According to researchers, conditions in India which encouraged emigration
from India include, the British suppressed Indian
industry by encouraging exports of commodities and discouraging exports of
manufactured goods, thus reducing opportunities for employment and
wealth-creation in India. Peasant-owned land passed into
the ownership of a small number of elite citizens, who turned the peasants into
serfs – whose lives were hard and helpless.
Population growth was not matched
by economic growth, resulting in Indian poverty being nearly unmatched in the
rest of the world. Since work was seasonal and weather-dependent, there were
periods of severe starvation.
They came because they were
actively recruited for labourers jobs in Malaya: in India of the time, labour
was overwhelmingly the preserve of “the lower castes.” Often the recruiters
were persons who had worked in Malaya and were sent on missions by their
Malayan employers – armed with cash – to recruit in India and return with
labourers. They came mainly from South
India, because the British desired to
(a) recruit labourers who were from a climate not vastly different from Malaya, and (b) the British wished to retain Northern Indians for roles in India in the armed and police forces.They came because the British changed their Policy in order to make Malaya more attractive.
(a) recruit labourers who were from a climate not vastly different from Malaya, and (b) the British wished to retain Northern Indians for roles in India in the armed and police forces.They came because the British changed their Policy in order to make Malaya more attractive.
The British improved conditions of service.
This included better conditions on board ships, better wages (higher than in
Burma and Ceylon and about three times higher than in India), better living
quarters and abolition of indentured labour.
Contributed steamship subsidies.
This contribution by the Malayan government reduced the cost of the
India-Malaya journey by about fifty percent.
Legalized commission payments to
recruiters of non-indentured labour.
Donated large sums for
famine-relief in India, together with advice that the best relief would be to
encourage Indians to emigrate to Malaya – restrictions were lifted in 1897.
Established an Indian Immigration
Committee, composed of public and private sector representatives, to promote
and protect the import of Indian labourers. This included establishment of
recruiting depots in India and of quarantine stations in Malaya – and providing
free passage, board and agent's commissions for genuine labour immigrants.
There were even provisions to assure the labourers landed free of debt from
advances!
Advertised 'the land of
opportunity and plenty,' and propagated knowledge of benefits such as
subsidies, wages, etc. This was done through advertising in vernacular
newspapers, printing glamorous brochures, and encouraging labourers already in
Malaya to send letters home to encourage others to emigrate.
“why
did they come?”
“It was thus primarily the
spectre of stark want, or actual starvation and suffering at home, coupled with
the persuasions, promises and the provision of cash and other means of
emigration by the Malayan government and private employers or their agents, . .
. that brought Indian labourers in large numbers to the shores of Malaya.”
[Kernial Singh Sandhu, Indians in Malaya: Immigration & Settlement,
1786-1957,(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 65.]
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