Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to redefine the Indian migratory patterns by analysing the colonial Indian labour emigration to Ceylon which was largely kangany induced. The economics of advance-debt and its intricate linkages with the institution of Tundu as well as the labour regime will assume special focus.

Paper long abstract:

In the Indian scenario there has been a strong tendency to view the migratory trends during the 19th-20th century as largely Indentured in its form, coercive and un-free in nature, Colonial-Europeans as its stimulator, predominantly Northern Indian or Bhojpuri region as its source, plantation labourer as its composition and as steering towards colonial landmasses in Caribbean and Pacific oceans as its region of production/destination. This paper seeks to complicate these parameters which conventionally define the characteristics of Indian migration by analysing the pattern, functioning and nature of the Kangany induced mobility.

The attempt is also to analyse the economics of advance-debt and its intricate linkages with the rise and fall of the institution of Tundu which, as I argue, functioned to 'promote' the mobility of an immobilised labour force inter-estate as well as across the straits. The indebtedness of the labourers commoditized them for the 'market' and denied them any agency over their mobility and production. The analysis of mechanisms for retrieval of labourers ever-persisting debts and how did it negotiate strained labour relations with the kin intermediaries, re-structure the category of family and produce a series of regulations, broadly aimed at restraining the excesses of informal regulations exercised by over-powered mediatory, is of immense significance.