The Making of a Global World
Indian workers, bankers and trade
Explain India's place in the nineteenth-century world economy.
Indentured labour: two sides of one world. The 19th century brought fast growth for some and misery for others. Hundreds of thousands of Indian and Chinese workers went abroad to work on plantations, in mines, and on roads and railways. Indians signed indentures: contracts promising a return passage after five years of work.
Who went, and why. Most came from Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, central India and dry parts of Tamil Nadu. There, cottage industries had declined, rents had risen, and land was cleared for mines and plantations. Poor people could not pay rent, fell into debt, and had to migrate.
- Destinations: the Caribbean (Trinidad, Guyana, Surinam), Mauritius, Fiji; Tamils to Ceylon and Malaya; and Assam's tea gardens.
- Agents recruited them for a small commission. They often lied about the destination, the journey, the work and the living conditions, sometimes not even mentioning the sea voyage. Some people were kidnapped.
'A new system of slavery'. On arrival, workers found harsh living and working conditions and few rights. One worker, Ram Narain Tewary, described bruised hands, jail for missing work, and wages cut for 'unsatisfactory' work. Some workers escaped into the wilds, facing severe punishment if caught.
New cultures born. Workers also found ways to express themselves by mixing old and new cultures:
- in Trinidad, the Muharram procession became 'Hosay', a lively carnival joined by workers of all races and religions;
- Rastafarianism (made famous by Bob Marley) is said to reflect links with Indian migrants;
- chutney music in Trinidad and Guyana grew from the indenture experience.
Most workers stayed on. Their descendants include the Nobel Prize-winning writer V.S. Naipaul and the cricketers Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan of the West Indies. Indian nationalists opposed indenture from the 1900s, and it was abolished in 1921. Descendants long remained an uneasy minority, called 'coolies'.
Indian bankers and traders abroad. Peasants growing crops for the world market needed loans. Indian bankers like the Shikaripuri Shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars financed export farming in Central and Southeast Asia, with a clever system for moving money over long distances. Hyderabadi Sindhi traders went even beyond European colonies: from the 1860s they set up thriving shops at busy ports worldwide, selling curios to the growing number of tourists.
How India's trade was reshaped. Britain put tariffs on Indian cloth to protect its own mills, and sold its machine-made cloth around the world. So:
- the share of cotton textiles in India's exports fell: about 30 per cent around 1800, then 15 per cent in 1815, and below 3 per cent by the 1870s;
- between 1812 and 1871, raw cotton grew from 5 to 35 per cent of exports;
- indigo and opium were exported; opium sold in China paid for Britain's tea.
British goods flooded India. Britain sold India far more than it bought: a trade surplus. It used this surplus to pay its deficits with other countries, and to pay 'home charges' (British officials' pensions and remittances, interest on India's debt). India thus played a crucial role in the world economy, to Britain's benefit.
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