Petitions on plantations

Petitioning culture is quite an old practice. In a recent special issue of Modern Asian Studies, scholars explored petitioning and political cultures in South Asia.Footnote ⁹ In this fascinating research, scholars of South Asian studies have delved deep into the petitioning culture in India, from the pre-colonial (especially Mughal India) to the present, and emphasized the role of petitioning as ‘a mechanism of state-centralization, institution-building, and bureaucratization of state power in South Asia’.Footnote ¹⁰ While petitioning in colonial India was very much associated with political conduct and the centralization of power by the colonial state, the very culture of petitioning can also be seen in the form of subalterns’ rights in the plantation colonies. As the colonial state gave access to petitioning culture in South Asia, it also granted access to those labourers who went to overseas colonies to work under the indenture system. Indian labourers sent to sugar plantations around the world under the indenture system in the early nineteenth century did not hesitate to write letters to colonial authorities when they felt their rights had been violated. This is evident in the deluge of petitions and complaints from indentured labourers received by colonial secretaries, commissioners, governors, and numerous other officials in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the colonies.

John Kelly contends that the petition and depositions are the ‘only documentary source … in which the intrusion of white overseers in the sexual and social lives of the indentured labourers is repeatedly and provocatively discussed—almost always by the Indian defendants and their witnesses’.Footnote ¹¹ According to Marina Carter, for Indians who could not afford the cost of drafting a petition, the most direct route to being heard was in magistrate’s court, either as a complainant or defendant.Footnote ¹²

Although there were multiple labour ordinances in each of the colonies that burdened workers with obligations, they also had occasional privileges. Under indenture law, the Protector of Migrants, a figure of authority to whom they could complain, was appointed in the port cities from which they embarked in India and at each of their overseas destinations. With the reinforcement of the rights of workers that came with renewed and more detailed labour ordinances in the 1890s—ordinances that made indentured labour the most highly regulated form of labour in the British empire and which inspired the later formulation of international human rightsFootnote ¹³—the complaints that began as a trickle soon turned into a flood. Even before then, workers were petitioning administrative officials. After they had completed their contracts and become permanent settlers in far-flung colonies, the habit of petitioning continued. Litigation and petitioning increasingly became a nuisance to colonial authorities, a source of both embarrassment and anxiety, as described by Julia Stephens in the case of the Bombay PresidencyFootnote ¹⁴ and Robert Travers in the case of Bengal.Footnote ¹⁵ However, this was not a uniquely East India Company or British Indian phenomenon, as petitioning was seen throughout the British empire. During colonial rule, petitioning seems to have been a common form of protest, request, or expression.Footnote ¹⁶ Thus, the British governor of the Malayan Straits Settlements received an average of 12 petitions every month between 1880 and 1940 (according to the records of the Malaysian National Archives), from Malays, Indians, and Chinese (although Indians were the most proliferate). Fiji, Mauritius, and South Africa also saw a voluminous number of petitions, which often laid bare not only an emerging discourse of rights, but also the intricate details of everyday social life.

On the colonial plantations, workers wrote two types of letters—petitions and depositions—related to requests and rights, one operating at a personal level, and the other on a group level. When reading the letters and petitions, it becomes apparent that many individuals wrote letters to different levels of plantation and colonial authorities seeking ‘justice’, as if for them the higher authorities were their mai-baap (parents). The term, as used by labourers in addressing colonial authorities, reflects a mixture of dependence and deference, revealing how labourers both expected protection and expressed loyalty to those in power.Footnote ¹⁷ This framing of the authorities as caretakers or guardians in their letters also signals a deeper psychological strategy: by appealing to these figures as protectors, labourers may have hoped to gain favour or elicit empathy within a system that otherwise functioned according to strict hierarchy and control. Meanwhile, collective letters show that indentured labourers were advocating for many other kinds of rights, whether in terms of the rights of employees versus employers or in terms of Indian patriarchy, etc. But the petitioning process, whether individual or collective, was often a means to negotiate with patriarchal power within the constraints of colonial rule, apart from the requests for justice or workplace rights, as will be seen in the article ahead.

