Girmitiya Literature: A Raga and Saga of Indentured Labour and Diasporic Identity
Keywords:
Indentured Labour, Girmitiya Literature, Diasporic Identity, Cultural Resilience, Transgenerational Memory, Bidesia, Jahajis.Abstract
Girmitiya Literature emerges not just as a literary genre but as a lyrical chronicle—both
raga and saga—of pain, perseverance, and the paradox of identity forged under indenture.
This paper examines its historical roots, the experiences of those displaced, and the artistic
responses to that ordeal. It traces how writers such as Ramchandra Rao, Totaram
Sanadhya, Munshi Rahman, David Dabydeen, Harold Sonny Ladoo, Peggy Mohan, Khal
Torabully, Satendra Nandan, Sudesh Mishra, and V. S. Naipaul, as well as Amitav Ghosh,
Jhumpa Lahiri, and others, navigate the emotional topographies of cultural memory,
fractured identities, and post-memorial consciousness. Exploring themes of displacement,
hybridity, resistance, and transgenerational longing, this paper positions Girmitiya
Literature as a living archive—of trauma transmuted into testimony and silence turned
into song. It is also a linguistic palimpsest—where Bhojpuri melodies, Caribbean
cadences, and Fijian inflections intertwine to speak in tongues of survival. Drawing upon
scholarly texts, memoirs, and oral histories, this work examines how this literature resists
historical erasure, amplifies silenced voices, and compels diasporic communities to
reclaim their fragmented identities.
