fought by the British in modern times. The easiest way to illustrate how the British exploited Indian labour was by using Indian sepoys and exporting Indian labour overseas. The majority of foreign indentured labourers, who also happen to be the most extensively dispersed globally, have historically come from India. It is reasonable to say that India’s human resources contributed just as much to the British Empire as did its material and financial resources. Inspired by the Portuguese, who sent Chinese indentured labour to nations such as Cuba, the British rapidly adopted this practice and started contracting out the shipping of Indians to their colonies in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the islands in the Indian Ocean to bolster their plantation economy.
The feudal natural economy of India, in which agriculture and handicrafts were closely integrated, was further disrupted by the policies put in place by British colonialists to further their rule and exploitation. These policies crushed traditional handicrafts and manufacturing industries that had reached a certain level of development, destroying the initial productive forces and robbing countless handicraft workers of their means of subsistence. When the regular famines were added, a lot of people lost their jobs, were unemployed, and started searching abroad for work. This led to their forced exodus from the subcontinent, which in turn sparked a massive Indian emigration abroad. Indian immigrants can be classified and described as follows by examining such patterns of behaviour:
● Indian soldiers in abroad: The East India Company enslaved India with its army and used native Indians, especially the troops of the princely rulers, to further its colonial invasion from the outset. In actuality, the Indian armies of the princely kingdoms served British interests and were under the command of European officers. The British established their permanent army, dubbed the British Indian Army, which grew over time and had its own military law enforcement and administrative framework. The British waged violent conflicts to expand their colonial power over India for almost 200 years, and they did so with the help of this army. Indian immigrants were effective in this process, successfully establishing a significant presence abroad as soldiers, police, and other rank servants. It supported Britain’s monopolization of the profitable trade in spices and occupied Maluku Island, also known as the Spice Islands, in 1795. It was crucial to the British invasion of Egypt between 1800 and 1801, which they carried out in 1810 with the aid of thousands of sepoys. In 1811, they invaded Java. With 2.5 million soldiers, the British Indian Army was one of the biggest fighting armies in World War II. From Hong Kong in the east to Italy in the west, the Army engaged in combat with the three main Axis powers: Japan, Italy, and Germany. It fought in a variety of environments, from the rugged landscape of Eritrea to the marshes and rainforests of Malaya and Burma; from the desert dunes of North Africa to the highlands of central Italy. Many of the troops who survived the bloody battles in the British colonies in Asia and Africa decided to live in the area once the armed forces were dissolved or withdrew.
● Indian Convicts and Political Prisoners: The practice by British India of sending prisoners to its colonies abroad in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries is another little-known aspect of the history of Indian immigration. According to Anderson’s memoir, up to six ships are supposed to depart from Madras, Bombay, and Bengal each year with between 12 and 200 convicts on board. It is challenging to estimate the overall number of convicts carried over the Indian Ocean, though, because historical records are few. Based on the scant official data, the following approximate computation may be made: Before 1825, the East India Company dispatched a minimum of 2,000 and potentially up to 4,000–6,000 prisoners to the province of Bengkulu; approximately 1,500 more prisoners departed from the ports of the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies for Mauritius to begin their protracted journey of exile; additionally, from 1828 to 1862, the authorities in Bengal and Madras transported a minimum of 5,000 and potentially up to 7,000 prisoners to Burma. Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the isolated Andaman Islands were transformed into a full-fledged penal colony, and the transportation of Indian prisoners persisted there until the Japanese occupied the islands during World War II. The Andamans penal settlement became the largest penal colony in the British Empire in terms of the overall number of jailed convicts when Anderson calculated that between 1858 and 1939, British India transferred almost 83,000 perpetrators there.
● Indentured labour: The largest group of Indian immigrants overseas came from the export of labour services, with indentured servitude standing out as a good example in this regard. The indentured system spread due to two primary factors: first, in response to intense moral condemnation from various sectors, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 banned slavery in most of the British Empire, with certain exemptions. This resulted in a serious staffing shortage in the sugarcane cultivation industries of the British overseas territories. For instance, as part of its colonial years, British colonialists have been annexing various nations in Southeast Asia since the beginning of the 16th century. Owing to the comparatively low population density of the early colonies, the British focused on India, a huge neighbour with a highly educated and talented workforce. Furthermore, given the British colonial power that prevailed in India at the time, it was easier to handle and exploit Indian immigrants than Chinese or Japanese workers from other non-British colonies.
In addition to relieving population pressure and reducing internal class and ethnic strife in India, the transportation of labour from British India to the British settlements in Southeast Asia provided labour for the colonies there. With the liberation of slaves came the adoption of an apprenticeship system that mandated that all enslaved individuals become “apprentices” and work for the previous masters for a duration of four to six years in return for supplies. Although several inherent weaknesses in this new system ultimately led to its demise, it was effectively slavery under a different name. The former slaves protested the system of progressive emancipation and demanded immediate and complete independence because they felt more strongly about their legal and personal security. As a result, they refused to work. They were essentially cheap labour, indentured servants with the traditional traits of colonial subjects, and subservient to the interests of the British colonialists. They were also known by their more popular names, Coolies or Piglets.
In terms of the origin of indentured labour, the first immigrants were either Eastern Indians from what is now Bangladesh or Tamils from the Madras area of India. Later on, northern farmers—such as those from Uttar Pradesh’s Gangetic plain—made up the bulk of the immigrants. Put another way, the majority of the indentured labourers originated from south India’s coastal regions from the outset, but later on, northern Indian labourers took their position.