Plantation and patriarchy: women questions

On 1 February 1903, Mankuari, an Indian indentured woman in Fiji, sent a petition written in Hindi mixed Bhojpuri to the colonial secretary, describing factually an incident of murder on account of which she was convicted and sentenced to death on 2 July 1897 by the Supreme Court of Fiji.Footnote ¹⁸ However, the death sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life on 23 July 1897. Mankuari dictated her petition to an Indian policeman named Mahabir, who scripted it on simple paper. The initial line of the letter follows a specific format that is used traditionally in North Indian written communication, as the letter goes, ‘the letter writes Mankuari female to chota lat saheb [colonial secretary], my salam (greetings) reach to you’. She then writes that she is not guilty, as whatever she deposed in the court was per the instructions given to her by Ramrekha, a policeman, who told her that nothing would happen. It seems that the petition or letter arose because she believed that her conviction happened due to Ramrekha’s instructions. This also led her to ponder on the legal regime of plantation colonies, especially for a woman and as a woman, since her statement led to such disastrous consequences for her. Hence, she writes, ‘Lord/Sir, I, a woman, am ignorant of the ways of Fiji. For the life of one man, one man was hanged and I have been sentenced to 20 years prison by the government.’ After being in prison for six years, she found herself in an unbearable situation. This also led her to express her innermost feelings, as she further writes, ‘Sir, I pray earnestly either to be released or hanged.’ She was convinced that the government was the supreme power—the mai-baap in Indian terminology. Hence, she concludes her letter by stating, ‘The Sarkar (government) is my maliq (master), the Sarkar is my father and mother.’Footnote ¹⁹

The original letter, written in Indian Devnagari script, is important in many ways. First, it gives a sense of how an illiterate person narrated their grievances; second, it takes you to the actual phonetic voices through the reading of the words written in the letter; third, it also shows the limitations of the (English) translation of the original voice in the letter; fourth, it reveals fewer chances of manipulated depiction of the letter by the writer as sentences do not follow the standard grammar of Hindi/Devnagari script and language. A close reading of the letter confirms that whatever the narrator dictated, the writer has just penned it down as a voice writer. Hence, in these ways, the original petitions written in Indian languages and scripts are critically important compared to those available only as English translations. Words could be diluted, intents misinterpreted, and culturally specific nuances lost or reshaped in the translation into English. This process thus removed the petitions from the intimacy of their original voices and made them conform to an English-speaking administration, which, at times, responded with detachment or disdain. The original letter is seen in Figure 1(a), and its official translation in Figure 1(b).

Source: CSOMP, 848/1903, NAF.

Figure 1. (a) Petition by Mankuari, scripted by Mahabir. (b) Translation of Mankuari’s petition.

Source: CSOMP, 225/1903, NAF.

Figure 2. (a) Petition by Sukhai, scripted by Mahabir. (b) Translation of Sukhai’s petition.

Mankuari’s letter did not go unnoticed in the administrative sphere. The first note on the petition was made by the superintendent of the prison. Before sending this petition to the colonial secretary, the superintendent added Mankuari’s prison details at the bottom of the letter: ‘female prisoner Mankuari late of Yalalevu Ba was sentenced to death on the 2^nd July 1897 by the Supreme Court upon a charge of murder, sentence commuted to one of penal servitude for life on 23^rd July 1897’.

Mankuari’s letter is indicative of many aspects of the plantation regime. For instance, it shows the dependency of women in voicing themselves, as she had followed Ramrekha’s advice. However, in the second instance, it also shows her agency and voice, as she relays the poor advice Ramrekha gave her. This illustrates how indentured women were also cheated by male Indians in official positions. Ignorant and illiterate working women foolishly believed in these authorities, endangering themselves. In addition, these working women were either subject to a judicial system of the colonial state or were completely unaware of the legal consequences of crimes such as murder.Footnote ²⁰

Beyond this, Mankuari’s letter also indicates the centrality of women in crime on plantations. Many other letters revealed that one of the core aspects of crime on the plantations was related either to controlling women’s freedom, agency, or sexuality. Sukhai, an indentured man in Fiji, wrote in his letter to the chota lat saheb (colonial secretary) that he was framed by a woman and her men.Footnote ²¹ Sukhai was in prison for allegedly stealing articles. Sukhai’s original petition is in Figure 2(a), and its translation is in Figure 2(b).

