Indentured Labour in the British Empire, 1834-1920 by Kay Saunders

Author:Kay Saunders [Saunders, Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351120647
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

It is obvious that there were more suicides among the indentured Indians than their free counterparts; the reason for the sharp difference between the two groups needs no comment. In the indentured population itself, the majority of the suicides were committed by males rather than by females. The officials interpreted this trend as vindication of their’sexual jealousy’ arguments, which is persuasive. It may also be, however, that more males took their own lives because their work was heavier and more demanding, and failure to perform the allocated tasks involved a loss of self-respect in their own eyes as well as in the community. Perhaps the pressure led to suicides. It may be noted, too, that there was a gradual increase in the number of suicides committed over the years. Part of this was undoubtedly a result of the increase in the Indian population in the colony, but there were other factors. The large increase after the turn of the century was related to the arrival of people of South Indian origin who found much cultural prejudice and discrimination from their North Indian colleagues and were therefore prone to’suicide tendencies’.88 However, there may also be a relationship between the increase (especially in the 1890s) in the incidence of suicide and the repressive labour legislation which prevented the articulation of grievance on the part of at least some workers who were then pushed to take their own lives.

Death through murder, suicide and accidents constituted, on the whole, a relatively small part of the total mortality among the Indians, the largest cause, by far, was disease. Diarrhoea and dysentery, together, were the biggest killers. The mortality rates were very high in the 1880s: five per cent in 1884, and five and a half per cent in 1886; the 1890s were slightly, though not much better, the average being about three per cent. After the turn of the century they declined gradually.89 However, while adult mortality rates declined, infant mortality remained a problem, and was especially high during the 1890s. Thus, in 1896, it was twenty per cent, in 1897 twenty-one per cent and the following year seventeen per cent. Bronchitis, broncho-pneumonia and malnutrition were the biggest and most dreaded killers of children, and they took a heavy toll especially among the children of poor people.90 The causes of high infant mortality were the subject of heated discussion. CSR officials maintained that it was the result of Indian mothers’ ‘deliberate neglect of their children in order to obtain time off work’.91 Dr Bolton Corney, acting Agent-General of Immigration in 1889, too, blamed mothers, but this time for failing to report early the illness of their children.92 He argued that pressure of work on the mother was unrelated to infant mortality, but conceded that an insufficient supply of milk was probably the main cause. Dr Hirsche, the Chief Medical Officer, however, disagreed with the view that children died as a result of carelessness on their parents’ part; on the contrary, he stated, Indians were ‘fond and careful parents and they do their best to rear their children’.

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