Q.) What were the reasons behind Overseas immigration in the 19th century of British India? Discuss in light of the indentured system with particular reference to Bihar.

Ans– India has a very complex immigration history, started in the 19th century presently all the continents have established the Indian community. In this direction, Bihar has a very long history of indentured systems in the pacific and other nations.

Reasons behind immigration in the 19th century–

1. After the abolition of slavery in 1883, the British East India company urgently needed labor to work in fields of cotton, sugar, tea, etc. in various colonies of the British Empire.
2. The British government established and organize a system of laborers from South Asia towards Mauritius, Tigi, and the Caribbean Islands.
3. Following this, The Other powers like France, needle Netherland, etc. also started a system of bonded labor to feed their barren fields.
4. On the liver side, people in rural areas were facing poverty, family, and British operations and policies.
5. Most of them were illiterate because the literacy rate is less than 14% in the 1900s.
6. Some of them were convinced to work to get a superior life.

The system of emigration during the British empire is known as the indentured system. The characterizing component of nineteenth-century farm work was the arrangement framework. The term arrangement alludes to a composed agreement entered into by an individual to work for one more for a given timeframe. As expressed via Carter, an obligated traveler was a person who had not paid him or on the other hand, her passage yet had gone into a consent to get shipped help to a province as a trade-off for a proper time of work.

A central state of farmer life was that the agreement contract managed the terms of work of workers and it characterized the overall norm of living since it determined wage rate, working hours, and the sort of work, proportions, lodging, and clinical participation. The Indenture framework, even though given a legally binding understanding among managers and workers, varied from different types of legally binding work that existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth hundreds of years.

Obligated work inferred its authority from the different Acts controlling relations among Masters and Workers (sanctioned in many states) which were laid out to set out shared privileges and commitments yet actually they gave criminal discipline for breaks of the agreement by laborers.

Indentured system–

1. Governor is punished and regulated by the governor.
2. They were called coolies by locals and Britishers.
3. Work that plantations and Railway Constructions.
4. Treated as second-class citizens.
5. Contract-based agreement.

Bihar under Bengal Presidency supplied indentured labor to Mauritius, Tonga, Fiji, and Guyana. The absence of slave work that the British had introduced on the tropical estates (delivering sugar, banana, coffee, and tea) immediately made itself felt, and the worldwide relocation of free workers supplanted the intense importation of slaves. Nations whose economy had relied upon the ceaseless importation of slaves found different wellsprings of work supply over years and years

Reasons for immigration–

1. Poor rural economic situation.
2. People were living hand to mouth.
3. Unemployment was massive and government negligence toward the social-economic situation of Indian youth.

Late in 1916, due to high criticism system of bonded labor was ended but the slavery system started after the post-war era to gain profit from plantation work.

Current status of indentured labor–

1. After a long fight they God the rights to practice their culture, religion, etc.
2. Most of the laborers refused to return to their Homeland due to this by 1916, 1.5 million Indians were in different Island Nations.
3. Currently, many Indians who had a history of indentured labor through their ancestors are enjoying prestigious positions. For example– the president of Mauritius had his ancestral connections from Bihar.
4. Other nations like Guyana, and Fiji has political class as Indian ethnic peoples.
5. After Gandhiji is Satyagraha against bonded laborers, the issue came into the mainstream.

The present government of Central, as well as the state government of Bihar, is trying to connect indented immigrants to India in this direction government initiatives are–

1. Know your country’s scheme.
2. Tirth Darshan scheme.
3. Bihar Government– know your root (To trace the ancestral property).

Indian laborers were seen as hushing up, tame, and innovative by pioneers furthermore, soon different growers followed the case of Arbuthnot. The enlistment and appearance were finished by confidential gatherings. Anyway, the Anti-Slavery Society carried an obligated movement to the consideration of the English Parliament and this finished in the suspension of resettlement from British administrations in 1838.

The indentured labor community in the 21st century provides diplomatic advantages etc. Tu India need is respecting their past and provide them equal support so that they will help India to become “Atmanirbar”.