However, Sukhai stated in his letter that he is innocent and was trapped by a woman named Mathania and the men Bhondu, Nanku, and Gulzar. Sukhai also added that since Gulzar owed him money, he had kept Gulzar’s wife with him. This woman, according to him, became the reason for the enmity towards him. When she came to live with him, he spent altogether Rs 2,000 in a store. For Sukhai, his imprisonment resulted from this orchestrated feud: after his imprisonment, they recalled the woman and took possession of all his goods.

Although Sukhai’s petition shows how Indian men were playing with women by switching from one to another, and in this process women lacked ‘agency’, it also indicates a woman’s liberty and sexual mobility in swapping to another man. Since the woman’s stand is missing in Sukhai’s case, as the letter depicts his viewpoints only, it might be the case that the woman would have exercised her agency in choosing partners at different stages at her convenience. The petitions of Abhrayrajsing, Sauwalia, and Chhangur reflect similar instances.Footnote ²² They were indentured labourers in Natal and they registered their complaints to the Protector of Immigrants.

Abhrayrajsing, in his complaint, stated that:

Sauwalia, in his complaint, stated that:

Chhangur, in his complaint, stated that:

In the above petitions, what is common is that women left their partners to live with others. In other words, the plantation regime became a space where women used their agency in choosing their partners. Thus, the patriarchal structure in which the Indian male had lived was found absent on the plantations. The husbands held no patriarchal control over the bodies of their wives, and hence we find them so feeble as to be able to just plead with the authorities. Although the above three petitions are significant in understanding the agency of female workers, what is lacking in these is the availability of statements in their original vernacular form as they are only available in the form of English translations. If the complaints and petitions had been recorded in the original language of the labourers, we would have more accurate information and details about the incidents, as seen in the petitions of Mankuari and Sukhai of Fiji. However, the unavailability of petitions/statements or complaints in Indian languages on the plantations of Natal indicates at least two things: one, it might have been a cost-cutting strategy by the planters as appointing more writers and interpreters would have increased their overheads; and two, indentured labourers may have gone directly to the office of the Protector of Immigrants and narrated their grievances in front of a witness, where their statements and complaints were noted down in a register in English with the help of an interpreter.

The liberty and freedom of women to challenge Indian patriarchal social norms seemed a serious issue for male indentured Indians, as reflected in various collective petitions by them. On 25 November 1914, Rambharos Maharaj, along with a group of Indian men, sent a petition to the governor of Fiji explaining the causes behind the numerous executions of Indians in Fiji (Figure 3(a)).Footnote ²⁶ In the letter, they blamed women for this, stating that ‘A woman lives with a man for 5 or 10 years and after receiving jewellery etc deserts him and goes to live with another man … When a man who has been deserted by his woman attempts to get his jewellery back from her he is sent to gaol’. In the view of Indian males, the government had to put a stop to this by bringing in a suitable law to compel a woman to live with one man. This letter shows that, rather than blaming the patriarchal mindset, women were blamed for crime on the plantations. The men desired to maintain control over women, their agency, and sexuality. The letter also indicates that how, in the male imagination, jewellery was structured around the basic premise that it was always somehow ‘on loan’ to women, never in their complete possession.

Source: CSOMP, 10385/14, NAF.

Figure 3. (a) A collective petition by male indentured Indians. (b) Translation of the collective petition.

