Tamil migration abroad was the largest
regional component of Indian emigration during the colonial era.
More than 1.5 million ethnic Tamils from south India were
enumerated in 1931 in other (mainly British) colonies where they
had poured in during the previous one hundred years. A typical
feature of Tamil emigration was the ‘kangani’ system in which
labour recruitment from India and supervision on the plantations
were in the hands of Tamil headmen. Tamil workers were sent
mainly to the newly developed plantations, but they were also
active in the urban economy. Ceylon, Malaya and Burma were tire
main recipient countries of Tamil labour. Other colonies
(including French ones) received only several thousands of
workers. After independence former colonies with strong local
pressure groups tried and got rid of what they saw as disturbing
legacy of the British period.
In this paper an attempt is made to interpret
migration processes in terms of migratory cycle. The cycle of
migration streams is divided into three phases: perfect
regulation, growing independence, government-controlled
termination. These stages of the cycle correspond to the
progressive constitution of a permanent migrant community in
receiving countries. Such a pattern can help analyse other
examples of international labour migration in the contemporary
situation.
Introduction
International labour transfers are often considered a recent
phenomenon, typical of modern capitalist economies, distinct from
earlier waves of population movement converging particularly on the
Americas. Yet there has been a long history of labour migrations in
Asia and numerous examples occurred involving Chinese or Indian
populations from the 19th century onwards. The aim of this paper is
in fact to retrace the history of the migrations which affected an
area of south India whose inhabitants scattered all around the
Indian Ocean. This region, Tamil Nadu,1 did not wait for
the population exchanges of recent development to enlarge its
migration field: under the aegis of the British colonial rule,
overseas emigration became very widespread from the middle of the
last century onwards; and the international exodus from this area
was probably both more intensive and more long-lasting than from any
other part of the Indian subcontinent.
Although the political linking of a disparate collection of
countries under the colonial system did not completely abolish the
historical and geographical distances which separated the various
colonies, it did reduce them considerably and thus created
favourable conditions for large-scale redistributions of population.
Among the available resources. Tamil labour was the first to be
exported, and it is worth emphasising that the internationalisation
of this aspect of the demographic regime started even shortly before
complete integration of the regional economy into the world-system,
which dates rather from the introduction of export-oriented
agriculture and the end of the last century.2
Migrations and Colonial Era
In statistical terms, little is known about migration in
pre-colonial India; but the geographical distribution of various
communities such as linguistic groups or subcastes gives a good
indication of the scale of ‘permanent migration within the Indian
sub-continent. As far as the Thmil area is concerned, the
sociological composition of the population from the last century
onward gives a picture of a strong influx of immigrants, with a
significant implantation of Telugu populations from Andhra Pradesh,
as well as smaller communities originating in Kerala, Maharashtra
and even distant Gujarat. Inversely, dispersion of the Tamil
population outside its historic region was very insignificant,
except in border areas such as Kerala. The sole exception to this
rule was the Tamil colonisation of the north and east of the island
of Sri Lanka, which took place long before the first European
incursions into the Indian Ocean (see table). Tamil communities
elsewhere, such as the merchants from the Coromandel coast whom the
Portuguese encountered in Malacca in the 16th century, or slaves
exported to southeast Asia, hardly constitute significant examples
of Tamil emigration.3
The establishment of British control over the Indian
sub-continent by the beginning of the 19th century gave an
extraordinary stimulation and redirection to the exchange networks,
and cheap labour was one of the first raw materials to be exported
from India by the British. The British colonial area provided the
privileged framework for this movement. linking India to other
colonies in the Indian Ocean, but also to other more distant lands
(Melanesia, the Caribbean) and to other European colonics. During
the early decades of the 19th century, while Great Britain was
establishing its supremacy in international exchanges, slavery was
being progressively limited in the empire, until finally in 1843 all
slaves were freed. The lack of the slave labour which the British
had installed on the tropical plantations (producing sugar, coffee,
to bananas, tea, . . .) quickly made itself felt, and international
migrations of free labourers replaced the recruitment of slaves.
Countries whose economy had depended on the continuous importation
of slaves found other sources of labour supply within a few decades.4
South India, because of its favourable geographic position and the
importance of its colonial ports, was to take on a very special
significance within this new system.
In Sri Lanka, the first immigrants arrived towards the end of the
1820s, and their numbers increased in the course of the following
decade. Considered as ‘indentured labour’ (labourers bound by a
contract which it was almost impossible for them to withdraw from),
these immigrants were subject to a quasi-military regimentation,
which was later replaced by the ‘kangani’ system, a more flexible
arrangement.
Recruitment for Malaya began at almost the same time, dating from
the 1830s. Migrations to Mauritius started equally early and very
quickly drained off several thousands (as well as immigrants from
Bombay). During the two subsequent decades the streams of migration
spread to the French Mascareignes (after the abolition of slavery in
the French colonies in 1848). and to the colony of Natal in South
Africa, where however most Indians originated from the Bombay
presidency. There was less Tamil participation in emigration to the
Antilles and Fiji; but the French, who controlled trading ports in
the Tamil area (Pondicherry and Karaikal) consequently imported a
number of Tamils to Martinique, Guadeloupe and Reunion.5
Almost all of these migrations were controlled by numerous
limiting regulations, but the Indian government gradually yielded to
the pressure of demand from planters in other colonies and
liberalised the process of migration. From the time of the first
census in 1871 most of these migratory flows became of marginal
importance to the Tamil population, apart from those to Sri Lanka
and to the Malacca Straits colonies (the Malaysian peninsula and
Singapore). Later movements to Burma (Myanmar) followed the progress
of colonial conquest into the Burmese hinterland and the consequent
penetration of capitalism. The latest target of emigration was
doubtless Fiji in the period before the first world war.6
The table summarises estimates of the Tamil population at the
different census dates from 1871 to 1981 in these three former crown
colonies, which garnered the immense majority of Tamil immigrants.
