• News
    • Columns
    • Letters
    • Opinions
  • International
  • Events
  • Food and Recipes
Indo-Caribbean
Email Us
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Columns
    • Letters
    • Opinions
  • International
  • Events
  • Food and Recipes
Indo-Caribbean
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
Indo-Caribbean
No Result
View All Result

Rape of indentured Indian women on board ships to the Caribbean

[Part 2 of 2]

Veda Nath Mohabir by Veda Nath Mohabir
April 20, 2022
in Columns, Guyana
A A
Veda-Nath-Mohabir

photo : Veda Nath Mohabir

424
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Rape of indentured Indian women on board ships to the Caribbean

Guyanese Gaiutra Bahadur – who also supported the DGH Conference where Hindutva (Hinduness) is deemed Hindu oppression of minorities – references the book in just a 3-line footnote in Coolie Woman. Political correctness perhaps? Furthermore, Prof Clem Seecharan was also well aware of Prof Shepherd’s book (his opinion is on the book’s back cover, along with Profs. Brij Lall’s and Bridget Brereton’s) ignored the central issues in order to boost his thesis that indentureship was a ’God-send’ because of alleged Hindu/Brahmin hegemonic caste system, blighted Eastern Uttar Pradesh/Bihar – over-run by ‘Brahmin goons’ – and Hindu patriarchy. Furthermore, he posits that Hindus took these ‘oppressive ideologies’ to British Guiana and applied them to the Afro-Guyanese, making them ‘untouchables’. Many Blacks in the Caribbean have internalized these Seecharan narratives, eg., Kean Gibson. (Seecharan was awarded an honorary D.Litt by UWI in 2017).

As opposed to Prof Seecharan, Fijian (late) Prof Brij Lall and UWI’s Bridget Brereton recognized the “exercise of social power and authority, through the medium of socio-sexual manipulation, by empowered males over subaltern [Indian] women.” Excerpt from my book A Mauling of Indians.  In opposition to Prof. Seecharan and others who argue that indentureship was a ‘God-send’ for Indians, several commentators and historians hold a contrary, negative assessment of the indentureship recruitment processes, practices and the conditions on the ground faced by the ‘Bound Coolies’, especially for Indian women. One of these scholars who argue that indentureship was especially deleterious for Indian women is (the said) Prof. Verene Shepherd.

Prof Shepherd was unbiased

You might also like

Remembering-May-26-Massacre-of-Indians-in-Guyana-Dr.-Vishnu-Bisram

Remembering May 26 Massacre of Indians in Guyana; a day of Infamy; not a day for celebrations

May 26, 2022
Verene-Sheperd

Should Indians in the Diaspora demand reparation for indentureship?

May 19, 2022

On the inside cover of Maharani’s Misery, Prof Verene Sheperd writes: “This book continues the ongoing archeological project of excavating gender-differentiated data on the nineteenth-century post-slavery relocation of bonded labour to the colonial Caribbean. In a broader context, it contributes to the genre of historical writing that focuses on the exercise of social power and authority, through the medium of socio-sexual manipulation, by empowered males over subaltern women.The book combines documentary evidence with a surrounding narrative interpretation in order to high-light the experiences of the young Indian woman, Maharani, who was raped, and died subsequently, on board theAllanshawthat sailed from Calcutta to colonial Guyana in 1885. The events on this passage from India should provide further evidence that nineteenth-century labour “migration” replicated several aspects of the Middle Passage of enslaved Africans, although it was never allowed to reach slavery’s brutal limits.” (Italics added).

Here is Prof Shepherd’s very revealing assessment of the impact of the sexploitation and violence meted out to Indians. Prof. Shepherd advances this crucial, unspoken, conclusion: “Above all, the actions of black and white men towards Indian emigrant women on the ships destined for the Caribbean demonstrated that the roots of the racist and ethnic tensions which later characterized the host societies in which Indians settled, were deeply embedded in the voyage from India and did not suddenly emerge in the region”(p. 28). This is a very remarkable position – which is essentially the same as the one I have gradually come to subscribe to as I looked into Prof. Shepherd’s uniquely ‘non-politically correct’ informational and educational revelations in Maharani’s Misery.