To alleviate the labour shortages locally, they were dispatched to the British colonies of Jamaica, South Africa, Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, and Guyana. A significant number of labourers also travelled to the Dutch colonies of Suriname and Guadeloupe, as well as the French Martini Islands (Ramsaran 2018). Indentured labour, which was different from all other contractual labour arrangements throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, was a widespread labour practice with inherent flaws. The government reaffirmed that all colonies were expected to make annual submissions to the British Indian administration and that Indian workers would have identical privileges as the local populace.
If any unfair labour practices were discovered, the Indian side would step in to mediate the situation immediately. Furthermore, the agreement ensured the return of Indian labourers who had worked in the colonies for more than ten years by offering them free transportation home. After their tenure ended, those who were persuaded not to return were awarded land ownership. Workers who had been employed for longer than five years were allowed to pay for their repatriation to India. After their contracts ended, about two-thirds of the population in Fiji decided to settle in the hopes of starting over and seizing fresh chances. Another aspect of the indenture system was that the Indian government did not impose any limitations on the immigration of women and children as part of its foreign policy, which helped to prevent a persistent gender imbalance in society. India set a fixed ratio of 100 men to 40 women after 1870. The British Indian government took swift action despite complaints from the colonial authorities over the additional expense of supporting female labour. In reality, in the overseas territories of the British Empire, the influx of female labourers contributed to the development of a more socially and ethnically stable Indian society.
● Free immigrants: In addition to indentured labour, a group of free Indians, mostly small-scale vendors, artisans, shop owners, clerks, merchants, and other professionals whose immigration and social circumstances were marginally better than those under the indentured system, travelled to British settlements around the world in an attempt to improve their living and working conditions. Equipped with enough information and initial cash, these free immigrants leveraged their social networks to seize market chances, progressively amassing fortune and solidifying their economic dominance.
As a result, the colonial era’s overseas Indian immigrants not only had a significant impact on the current pattern of Indian immigrants’ global distribution, but they also established a vast global commercial network that would eventually provide the groundwork for the current generation of overseas Indian immigrants’ increased economic power. Another prosperous group of Indian businesspeople who were seasoned travellers was the Sindhis. By the end of the 19th century, only a small number of Sindhis had moved; however, from the mid-20th century, they became more prevalent, with the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan acting as a direct catalyst. Their primary responsibility was the re-export of textiles from China, India, and Japan to Indonesia, and they were heavily involved in the highly competitive textile sector in Southeast Asia.
These independent immigrants of Indian descent had professional skills and plenty of wealth, which helped them succeed abroad contrasted to the previously discussed indentured labor. Since much of their families’ commercial success has been passed down to them, they can live steady, decent middle-class lives. Indian immigrants were a diverse community with incredible internal variation. Even though the economy is still the primary driver of migration, there are several factors to consider when selecting a destination nation, such as the cost of passage, the possibility of finding employment in one’s previous field, the distance from home, the caste and origin of current Indian immigrants, the level of information about the nation, etc.
‘Caste’ as a predominant factor
The long-standing social segregation known as the caste system, which is ingrained in Indian culture, is another important topic to discuss. Under this system, those at the bottom, known as the untouchables, endured a life of violence, discrimination, and humiliation at the hands of the elite. Along with the masses, the “untouchables” migrated abroad to avoid their humiliating identities. After years of arduous labour abroad, the oppressed Indian castes had not only amassed a certain quantity of wealth that made the acquisition of property in India easier, but they had also developed their sense of freedom and equality and significantly raised their self-worth, all of which helped to undermine the caste system in India. This group was inspired to take initiative and be creative because of their beneficial immigrant experience, which had given them industrialized work techniques and vocational training. Due to this, a modern labour force began to form, which has significantly aided India’s industrial and commercial growth. Defenders of Indian National Interests Additionally, Indian immigrants promoted Indian culture and protected Indian national interests throughout the colonial era.
The former was exemplified by the fact that Indian immigrants’ markers of identity increased in tandem with their population. Indian immigrants living abroad formerly supported and served as the backbone of the national liberation struggle before to India’s independence. In the instance of South Africa, Gandhi came to the former British colony in 1893 and resided there for 21 years, from 1893 to 1914, during which time he established his political ideas and beliefs. Gandhi eventually rose to prominence in South Africa as the man who spearheaded India’s freedom and served as an inspiration for peaceful resistance across Africa, so sparking a worldwide decolonization movement. The historical relationship between South Africa and India has, in part, endured and grown stronger throughout time, and it has now become a major factor in the expansion of bilateral ties between the two nations. Conclusion A large-scale Indian migration coincided with the British Empire’s growth and conquests because Indian labour was sent to each nook of the world throughout the colonial era. This was the foundation for the existing global dispersion of Indian expatriate populations.
During the colonial era and up to the current day, the four main categories of immigration include soldiers and police officers; prisoners; indentured labourers; and free immigrants. Following the declaration of independence by India and Pakistan and the collapse of the British colonial regime, a significant number of Indians who had been living outside returned home to begin a new life. The diaspora of Indians is becoming more and more of an autonomous force, contributing significantly to India’s current wealth and resources. The quantity and impact of Indian immigrants abroad have grown in recent years, and the country’s economic might and global clout are now on a level with, if not greater than, that of the overseas Chinese.
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