Also included are more recent figures, from 1981, in order to
give an idea of how the communities, which developed as a result of
immigration went on evolving long after the mass migrations had come
to an end.
The Table brings together various census statistics pertaining to
Tamil expatriates; indigenous communities, such as the Tamils of
northern Ceylon, are naturally not included in them. The last line
of the table summarises the development of the emigrant population
during the second half of the colonial period. Its demographic
weight was already significant in 1871, the date of the first
censuses taken in the colonies; at that time the emigrant population
represented 1.5 per cent of that of the Tamil territory in
India-about two years of regional demographic growth in the average
conditions of the period.
In the course of the last century, the size of the overseas
Tamil population fluctuated as a direct function of migratory
movements; the immigrant populations were not settled, with many
individuals returning regularly to their own country to be replaced
by new arrivals, and the sex distribution was very imbalanced. But
the Tamil population did gradually settle overseas and a true
diaspora developed. Families formed, and there was an ever
increasing proportion of women among the migrants.
The internal growth of the emigrant population then became
significant, and the percentage of individuals born in the Madras
Presidency decreased rapidly in favour of a 'second generation' made
of locally-born Tamils; after the second world war, immigrants as
such constituted less than half of the ethnically Tamil population,
the remainder having been born locally. From this time on, migratory
exchanges diminished greatly, with the exception of movements of
populations expelled from Sri Lanka and Burma. In 1981 the
population of the Tamil diaspora could be estimated at 4.3 per cent
of the population of Tamil Nadu, a proportion which has become
slightly lower since independence because of expulsions to India. In
the absence of regular and reliable statistical series, we have not
mentioned the figures for people of Tamil origin recorded elsewhere,
even though they may number more than 100,000 individuals, as in
Reunion [1987 estimate].
|
Table: Tamil
Population in Sri Lanka, Burma and Malaya 1871-1981 -
(figures in thousands) |
| |
1871 |
1881 |
1891 |
1901 |
1911 |
1921 |
1931 |
1946 |
| Sri Lanka |
203.3 |
320.2 |
313.3 |
497.9 |
563.8 |
635.7 |
854.8 |
816.2 |
| Malaya |
27.5 |
36.3 |
62.7 |
98.0 |
220.4 |
387.5 |
514.8 |
461.0 |
| Burma |
|
35.1 |
71.4 |
99.6 |
125.7 |
152.3 |
184.l |
90.0 |
| Total |
230.8 |
391.6 |
447.4 |
695.5 |
909.9 |
1175.5 |
1553.7 |
1367.2 |
As proportion of Tamil
Nadu
Population (per cent) |
1.5 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
3.6 |
4.4 |
5.4 |
6.6 |
4.9 |
Notes:
Sri Lanka:
Population of Tamils and Indian Moors according to
censuses from 1911 onwards; figures for 1981
[Guilmoto, 1987]; indirect estimates before 1911
based on the total Tamil population.
Malaya and Singapore: Tamil-speaking population,
estimates before 1931 based on the population of
Indian origin.
Burma: Tamil-speaking
population according to censuses; free estimates for
1946 and 1981 due to lack of statistical
information.
Source:
Censuses of countries concerned and my own
estimates.
|
The size and direction of migration flows at different periods
are the complex outcome of the action of three factors: the
availability and the demand for labour on one hand, and the other,
the institutional conditions (political or social) which permit such
migrations. Analysis in terms of attracting and repelling factors
(pull and push) makes it possible to distinguish different periods
in the history of migratory exchanges. The classic illustrations of
the effects of these factors are the departures precipitated
by demographic crises in South India (1847, 1919 and especially
1876-77), and the returns or repatriations of 1930-32, as a
consequence of changing circumstances (see Figure).
Yet it is difficult to separate these factors: we cannot
cynically isolate the poor conditions in Tamil Nadu, or the narrow
interests of the planters, and make them the sole determinants of
migration. Rather, changes in the economic system from the 19th
century onwards form a framework within which the migratory
mechanisms operate. Apart from the coastal regions of south India,
the economic system had previously been segmented and enclosed at a
regional level, and the labour force was relatively immobile, often
statutorily assigned a particular position at the local level (by
professional specialisation according to caste).
As a result of colonial unification, the system of exchanges
intensified and became more diverse; in addition the
internationalisation of the colonial economy had the effect of
globalising the labour market, allowing new transfers of labour. At
the same time the capitalist system in the colonies experienced a
rapid leap forward in certain peripheral regions, particularly in
those zones suitable for plantations; this development /was
obviously linked to the existence of reverses of cheap and mobile
labour.
Tamil Nadu was already densely populated in the 19th century, in
some irrigated coastal regions reaching almost 200 inhabitants per
sq k h (1871 figure). While the population underwent a noticeable
increase, in spite of recurrent spurts of crisis mortality
(epidemics and famines), possibilities for emigration within India
were limited: urban industrial development had hardly begun in Tamil
Nadu, and even Madras, the capital of the presidency, was growing
but slowly. Only a few small mountainous areas in the southern
ghats, such as the Nilgiris, were able to attract the migratory
currents. Economic development was on the other hand, more rapid and
concentrated in other parts of the British empire.
This structural imbalance between concentration of population and
concentration of capital could not fail to lead rapidly to
significant demographic transfers. At the individual level, overseas
employment often represented an insurance against the risks involved
in the irregularity of farming seasons, as well as a substantial
increase in earnings. Since work opportunities for labourers were
very limited in south India, and the job market unstable and
stagnant, a new possibility of employment at a regular cash salary
on overseas plantations represented for many Tamils an unheard of
hope The wages offered by the planters were far higher than those
current in India [Kumar, 1965: 140-41] . Migration was thus shaped
by inequalities in the colonial economy. We should note in addition
that once the international migratory streams had been established,
they tended to reinforce themselves by a cumulative effect, growing
more independent of the economic conditions which had originally
given rise to them [cf Massey, 1988: 396-991. The existence of
migratory networks between Zuni1 Nadu and other colonies accelerated
migration by reducing obstacles which had hindered free movement
between the two countries (transport, uprooting, job-hunting. . .):
this above all was the role of the 'kangani' system of recruitment
which supplanted contract-recruitment (indentured labour), and which
we shall examine below.