She further adds: “[T]he events on this passage from India should provide further evidence that nineteenth-century labour ‘migration’ replicated several aspects of the Middle Passage of enslaved Africans, although it was never allowed to reach slavery’s brutal limits” (Inside book cover). I have cited this book and excerpts from it in my 2019 book, A Mauling of Indians – Prof. Clem Seecharan’s Noxious “Revisionist” Falsehoods of Indo-Guyanese History on an array of subjects such as Hinduism, the Caste System, Aryan Invasion Theory, Hegemonies – Islamic and Europea -British rapacious colonial rule, the Catholic Church Goan Inquisition, and Indentureship).

Read part 1 of Rape of indentured Indian women on board ships to the Caribbean

Read More Articles From Veda Nath Mohabir

Please send your letters,  articles, photos and short videos to this free online Indo-Caribbean paper: media@indo-caribbean.com
Previous Post

No gov’t official should possess such power and arrogance

Next Post

Artist in wheelchair uses art and music to manage his depression

Related Posts

Remembering-May-26-Massacre-of-Indians-in-Guyana-Dr.-Vishnu-Bisram

Remembering May 26 Massacre of Indians in Guyana; a day of Infamy; not a day for celebrations

by Dr. Vishnu Bisram
May 26, 2022
0

Remembering May 26 Massacre of Indians in Guyana; a day of Infamy; not a day for celebrations May 26th is a...

Verene-Sheperd

Should Indians in the Diaspora demand reparation for indentureship?

by Staff Reporter
May 19, 2022
0

Should Indians in the Diaspora demand reparation for indentureship? The Indian indenture system was a scheme of bonded servitude in...

Leyland-Chitlall-Roopnaraine

GUYANA THE LAND OF MANY COURT CASES

by Staff Reporter
May 17, 2022
0

GUYANA THE LAND OF MANY COURT CASES “We had bought that land a while but it was held up in...

bharrat_jagdeo

Guyana’s VP Jagdeo Slams Norton on claim of Electoral Victory

by Dr. Vishnu Bisram
May 13, 2022
0

Guyana's VP Jagdeo Slams Norton on claim of Electoral Victory Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo on a social media platform...

Discussion about this post

Latest News

Remembering-May-26-Massacre-of-Indians-in-Guyana-Dr.-Vishnu-Bisram

Remembering May 26 Massacre of Indians in Guyana; a day of Infamy; not a day for celebrations

May 26, 2022
Out-of-the-Doubles-Kitchen-by-Badru-Deen

This book is hot – Out of the Doubles Kitchen by Badru Deen

May 25, 2022
Verene-Sheperd

Should Indians in the Diaspora demand reparation for indentureship?

May 19, 2022
Leyland-Chitlall-Roopnaraine

GUYANA THE LAND OF MANY COURT CASES

May 17, 2022
bharrat_jagdeo

Guyana’s VP Jagdeo Slams Norton on claim of Electoral Victory

May 13, 2022

Trending

  • Dr.-Vishnu-Bisram-Reparations-for-Forced-Labour

    Fake Degrees in Guyana, Trinidad, Caribbean

    2510 shares
    Share 1004 Tweet 628
  • Spotlight on Indian Leadership : Defying the Eric Williams Legacy

    1312 shares
    Share 525 Tweet 328
  • Violent attacks on Indians, their homes and businesses in South Africa

    1747 shares
    Share 699 Tweet 437
  • “It’s never been cool for you to call me coolie” – Indo-Jamaican Melissa Dean

    1235 shares
    Share 494 Tweet 309
  • Court of Appeal Victory for Covid-19 victims in open-air cremation case

    872 shares
    Share 349 Tweet 218

About

Our objective is to express and examine our own and the public’s perception of the Indo-Caribbean social, cultural and political experience.

Links

  • Objective
  • Guidelines
  • Terms of Service
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy

Recent Posts

  • Remembering May 26 Massacre of Indians in Guyana; a day of Infamy; not a day for celebrations
  • This book is hot – Out of the Doubles Kitchen by Badru Deen

© 2021 Indo-caribbean Forum 

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Columns
    • Letters
  • International
  • Events

© 2021 Indo-caribbean Forum