Labours from Bengal and its adjoining states of Bihar and UP in India were coaxed and duped by middlemen ( locally called aarkatis) or even forced to act as bonded labours on the other side of the globe ( at West indies, French Guyana, etc) more than one hundred and fifty years back. To keep the mills running, they were treated inhumanly.
This poem tries to catch the by-gone era.
HUNDRED YEARS OF LULL
They landed in Demerara or French
Guiana-
We know not, with little hopes in
their eyes
As en-route, they saw their dead mate
Being thrown in the turbulent
seas .
On a contract, their left thumb
impressions
Had Indelible ink, that changed
their fate-
And that of their children and
later generations
As the contents they knew not –
they were not adept.
On board MV Whitby* or some other
ship unknown
As sugarcane plantation labours they went
And landed in the barbed open
prison
Into a glorified concentration
camp they were sent.
They were brown slaves, somewhat
better than cattle
Who squeezed juice from canes to
fill the coffers-
of “White men”, who tortured and
fed them forbidden meat ,
and lodged them in jails for some
minor blunders.
Five years of contract, they
toiled in bondage
The child of disgruntled fate rotted
in loogy**
Those that were vacated by the
African counterparts,
-who were set free from the
clutches of slavery.
They survived the torture by the
skin of their teeth
Sugar’s bitterness made them
strong,
Masochism seeped in their nerves,
they could breathe-
when their resistance was whipped
as wrongs.
They took the “ white – whips” in
their stride,
Their beloved Indian culture almost
gone-
They stayed back after years of
torment
That robbed their language and their religion.
But their resolve sustained,
their children thrived,
Their progeny after hundred years
of lull
Gave Nobel Laureates, Cricketers
or Businessmen-
Who, today gracefully employ the
needy White men.
*Its probably the first ship that took the Indentured labours to South
America from Port of Calcutta.
**loogies are the quarters of the African slaves that were later used by
the Indian counterparts, post abolition of Slavery act in 1834 in British
Guiana and British west Indies. New form of slavery was introduced by the
authorities by taking hapless Indian labourers from the opposite side of the
globe.