Destinations of Tamil Migration
Economic development in Malaya (including Singapore), Burma and
Sri Lanka was sufficiently different to cause noticeable variations
in the orientation of the migration streams at different times and
in the different target countries, even I when the overall world
situation also sometimes exercised a parallel effect on the demand
for labour. We shall present a summary of the development of
immigration in these three countries, emphasising particularly
Malaya and Sri Lanka, which received the greatest number of Tamils.
These descriptions are complemented by the Figure, which shows the
annual statistics for net migrations of Indians in Malaya and Sri
Lanka; the series for Sri Lanka is not entirely homogeneous because
before 1911 it includes only figures for plantation workers (and
their families) (hence the irregularity in the series). These data
are not without defects, but here they are used only to illustrate
more general hypothesis about the development of the migratory
currents.8
They broke off in the early 195Os, when significant flows finally
dried up (the area was hardly affected by partition). The most
recent international migrations affecting Tamil Nadu have remained
on a relatively small scale. These have been the temporary
recruitment of semi-skilled workers for the countries of the Persian
Gulf, and the 'brain drain' towards western countries, particularly
the United states.9 Today demographic exchanges
between different regions within India are on a much larger scale
than departures for foreign countries.
Because of its geographic and cultural closeness, the island of
Ceylon enjoyed ideal conditions for the massive transfer of labour
from south India.10 It takes only a few hours from
the Tamil port of Rameshwaram to Talaimannar on the western coast of
the island- at least as long as the currents are not too strong, as
they sometimes are during the north-east -monsoon. From there, until
the opening of the railway in 1917, the migrants had to travel on
foot to the hills in the centre of the country, or follow the coast
to the port of Colombo. At the end of the last century new sea
connections were opened up between Colombo and various ports on the
Tamil coast such as Tuticorin [1891]. The journey up to the
plantations in the hill-country was no picnic, for it passed through
some particularly unhealthy areas where malaria was a tremendous
scourge right up to Independence. Mortality along the way, from
cholera. malaria, etc, was high.
The migrants were organised by an overseer, the kangani, who was
responsible for them at every stage of their journey to the
plantations. Originally he was also the recruiting-officer in Tamil
Nadu, who visited the villages of his native region to persuade
agricultural labourers and indebted peasants to accompany him to
work on the plantations for varying lengths of time.
The kanganis travelled with the groups of Tamils all the way from
the place of recruitment to Sri Lanka, advancing them the money
required on their journey to the plantations. Once there, they
continued to act as supervisors and were responsible to the
plantation owners or managers for the workers they had brought, who
were usually also indebted to them for the advances given. The
system was soon complicated by the introduction of a very Indian
stratification of power distribution, with different types of
kanganis ranged one above the other.
The role of the kanganis was very important because of the social
and financial powers they exercised within the limited geography of
the plantations. The advantages of the system were naturally
distributed: the migrants were taken care of from beginning to end
without having to risk anything in the process of transplantation
except their freedom and health; and the kanganis and planters
shared the profits from a labour force that could be recruited in
the most flexible manner.
The hill-country of the island experienced cycles of prosperity,
depending on productivity and the world market for the produce grown
there. Coffee, which was the original crop, collapsed during the
1880s under the pressure of competition coupled with a parasitic
disease affecting coffee. It was replaced principally by tea, which
remains to this day one of the major exports of the island, but also
by rubber, which underwent a rapid development at the turn of the
century because of an exponentially increasing demand on the world
market.
Tea cultivation brought about a qualitative change in the
workforce of the plantations, because it requires constant care
which can be divided into several precisely-defined tasks. So the
migrations became less seasonal and more stable, and started to
involve families: unpredictable changes in the workforce would
endanger the schedule of cultivation. and the settlement of entire
families on the plantations, besides stabilising the labour force,
made it possible to employ women and children for the regular
plucking of the leaves. However. the nature of the exchanges (gross
totals of migration far higher than net totals) shows that the
Tamils returned frequently to India, and the proportion of newcomers
('puthal') was practically always lower than that of workers who had
been on the island before ('palaiyal').
Fluctuations in the overall volume of new migrants depended
principally on economic imbalances. The first Tamils left for Ceylon
at the beginning of the 19th century, but emigration became sizeable
only from 1830 onwards, and especially after 1850. After a period of
prosperity. the disappearance of coffee was reflected for a short
time by a lessening of migratory exchanges between the presidency
and Sri Lanka, with even some depopulation of the plantations during
the early 1880s.
The success of new crops such as tea stimulated fresh
recruitments for the estates. and the following decade registered a
record number of net migrants (2,71,000 in 1891-1901), with the
proportion of women nearing 45 per cent. At the beginning of the
20th century the demographic growth of the ‘Indian Tamils’ (the
official label for the Tamil immigrants) was maintained, although
immigration slackened slightly, while new methods used on the
plantations tended to increase productivity. During the first world
war, the moves reversed direction as a consequence of the disturbed
economic context and of new legislation aimed at protecting the
Indian workers.
The vitality of the resurgence which followed is exceptional:
between 1921 and 1931 plantations and other sectors of the economy
of the island absorbed more than 300,000 Tamils, not only plantation
workers but also both labourers going to work in the, towns (in the
ports, on construction sites.. .), and merchants (and moneylenders).
In 1927 alone, the official statistics recorded the arrival of
285,000 Indians in Sri Lanka. And yet at the end of the 1920s there
was again a reversal in the economic situation, and when salaries
drop a great many Indian migrants departed.
