This volume seeks to explore some aspects of the history of Indian emigration to the Caribbean, which is one of the most significant events in the history of Indian indentured migration that took place to different parts of the world during the second half of the nineteenth century. The Indians faced many hardships in the Caribbean during the initial stage of their migration. However, over the years, they have become one of the most successful immigrant ethnic groups in the Caribbean. This book studies key facets of this retention of the Indian ethos. While doing so, it also analyses notions of religiocultural transformation, identity reconstruction, political participation and transformations, as well as resistance to enslavement and other oppressions. The contributors to this volume, who are recognized scholars and academics in the field of Caribbean studies, also have the advantage of first-hand knowledge and the experience of being a part of the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean.

Winner of the 2018 Gordon K. and Sybil Farrell Lewis Award for the best book in Caribbean studies from the Caribbean Studies Association This book tells a distinct story of Indians in the Caribbean--one concentrated not only on archival records and institutions, but also on the voices of the people and the ways in which they define themselves and the world around them. Through oral history and ethnography, Lomarsh Roopnarine explores previously marginalized Indians in the Caribbean and their distinct social dynamics and histories, including the French Caribbean and other islands with smaller South Asian populations. He pursues a comparative approach with inclusive themes that cut across the Caribbean. In 1833, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire led to the import of exploited South Asian indentured workers in the Caribbean. Today India bears little relevance to most of these Caribbean Indians. Yet, Caribbean Indians have developed an in-between status, shaped by South Asian customs such as religion, music, folklore, migration, new identities, and Bollywood films. They do not seem akin to Indians in India, nor are they like Caribbean Creoles, or mixed-race Caribbeans. Instead, they have merged India and the Caribbean to produce a distinct, dynamic local entity. The book does not neglect the arrival of nonindentured Indians in the Caribbean since the early 1900s. These people came to the Caribbean without an indentured contract or after indentured emancipation but have formed significant communities in Barbados, the US Virgin Islands, and Jamaica. Drawing upon over twenty-five years of research in the Caribbean and North America, Roopnarine contributes a thorough analysis of the Indo-Caribbean, among the first to look at the entire Indian diaspora across the Caribbean.

Arising from Bondage is an epic story of the struggle of the Indo-Caribbean people. From the 1830's through World War I hundreds of thousands of indentured laborers were shipped from India to the Caribbean and settled in the former British, Dutch, French and Spanish colonies. Like their predecessors, the African slaves, they labored on the sugar estates. Unlike the Africans their status was ambiguous--not actually enslaved yet not entirely free--they fought mightily to achieve power in their new home. Today in the English-speaking Caribbean alone there are one million people of Indian descent and they form the majority in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. This study, based on official documents and archives, as well as previously unpublished material from British, Indian and Caribbean sources, fills a major gap in the history of the Caribbean, India, Britain and European colonialism. It also contributes powerfully to the history of diaspora and migration.

Papers presented at a conference held in 2011.

Papers, some presented at conferences organized by the University of the West Indies (Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago), 1975, 1979, and 1984.

An innovative analysis of how ideas of Indian identity negotiated within the Indian diaspora in Trinidad affect cultural identities "back home" in India.

Indian Diaspora World Convention was held in Trinidad in 2017 to commemorate the 1917 decision of the Indian legislature to end further recruitment of Indians for overseas indentured service. The eleven essays in this second volume cover a wide range under the heading ‘Charting New Frontiers’. It is a diverse collection, indicating broad scope among the researchers on this theme. The contributors to this volume think through the conundrum of national citizenship, in relation to their routes and roots from a variety of perspectives. The essays compiled in this monograph, thus, reveal that the subject areas comprising the study of the Indian diaspora are interdisciplinary in nature and constantly evolving. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This book presents a comprehensive look at the history and culture of the Indo-Caribbean people in the West Indies, where they have lived for more than a century and a half, and in Canada, Britain and the United States to which larger numbers of them have emigrated. Encompassing detailed considerations of literary works and extensive interviews with people of different backgrounds - writers, politicians, a sportsman, educators and communtiy workers - and from several generations, it produces a composite multifaceted picture of the ongoing search by a people for definition and voice, for recognition and ultimately a home.