Voice of Guyana International

Peepaltreepress.com: David Chanderbali’s book is a valuable addition to the small but growing literature concerning 19th century Indian indentured migration to work as labourers in plantation economies in the tropical world. It complements Hugh Tinker’s (and others) studies of Indian indenture in the Caribbean, Surendra Bhana’s (and others) of South Africa and those dealing with Fiji and Mauritius.
Whilst Chanderbali’s book is not the first to deal with Indian migration to the Malay peninsula, it is the first to deal comprehensively with the workings of the indenture system in that region. As such it makes several important contributions. It offers a contribution to South-East Asian studies by giving a more accurate and detailed account of the circumstances of the arrival of Indians in what is now Malaysia. It adds to the history of labour movements in the nineteenth century by confirming what was common to the system wherever it manifested, and establishing what was local and distinctive. In this case it involved features of the local Chinese rumah kechil system. » Read the rest of this entry «