The worldwide depression, which hit the island with full force
mainly because of the drop in international trade, led to a
reduction in the employment of foreign labour, and for the first
time in 60 years, the inter-censal migration balance on the island
was negative. During the same period, immigration regulations were
changed to enable the governments to check mass migration into a
region impoverished by recession, and these culminated in an almost
total halt to new migrations on the eve of war, after the
prohibition of entry to unskilled migrants. This trend continued
until the end of the second world war, and the brief acceleration
which followed was quickly limited by the policies of the
newly-independent governments, especially that in Colombo, which
wanted to get rid of a community of foreign origin which in 1946
represented more than 11.6 per cent of the resident population of
the island. Immigration was broken off completely in the 19SOs, and
official hostility towards the Indian Tamils, who remained stateless
after Independence. went on increasing. The crisis finally led to an
inter-governmental agreement between India and Sri Lanka, signed in
1964, which provided for the repatriation to India of almost
two-thirds of the population of Indian ancestry.11
Malaya
English settlement of
Malaya took place at a later date, but the lack of sufficient
labour was felt almost immediately.12 The
peninsula was relatively sparsely populated, especially in the
interior, covered with malaria-infested jungles. Like the Sinhalese,
the Malays showed little inclination to work for the planters, and
the Chinese, who were already settled there in numbers, were felt to
be less manageable than south Indians. The latter, already present
in Penang by 1786, arrived in their thousands from the second half
of the last century onwards, to work on the coffee and sugar
estates; this was the time of ‘indentured labour’, under which the
labourers were bound to their employer by three-year contracts whose
implications they rarely grasped.
In addition, the distance which separated them from their native
presidency discouraged them from leaving at will. Immigration to
Malaya increased towards the end of the last century. In the first
place, the cost of a passage (from Madras, Nagapattinam or Karaikal)
to Penang or Singapore became much cheaper. Secondly, the planters
introduced rubber in 1897 and this very soon took the place of
coffee. From this time on, more than 10,000 net entries of Indians
to Malaya are counted annually (according to Malayan official
statistics), but male migrants are still three times more numerous
than women. There is a spectacular development of rubber growing and
of processing industries connected with it from the beginning
of the century, accompanying an unprecedented world demand as a
result of the growth of the automobile industry in the rich
countries.
At this same period, the ‘indentured labour’ system, which was
connected mainly with sugar production, was finally dismantled and
the kanganis become predominant. Travelling money was advanced to
the aspiring migrants, who then worked on the plantations under a
contract from which they could withdraw.
Arriving in Malaya later than in Ceylon, the kangani system never
took on the same importance there, and the workers were less in the
grip of the recruiters. The number of migrants arriving
independently- among which there were less Tamils (but more north
Indians and Keralites, etc) and less going to work on plantations
(but often merchants and labourers hired by the government)-went on
increasing. and created a more fluid and noticeably less rigid
employment situation, within a society of a markedly polyethnic
character which, to quote Stenson [1980], functioned more like a
commercial undertaking than a state.
Another difference from Sri Lanka at this time is the
predominantly masculine character of the migrations throughout the
period, mainly because of less opportunities for female employment
on the Malayan estates, and of independent immigration. It may
however be noted that Muslims amongst the Tamil migrants were
sometimes able to marry Malay women. Wherever Tamil Muslims
immigrated (Sri Lanka, Burma. . .), their community was able to
forge very solid links with their local co-religionists, often
through matrimonial alliances.
In spite of the distance between south India and Malaya,
permanent settlement by the migrants remained insignificant; yet it
was to prove more long-lasting than elsewhere, for the Indian
community found a favourable niche in the developing Malayan
society. The prosperity of Malaya during the years after the first
world war led to major influxes of migrants, with more than 3,50,000
arrivals recorded in 1926-27; in 1931 Indians, of whom 83 per cent
were Tamils, represented almost I5 per cent of the total population,
and an even greater proportion of the labour force, especially in
rural areas (Penang, Selangor, Perak. . .)Together with the strong
Chinese presence which was concentrated more in the towns, this led
to’ the ethnically Malay population becoming a minority in Malaya
after 1911.
In 1930, there was a brutal reversal. The planters, who could not
dispose of their produce because of the world economic crisis,
rapidly reduced production, cut wages and demanded that the coolies
from their estates be repatriated. Economic stagnation spread to
many other activities in a colony that was based entirely on
economic links with the industrialised world. Between 1930 and 1932
more than 150,000 Indians were repatriated, and assisted migrations
(kangani recruitments) were totally stopped. A brief-renewal of
migration is recorded after 1934. but when the price of rubber
dropped again in 1938 the Indian government prohibited the departure
of unskilled labourers. In December 1941 the Japanese invasion put a
full stop to all migration from India for the duration of the war.
The early years of relative independence in Malaya were troubled by
numerous industrial disputes, and even more, by the communist
insurrection in which other ‘migrants’ from the subcontinent (the
Gurkhas of the British army) became involved.
Migrations decreased throughout these years, as the new
governments attempted to reduce interdependences which had been
initiated by the colonial presence. Nevertheless, the Indian
communities which had grown up from immigration, amongst whom the
Tamils. were largely predominant (some of them originating in fact
from Sri Lanka), were not much threatened by regional political
developments. Both in Malay dominated Malaya and in Singapore, the
Tamils were integrated without difficulty into a society where
ethnic tensions were more pronounced between Chinese and Muslim
Malays. Many Tamils maintained close economic or family relations
with their homeland, especially the Muslim merchants from the Tamil
coastal areas, whose presence in Malaya predates colonisation.
