ABSTRACT

Structurally, the rst volume on The Legacy of Indian Indenture: Historical and Contemporary Aspects of Migration and Diaspora is divided into four parts: (1) Indenture in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean; (2) Re-examining Indenture and Migration Experience; (3) Ethnicity and Politics; and (4) Health, Medicine and Spirituality. Each part comprises three to four chapters with similar themes as well as a summary of intention, the intellectual signi cance, and quality of conception and contribution. A summary of each part is as follows:

is part deals with Indenture in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean and includes four diverse but interrelated chapters and contributions. It reveals some impressive newly-emerging trends in the study of indenture, essentially departing from the overused neo-slave scholarship of indenture. For some time, historian Hugh Tinker’s study of indenture as a new system of slavery went practically unchallenged. However, in this part, not only new concepts are explored and analysed but also it raises unavoidable questions on previously published studies on indenture. Why is it, for example, that  indentured emigration has been perceived as a cyclical phenomenon between India and the indentured colonies; why do indentured historians generally ignore other forms of non-Indian indenture; why do the small Indian population in the Indian indentured diaspora continue to experience marginalization; and how come there continues to be missed opportunities, like in Mauritius, in the study of the descendants of indentured servants? ese, along with other questions, make this section rather complex and multifaceted.