On 3 December 1914, the letter was translated by Himmat Rai, a translator in the office of the colonial secretary (Figure 3(b)). The colonial secretary asked the Agent General of Immigration for his opinion on the matter. In his reply, the Agent General opined that ‘letter writing of this nature should be systematically discouraged’ as the letter writers were ‘of the undesirable class’. He was of the opinion that acknowledging the letter was sufficient. However, he suggested informing the petitioners about the Legislative Council’s intention to put a stop to ‘the trafficking in women for profit’ and that ‘steps are being considered’ to ‘facilitate the recovery of consideration given on betrothal’ when marriage did not subsequently take place.Footnote ²⁷ The governor of Fiji, after receiving the opinion from the Agent General, asked him to send this information to Rambharos and others, which he did in a letter dated 5 January 1915.Footnote ²⁸ His reply shows how the colonial government kept open the option for men to claim their women through legal means.

In another letter written by Indians of Reva in Fiji, they explained the cause of a crime by dragging women into the centre (Figures 4(a) and 4(b)). The incident was related to the murder of a white man on the plantation. According to the petitioners, the murder happened as a result of presumptuous or offensive behaviour by the white man who had interfered with an Indian woman, despite repeated warnings from her man. However, the white man had badly assaulted the Indian man, leading him to lose his self-control and kill the white man. The petitioners requested the colonial secretary to consider the circumstances of the murder and grant the Indian man mercy by not imposing the death sentence.Footnote ²⁹ The translation of the petition is presented in Figures 5(a) and (b).

Source: CSOMP, 3 March 1916, NAF.

Figure 4. (a) Letter by indentured Indians to the colonial secretary, seeking mercy for a labourer accused of murdering a white man, for defending a woman’s honour. (b) Signatures of indentured Indians petitioning for mercy for a labourer.

Source: CSOMP, 3 March 1916, NAF.

Figure 5. (a) Translation of the letter requesting mercy. (b) (Cont.).

This indicates that the plantation colonies represented a new societal formation, one where age-old rules could not simply be applied without modification. These were not settled societies, but dynamic, evolving spaces where traditional norms and regulations had to adapt. Within these new spaces, the complex interactions between gender roles began to unfold, but establishing a rigid patriarchal system proved difficult.

Women who left India were, for the most part, socially oppressed individuals—single women, runaway wives, or those who had been socially marginalized. Some came with their families, but the common thread among them was their departure from a patriarchal system that had limited their agency. Many of them had already broken from traditional norms in India, either through inter-caste marriages or other acts that defied the structures of patriarchy. The plantation colonies, therefore, became a space for women to assert some degree of agency, making it a site of both opportunity and conflict.

At the same time, the male labourers who came to the colonies, driven primarily by economic motives, were still deeply rooted in and held onto patriarchal views. The plantation space, then, became a battleground where a continuous struggle—between women seeking agency and men fighting to retain patriarchal authority—was a defining feature of these early colonial plantations.

Indian honour and plantations

The plantation was not only a place of reconfiguration for the controlling of women and their sexuality. It also became a site of violence in the name of family or honour. Narasial was a sirdar on the Equeefa Estate under Mr Pemberton. He lost his sirdarship because he interfered in a matter concerning Mr Pemberton and an Indian woman.Footnote ³⁰ This interference annoyed Pemberton, and he transferred Narasial to another estate. In his complaint, Narasial stated: ‘… Last Saturday afternoon about 3 o’clock I was returning home when I saw Mr. Pemberton take hold of an Indian woman Jhagi who was also going home from work. I said to Mr. Pemberton that it was not good because we all look up on you as our father … I reindentured to work on the Equeefa Estate because I have my relations working here’. Narasial’s complaint indicates how an Indian male viewed an Indian female’s interaction with a white man as playing with Indian honour.