Burma
Migration to Burma
is far from being an exclusively Tamil phenomenon; there had been
links between Burma and India, especially Bengal, for hundreds of
years before colonisation, and there was a well established
community of Indian Muslims (Rohingyas) in Arakan on the borders of
present-day Bangladesh.13 The migrations began
almost immediately after occupation of Rangoon (or Yangon), then
only a village, by Anglo-Indian forces in 1824; the spectacular
growth of the town after this is moreover very closely connected
with the arrival of Indian immigrants, who after 1881 even largely
outnumbered Burmese in the municipal population. In 1852 and then in
1886 the British gained control over the rest of Burma and
particularly the very fertile Irrawady valley as far as the towns of
Mandalay and Pengu, and the territory settled by Indians increased,
while exploitation of the valley soils led to a great increase in
rice cultivation.
Many of the Indian migrants came from north India, reaching Burma
via Calcutta. Another section originated along the whole coast of
the Bay of Bengal, from Orissa (Ganjam) to southern Tamil Nadu
(Ramanathapuram). During the period covered by the censuses the
proportion of Indians in the total population increased more
moderately than in the other countries discussed above, reaching a
platform of 5.8 per cent in 1931 (not counting the Indians in the
district of Akyab which constitutes the Arakan). As in the other
cases shown in the Figure, the migratory movements sometimes
reversed direction as a result of changing economic circumstances
(1910-11, 1930-31.. .), and these reversals were sometimes activated
by the anti-Indian agitation which started in. the 1930s.
Amongst the Indians, migrants from Tamil Nadu, identified for all
intents and purposes with the Tamil speaking population, never
represented more than 20 per cent. More than half the Indians born
in the presidency of Madras recorded in the Burmese census were not
in fact Tamil, but Oriya or Telugu.
One of the characteristics of emigration to Burma was its
temporary and seasonal nature, with a great many Indian workers
making the return trip within one year. It is possible too that this
kind of circular migration may have caused a relative overestimation
of the immigrant population in the censuses.
The female population hardly increased, representing about one
third of the Tamils recorded in the census of 1931; yet this
proportion of women among the Tamil immigrants is far higher than
that recorded among the other Indian immigrants. One cannot help
linking the relatively large scale of female immigration among the
Tamils, whether in Burma or elsewhere, with the significant
involvement of Tamil rural economy and their better status in
society.
Since Burma was administered as a part of India until 1936,
the movement of Indian labour was not very strictly controlled
(hence the shortcomings of the port statistics). A system similar to
the kangani system was set up, under the leadership 'of overseers
called 'maistries' who controlled the job market, recruiting either
directly from Indian villages, or in Burma itself. The maistry
exercised a great sway over his recruits which was usually based on
indebtedness, and supported by the law. Tamil labour supplied
particularly agricultural labourers for the rice fields which made
Burma one of the largest riceexporters of colonial Asia.
Another set of migrants, who had arrived earlier, contributed to
urban prosperity, particularly in Rangoon, in very diverse
occupations: in the port, in factories (rice mills), small
businesses, communications (railways, cycle rickshaws) or services
(administration, the professions). A small number of Tamils
belonging to the chettiyar castes of Ramanathapuram (in the
south-east of Tamil Nadu) established the first foundations of a
banking system in the country, in which they played a role quite out
of proportion to their numbers. During the slump of the early 1930s,
which as in other colonies led to the return of many migrants, they
gained possession of much of the cultivated land, and were to become
the first victims of the nationalist policies of the Burmese after
independence. More than elsewhere, the Tamil population in Burma was
very heterogeneous during the colonial era, and included coolies
with no assets apart from the strength of their arms as well as some
of the wealthiest men in the country.
After the trauma of the Japanese occupation, immigration began
again, but Burmese independence brought about new legislation that
was unfavourable to the Indian presence, and the immigrant
population, most of which had refused Burmese citizenship and
remained stateless, again began to decline rapidly. During the
1960s, after many businesses had been nationalised, several tens of
thousands of inhabitants of Indian origin had to be repatriated:
1,50,000 in 1964-68 according to the government of Madras
[Chakravarti, 1971:184]; but unlike the repatriations from Sri
Lanka, the rehabilitation of the Burmese immigrants in Tamil Nadu
was more successful. In the absence of precise data, it is estimated
today that the Indian community in Burma numbers about 350,000, of
which a minority are Tamils [Bahadur Singh, 1984]
Tamils Involved in Migration
The development of immigrant Tamil society in the
British colonies was characterised for a long time by irregularity
of the in- and out-flow of migrants. The intensity of the migratory
exchanges and their short-term instability constituted permanent
destabilising mechanisms right up to the second world war. Thus from
1925 to 1935 about 400,000 annual displacements (gross migration)
are recorded between India and Sri Lanka, which recorded only
600,000 Indian Tamils in 1931; during the same period, the
average for more distant Malaya, where 620,000 Indian immigrants
were domiciled, is close to 160,000 movements per year.
For several reasons the intensity of the exchanges leads us to
think that the numbers of Tamils counted outside India represent a
virtual population, constantly depleted and renewed by migratory
flows, rather than a settled, self-renewing population. We shall now
see that this demographic instability, which looks like a case of
severe socioiogical precariousness for overseas Indian society, is
on the contrary an outstanding advantage for the colonial economy,
where the size of the available labour force reacts instantaneously
to the needs of the productive sector.
The immigrant population, also because of its characteristically
temporary nature, had for long an unbalanced age and sex
composition, with a preponderance of young men-even though among the
Tamils, as we have noted, women were often relatively more numerous.
The birth rate remained very low until the 1930s. Unable to
reproduce itself in a normal rhythm, Tamil immigrant society had in
addition to face living conditions that were much more difficult
than the attractive wages offered on the plantations would suggest.
Not only was the journey dangerous (epidemics on board ship, marches
through the jungle...), but once the Indians reached their
destination the sanitary conditions there were drastic.
