Reparatory justice for Indians too

Dear Editor,

President Irfaan Ali has rightly renewed his call for compensation and reparative justice for the historical injustices of slavery. He has also argued that those responsible should, where appropriate, be posthumously charged for crimes against humanity. This position became particularly clear during John Gladstone’s descendants’ visit to Guyana in August 2023. President Ali welcomed their willingness to acknowledge their family’s involvement in slavery but emphasized that an apology alone was insufficient.

“The apology is implicitly an acknowledgment of the cruel nature of African enslavement and indentureship in Guyana and an act of contrition that paves the way for justice,” Dr. Ali said in a national address.^[1] He recalled his Emancipation Day message^[2], in which he called upon those who were complicit in, and profited from, the trade in captive Africans and African enslavement to offer reparations. “I, therefore, propose that the intended apology include issues of compensation, reparative justice, and those involved to be posthumously charged for crimes against humanity,” he said.

President Ali also noted that John Gladstone’s interests and acquisitions included plantations at Belmont, Coverden, Hampton Court, Industry, Meten-Meer-Zorg, Success, Vreed-en-Hoop, Vreedenstein and Wales. Gladstone was an influential defender of West Indian planter interests, and his plantation at Success was the site of the 1823 Demerara rebellion.

Importantly, the Gladstone family’s historical involvement did not end with slavery. After emancipation, John Gladstone and other planters supported introducing and expanding Indian indentured labour in British Guiana as a replacement for plantation labour. The Gladstone family’s 2023 apology therefore provides an opportunity, and precedent, to examine not only slavery but also the system of Indian indentureship that followed.

Chattel slavery and Indian indentureship were not the same institution. Enslaved Africans were held as property under hereditary slavery, while Indian immigrants entered legally regulated contracts for fixed periods of labour. But their different legal status does not mean that indentureship was free from coercion, exploitation, violence, or serious abuses. Between 1838 and 1917, more than 230,000 Indians were brought to British Guiana under the Girmitiya (indenture) system. Immigrants endured long sea voyages, plantation discipline, restricted mobility, and contractual obligations that could carry criminal penalties for breaches of labour rules. Government inquiries repeatedly examined recruitment, transportation, living conditions, wages, medical care, labour discipline, and workers’ treatment. The repeated need for such investigations demonstrates that the contractual nature of indentureship did not eliminate exploitation.

Indian indentured workers also faced inadequate housing, harsh plantation labour, inadequate medical care, sexual exploitation and violence, and restrictions on leaving plantations or challenging estate authorities. These conditions fueled resistance throughout the indenture period, including disturbances at Devonshire Castle, Non Pareil, and, most bloodily, Rose Hall in 1913.^[3]

Scholars and public-health researchers have examined the relationship between Guyana’s colonial history, Indian indentured-labour heritage, and contemporary social problems. Research has found disproportionate representation of Indo-Guyanese among suicide victims and elevated suicide rates among people of Indian indentured-labour heritage in several countries where Indian labourers were transported. These findings should not be used to make simplistic claims that indentureship directly caused contemporary suicide, alcoholism or gendered violence. Such relationships are complex and require further historical, sociological and public-health research. They nevertheless provide a compelling reason to investigate the possible intergenerational consequences of indentureship rather than treating it as a closed chapter of colonial history.

Reparatory justice for descendants of Indian indentured labourers need not include monetary payments. Rather, it could include funding for research into the history and continuing consequences of indentureship; preservation and digitization of immigration and plantation records; scholarships; museums and memorials; oral-history projects; and research into contemporary social problems affecting descendant communities. Such an approach would complement, rather than diminish, the legitimate claims of descendants of enslaved Africans.

President Ali therefore has an important opportunity during King Charles III’s visit to Guyana to broaden the national conversation. If Guyana is going to pursue reparatory justice for the historical wrongs associated with European colonialism, that conversation should encompass the distinct histories of both African enslavement and Indian indentureship. The issue is not to equate the two systems, but to acknowledge that both profoundly shaped modern Guyana and that their descendants continue to live with aspects of their historical legacy.

President Ali, a descendant of indentured Indians, has already acknowledged the injustice associated with indentureship in his response to the Gladstone descendants. The forthcoming royal visit provides an opportunity to move beyond acknowledgment and ask what meaningful reparatory justice for the descendants of the Girmitiyas might look like. Anything less risks creating the impression that historical justice is being pursued selectively, if not political pandering. A genuinely national approach should recognize the suffering and contributions of all of Guyana’s communities and seek appropriate forms of redress for the distinct injustices they endured.

References

1. More than an apology: Pres. Ali wants Gladstone family to address compensation, reparative justice - News Room Guyana — newsroom.gy ↩
2. Emancipation Day 2023 Message of His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana – Department of Public Information, Guyana — dpi.gov.gy ↩
3. Of Rights and Riots: Indenture and (Mis)Rule in the Late ... — academic.oup.com ↩