Indian women on the plantations worked in the capacity of individual workers, like men. However, in many instances, plantation officials saw them primarily in terms of their sexuality. Walter Gill, a white overseer from Australia on a plantation in Fiji, described Indian indentured women as ‘tantalizingly beautiful’, ‘Satsuma in a silk sari’, and ‘joyously amoral as a doe rabbit’.Footnote ³¹ Hence, ‘the Indian women on plantations were depicted in terms of passion and erotic imagery, rather than as workers. They were regarded as an alluring, sensual, and physically attractive Oriental beauty.’Footnote ³²

It was not only the Indian men on the plantations who observed the degradation of Indian honour via women on plantations; Indian nationalists too viewed it similarly. C. F. Andrews and W. W. Pearson, in their independent enquiry report on the condition of Indians in Fiji, wrote that ‘the Hindu woman in this country is like a rudderless vessel with its mast broken drifting onto the rocks; or like a canoe being whirled down the rapids of a great river without any controlling hand. She passes from one man to another and has lost even the sense of shame in doing so.’Footnote ³³ What is similar in Walter Gill and Andrews and Pearson’s writing is their caustic and aesthetic competition in expressing their views on indentured women on the plantations. The ‘women question’ on plantations was seen in terms of demeaning the status of India: in M. K. Gandhi’s words, ‘the system robbed India’s national self-respect and was a hindrance to the growth of national dignity’.Footnote ³⁴ It was explicit in the views of both Indian nationalists as well as male Indians on plantations that indentured women were expected ‘to follow the age-old ideals of Indian womanhood—salient acceptance of fate, virginity, deference to male authority and above all, chastity coupled with worship of the husband’.Footnote ³⁵

The issue of honour (izzat) on the plantations was such a deep concern that men took harsh steps towards disciplining women, such as honour killings. Andrews and Pearson mentioned such incidents in their independent enquiry report. Two brothers from a Hindu family in Fiji killed their sister because she was induced by a man (against the will of her brothers) to marry by means of ‘marit’ at the immigration office.Footnote ³⁶ Since the marit was a legal means of marriage on the plantations, the brothers became enraged and killed their sister. During the trial, both brothers declared that they had done it for the honour of their family and their religion, and to preserve the ‘Dharma’.Footnote ³⁷ Therefore, the plantation was not only a place of contestation between female agency and Indian patriarchy in relation to the reconfiguration of controlling women and their sexuality, but it also became a site of violence in cases of perceived slights to Indian patriarchal honour.

Such killings in the name of honour were praised by the Indian nationalists. Sarojini Naidu, an Indian nationalist educated in England and who herself had an inter-caste marriage with a person she met during her stay in England,Footnote ³⁸ proudly eulogized the murder of a sister by her brothers in the name of honour in Fiji. She spoke during a mass meeting in Allahabad on 9 January 1916:

Here, a woman nationalist leader extols the ‘honour killing’, justifying it as a sacrifice as long as women followed patriarchal Indian customs. In other words, Indian nationalists, both male and female, were justifying the murders and the slaughter of women as an ideal of Indian femininity and Hindu culture in the argument over indenture.

Indian patriarchy was also evident in the issue of the performance of marriage. To confirm marriages that took place on the plantations, Indian couples had to register their marriage at the immigration office or court. However, the registered marriage became an issue of contestation between the plantation regime and male Indians.Footnote ⁴⁰ Indians wanted marriages to be recognized even if they had been performed through Brahmanical Indian ways. Saukaran, a reindentured labourer on the plantation in Natal, stated in his complaint that his daughter, Ammachy, was interfered with by an Indian married man named Jyakanoo at the workplace.Footnote ⁴¹ When his wife questioned the daughter, she acknowledged that she had cohabited with Jyakanoo, and they had consented to marry. This was initially objectionable to the parents. They reported this cohabitation to their master and asked him ‘what has taken place while my daughter was working at the house?’ They then stopped their daughter from going to work. Later, they decided to conduct the marriage ceremony of their daughter according to Indian rites. Saukaran’s complaint indicates several things: one, a daughter choosing a married man was a matter of shame for the parents; two, cohabiting without marriage was against Indian (patriarchal) culture; and three, that Brahmanical marriage was the only way to satisfy the psychological concerns of Indian masculinity.