Ecological transplantation, the extremely unhealthy areas where
the plantations were situated, lack of hygiene and health
protection, all contributed to an extremely high death rate among
the immigrants; the oft repeated argument that the Tamils had
everything to gain by leaving a land of poverty and famine has
difficulty in standing up in the face of the deplorable situation
which long prevailed outside India, and which the colonial
governments took note of only very tardily, from the 1920s onwards.14
The war in south-east Asia brought about a very severe
deterioration in conditions. Although this period was not
long-lasting, it was marked by extremely high mortality amongst the
immigrant populations except, in Sri Lanka. In Malaya, the Japanese
forcibly conscripted tens of millions of plantation workers for the
construction of the ‘death railway’ linking Thailand and Burma.l5
In Burma thousands of Indian immigrants died on a forced march,
fleeing towards India via Assam to avoid the Japanese advance
[Tinker, 1976; Chakrwarti, 1971]
In fact, expatriate Tamil communities retained their fragile
character for almost a century because of their dependence on
migratory movements for renewal. The real Tamil diaspora formed only
long after the start of departures to the British colonies, when two
phenomena coincided to give this population demographic stability:
on one side, a lessening in the importance of the role of annual
labour displacements in the population, and on the other, a rising
proportion of women. The integration of the Tamils into local
society varied greatly, ranging from the brutal rejection which
occurred after independence to permanent settlement.
The geographic isolation of some immigrant groups, who were often
sequestered on the plantations, doubtless hindered integration, but
other factors had more determining influence. Communal, national or
religious affiliations are very vital in this region of Asia, and
Tamils were never able to get assimilated into native groups;
even in Sri Lanka, where there are many native Tamils. those of
Indian origin remained cut off from the rest of society. In this
latter country, thirty years after the end of the colonial period,
most descendants of immigrants still lived in the same region and
followed the same occupations as their forebears.
The lack of diversification, geographically (in ghettos and
pockets of concentration) and in work (because of specialisation or
lack of qualifications), combined with the maintenance of their
distinct ethnic identity, gave the overseas Tamils a specific social
profile which marked them out as scapegoats during periods of
tension.
In Burma, where resistance to the colonial regime was most
powerful, riots against them prefigured the vigorous measures of
Burmisation (and expulsions) applied after independence and
reactivated under the rule of Ne Win. Even the best-established
Indians in government or business had to make way for new native
elites.
Similarly in Sri Lanka the wealthiest Indians gradually withdrew:
the Tamils on the tea plantations were a kind of forgotten relic of
the colonial period, and perhaps owe to the hostilities between
Sinhalese and native Tamils in the Jaffna area the relative peace
they were able to enjoy after independence, until the repatriations
of the 1960s.
It would be reasonable to suppose that their role in the tea
industry made them indispensable, even though socially undesirable.
It was perhaps been only when the internal growth of the Tamil
population, with an attendant risk of unemployment on the
plantations, started to endanger an equilibrium which was based on
their geographical and political inconspicuousness, that expulsion
to India began to seem an appropriate solution. Malaya provides a
very different example: the presence of Tamils-or Indians in
general-did not provoke there the same outbreaks of violence or
administrative hostility as in the other colonies; but it is not
certain that the economic position of the immigrants was the only
factor favouring permanent settlement there, in spite of their
gradual liberation from the plantation economy.
In the history and composition of its population, Malaya
resembles the ‘creole’ countries: regions that were sparsely
populated before the arrival of the colonisers, who, by engineering
large-scale immigration (whether of slave or free labour), totally
changed the ethnic make-up of the population, to the extent that the
supposedly ‘indigenous’ groups became minorities. This was the case
on many islands in the Indian Ocean, but also in the Caribbean and
the Pacific Several of these countries house a population of Tamil
origin that is well entrenched, even when a minority among other
Indian groups: Mauritius. Reunion, Fiji, the state of Natal in South
Africa. and the French Antilles, for example.
In more homogeneous countries, independence heralded the arrival
on the political scene of an indigenous group with a strong
nationalist agenda. The descendants of immigrants. like the Tamils
in Burma or the Gujaratis in east Africa, then had to bow before the
storm or run the risk of expulsion. The polyethnic character of
Malayan society prevented such a polarisation between the sons of
the soil (the Malays) and Tamils. Since we have chosen to follow the
migration from its point of origin, we shall say a few words about
the effects of the phenomenon in Tamil Nadu. The impact. of
emigration on the home population was considerable, frequently
responsible for a lowering of more than 10 per cent in the natural
growth rate between censuses. Some regions, particularly along the
coast, undoubtedly felt the demographic effects more than inland
districts which were subject to other migratory pressures.
In the cases of Sri Lanka and Malaya, the location of
recruitment offices fixed certain focal points, while the kanganis
too operated for preference in their own native areas and thus
helped establish specific. migratory routes between particular
villages and plantations. In some villages, emigration affected all
families of a particular caste, and the migratory drainage even led
to appreciable local drops in population.16 Most
of the Tamils who emigrated belonged to the lower castes (harijan,
kallar, vanniyar. . .) and from the poorest sections of the
population. Farmers or pastoralists who owned a little
property-land, cattle, houses were more reluctant to leave their
villages.
For those who left, the opportunity to work abroad offered a way
out of an often closed situation in their home villages, where they
were almost serfs to the big landowners, bound not only by economic
and financial dependency (often deep in debt), but also by their
position in the rigid structure of caste relations.
The introduction of the market economy into rural Tamil
Nadu, together with the emergence of commercial farming directed
towards international markets, weakened the communal socioeconomic
fabric, which had been based on traditional exchanges of tribute
between different sections of the village society, simultaneously
creating a reservoir of potential labour which was constantly fed by
a sustained demographic increase. Individual strategies (at the
level of the family or social group) gained importance over
traditional behaviour patterns based on the largely autarchic
economic equilibrium of the rural community, and heralded the
appearance of more profit seeking attitudes while stimulating new
forms of social mobility.
