ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNEYS: EXPLORING TRAVEL NARRATIVES OF INDIAN DIASPORA

Abstract

In the pre independent period, a number of laborers from Bihar were transported through ships to transnational countries. They went under a five year contract known as girmit to work at the British plantation crops. Though some of them returned to India, a number of them stayed back and came to be known as pravasi bhartiya (migrant Indians). The aspect which this paper seeks to explore is the notion of ‘environment’ in their primary travel narratives. Kalpana Lalji from Mauritius writes that Bhojpuri women had to bear a number of problems. These stories of struggle started in the year 1835. A total of seventy two females arrived for the first time in Mauritius along with male bonded laborers to work at the British plantation crops. Along with their families, women starved for food and faced poverty. She adds detailed stories of chulhas (cooking stoves) not being burnt in ample houses. They went on to long journeys of ship to find an edge to their dreams of employment, food and a better living. The Bhojpuri women were also bonded (under an agreement) but at the domestic spaces of the British. Whenever they could not complete the assigned tasks, they were even reported to the police and were made to pay heavy fines beyond their capacity. A woman named Laxmi was given the punishment of breaking stones at a quarry.