The profitability of migration for those who returned has been
described in very different terms and contexts; but it seems that
few migrants were able to accumulate sufficient capital to make any
lasting improvement in their situation once they returned home.17
On the other hand, the migrants did regularly send their savings
home to India creating a constant transfer of wealth which was
fostered by the political integration of the British colonies
(migrations to other countries, French colonies or South Africa,
lacked just this advantage). This mechanism made possible a
significant redistribution of revenues, and productive reinvestments
whose positive effect on Tamil Nadu is difficult to assess. One
additional indirect effect of international migration was certainly
to lighten the labour market in Tamil Nadu and lead to an increase
in wages intended to retain potential migrants.
The social agitation which began to develop during the 1930s
amongst agricultural labourers in Tanjavur, the district most
affected by out migration, is an unmistakable indication of the
impact of migration on local economic relationships; but it is
beyond the scope of this article to explore all the implications of
emigration for social relations. The economic effects within Tamil
Nadu of the changes brought about by the departure of a section of
the agricultural labour force also remain even more difficult to
assess than the decisive contribution made by Tamils to the
prosperity of the colonies where they settled-in many cases only to
be driven out again in the y a k following the break-up of the
British empire.
Perspectives of Migration Cycle
Standing at a certain distance from the context of Tamil
Nadu in the 19th century, we may ask what lessons are to be drawn
from the migratory experience we have described here. Indian
emigration does share certain features with the labour migrations
which characterise the wealthy nations after the last war, in that
it involved large-scale transfers of low-skilled workers,
transplanted into areas with a different culture, who initially had
no intention of permanently settling in the target country.
Without this demographic supply, the inability of the local
population to respond to the increasing availability of unskilled
work, especially on the plantations, would have hindered the
economic development of the host countries.
Internationalisation of the area of recruitment. mainly within
the British colonies, enabled a nascent capitalism to profit from
economic imbalances between different regions and from many
advantages connected with the importation of labour: lower wages,
more docility, more readiness to accept difficult conditions, etc.
Returns home, high mortality and an absence of young married couples
combined to reduce the immigrant groups to a floating population
unable to reproduce or establish itself, thus delaying the formation
of the Tamil diaspora and of established social classes. These
phenomena, which we shall link to the migratory cycle as a whole,
are not exclusively Tamil experiences.
Before returning to this wider perspective, we would like to
attempt to identify different periods, so as to establish the
various stages of the migratory cycle. By this term we mean the
entire history of the migratory exchanges taking place between two
periods of demographic equilibrium (before and after migration). It
is certainly possible to conceive of emigration as an integral, and
even permanent, part of a given demographic regime; however, a
regular migratory deficit over a very long period, as in the case of
Ireland, is a very rare phenomenon, since it leads logically to a
demographic decline which will tend to stop the human drainage. The
migratory cycle, on the contrary, corresponds to a rupture in
demographic equilibrium within an environment that is often
characterised by an enlargement of recruitment areas and the
commercialisation of labour.
The Tamil migratory cycle passed through three successive phases:
Migration began with an early period marked by a strict control of
the flows both in volume and composition, which were male subject to
the production requirements of the host country. These migrations,
which are male and temporary, were apparently under the full control
of the governments concerned, and served the economy of the
colonies.
The regulatory role lied with the governments, for whom laissez
faire was often the sole social philosophy, and the power of
negotiation available to the fragmented immigrants was kept to a
minimum. This period represented a sort of golden age for colonial
entrepreneurs: a labour force that was plentiful, non-local, and
undemanding responded precisely to fluctuations in production,
without any risk of becoming an autonomous pressure group. In fact,
the employers saved the costs of labour reproduction in the wider
sense, and the only additional expense involved in their reliance on
immigration was connected with transportation of the workers.
We have seen that the 19th century was the time of the most
rigorous forms of exploitation like indentured labour, which bore
witness to the slave heritage of the production organisation. But in
one way the system of individual contracts was less convenient than
the collective framework of the kanganis. a system which soon came
to predominate among the Tamils. The success to which the long life
of this system attests is doubtless due to its affinities with
agrarian relationships in the Tamil homeland.
The migrants were in fact mainly landless labourers whose working
conditions in their original environment were very close to
servitude. There too, temporary migrations for work were organised
in teams, and departures were rarely individual affairs. The many
levels in the authority structure represented by the kangani
overseers (who belonged to higher castes) paradoxically ensured a
preservation of the groups once they were in the colonies, acting as
a buffer between traditional attitudes and the more 'modern' labour
relationships on the plantations. The system certainly worked more
effectively and completely in Sri Lanka than in Malaya, as if
indicating the complete marginalisation of the immigrant community
in the island,
The second phase of the migratory cycle is characterised by some
relaxation of the economic constraints on labour migration.
Demographic crises in south India lessened from the beginning of
this century, and distrcss-induced migrations ceased. ln the target
countries, expansion or contraction of the productive sector
continued to influence demographic exchanges up to the beginning of
the 1930s, but from then on a significant proportion of migrants are
no longer dependent on these circumstantial phenomena. This is the
time when an established overseas diaspora is in the process of
formation, which, in spite of its alien ethnic identity, has ifs
roots outside Tamil Nadu. Many factors contributed to this change.
In the first place, there was an alteration in government attitudes
towards the Indian expatriates.
Liberalism, which in practice used to mean indifference, gave way
to an increasing concern for the lot of Indian expatriates: the
Indian government showed more and more concern for the living
conditions of their subjects, finally prohibiting emigration to
several countries.
This new order of things was undoubtedly a result of the
increasing participation of Indians in public affairs, and of severe
criticism from nationalists about the exploitation their compatriots
were undergoing abroad. In the host countries too legislation
evolved and the situation of the immigrants improved: regulations
were made about their stay, which facilitated the establishment of
families. Recruitment of women in certain areas (on the Sri Lanka
plantations, for example) was also doubtless an additional factor in
making the expatriate populations more balanced.
But the distinguishing feature relates rather to independent male
migrations: independent as opposed to assisted migrations (with
financial advances), led by the kangani from India.. .) are the
outcome of new attitudes. They often make use of the established
framework, to the extent that the migrant may still rely on a
kangani for his placement. But the 'spontaneous'. migratory system,
on the basis of family village connections and with parallel
circuits for embarkation and employment, lies outside official
control. These migrations initiate strategies which become
progressively more independent of the system of total care from the
village to the workplace. This second period is marked by a
progressive 'un-linking' of the migratory phenomenon from the need
for labour expressed by entrepreneurs. Independent migrants such as
merchants and entrepreneurs certainly played a pioneering role at a
very early period, but these often belonged to particular castes and
involved very small numbers. This second phase, difficult to date
precisely because of the heterogeneity of the migrants (1920-1940?),
came in when these changes applied to the majority of departures.
Even those who were setting off for the plantations adopted
individual strategies. In case of difficulties, they may return for
a time to India, or change plantations.
The more dynamic among them looked for other jobs, leaving the
sectors reserved exclusively for immigrant labour to take up urban
occupations (in Singapore, Colombo, etc.. .). It is during this
second stage that the native population begins to feel the threat
posed by the foreign presence, because of the increasing competition
it presents in many different sectors of the economy. For this
reason social diversification on the part of the immigrants did not
invariably lead to the third and last phase of settlement, a return
to demographic equilibrium.
In several places, as in Burma, hostility towards the Indian
immigrants led to their departure once colonial protection was
removed. Thus the merchants, bankers and moneylenders from the Tamil
chettiyar castes, whose influence had been considerable all over
south-east Asia on the eve of the second world war, were driven out
of Burma and then of Sri Lanka. The Tamils on the Sri Lankan
plantations were, as noted above, protected from hostility by their
importance to export-oriented production, and by their relative
invisibility.
Many of them did start on the final phase of the migratory cycle
after Independence, for example by breaking off ties with their
ancestral homeland. In spite of their marginalisation on the
plantations, their participation in trades unions indicate a new
assumption of responsibility for their own economic future, and they
were able io avoid [he worst (general expulsion) in the course of
negotiations over their status. The great difficulty with which
those who were repatriated have settled in India over the last
twenty years testifies 'to the uprooting experienced by these
descendants of immigrants. It remained to Malaya to enable the
Tamils in general there to complete the migratory cycle by
complete integration into the host society.
Very few expatriate Indian communities have been able to conclude
their migratory history in this way, for there still exist countries
where the descendants of the immigrants are treated as second class
citizens (as in Fiji), if they have not been expelled in the end (as
in east Africa). Paradoxically, this last stage of migratory
historycoincides with the more or less total halting of migrations,
to or from India: the end of independent migrations and of direct
recruitment in India, and the slackening off of return migrations.
The closing of frontiers, which began before the second world war
and became more complete after decolonisation. confronted the
immigrant communities with a future in the host society; 18
this resulted in a lessening of social exchanges with India, and the
diaspora therefore had to redefine its identity in relation to other
local groups.19 Although cultural reference to
Indian civilisation may have remained strong, geographic isolation
implied i41 obligatory adaptation to living conditions in the
country of immigration. The degree of integration probably varied
according to social grouping and the possibilities for social
mobility within the host society. The long time-span of the history
of Tamil international migrations suggested to us this attempt at a
division into three periods.
The dating of these different phases certainly varied in
different social groups (skilled or not, wage-earners or
self-employed...) and different countries. The sequence of these
phases should be seen from the internal point of view, with
reference to the immigrant populations and their composition, rather
than from the standpoint of external determinants. Reconstituting
this migratory cycle means above all following what happened to
immigrants who, after being reduced for many years to an unstable
and virtual population (the first phase), re-formed themselves in
the course of the second phase through diversification, and finally
became an integral part of the host society in spite of the possible
persistence of distinctive social traits based on origin.20
On this point we differ from descriptions of immigration based on
divisions into economic or political periods, which predominate in
the literature on the topic; although it is quite suitable for
taking account particularly of the development of the flows, we find
the economic perspective which relies heavily on the development of
geographical imbalances between labour and capital inadequate for
studying the internal development of expatriate communities.
The perspective from which we have chosen to approach this
historical example enables us to cast some light on contemporary
labour migrations. in spite of profound differences between the
socio historical contexts. The first phase corresponds to the
earliest attempts at an international recruitment: recourse to
foreign labour, through recruitment that is organised in the country
of origin, under the control of the government of the host country,
with strict control of the movements so as to give the active
population a variable geometry enabling it to respond best to
structural variations in employment.
Even the eastern European countries have made use of this policy
(for Vietnamese labour). Although this type of system has
disappeared in many countries, for example, West Germany where the
principle of rotational migrations functioned up to 1970, 21
it still applies in others (Switzerland, the Persian Gulf
countries). The migrations are temporary, because dependent on the
ocerall situation and controlled by restrictive legislation.
Any possibility of permanent stay is out of the question. Most
west European countries quickly passed on to the second phase, with
an unregulated increase in independent migrations and the first
movements of family reunification; Great Britain figured ;is a
pioneer in this area.22
This phenomenon was accompanied by a redefinition of the
relationship between the migrations and the economic structures of
the host countries, moving in the direction of a progressive
independence of migratory phenomenon from labour demand.
This change was made possible mainly by more liberal legislation
and the establishment of migratory networks (ethnic- or
family-based. . .) functioning independently of governmental
institutions. For the western overseas countries policy oscillates
between the first phase (national quotas, professional preferences)
and the second (clandestine immigration, family groups. . .)
The draconian limitation of immigration in the European countries
from 1973 onwards has not precipitated the final phase, because
migratory routes-have often circumvented more lenient regimes
(clandestine entrants, refugees); the mechanism of family
reunification, the other aspect of the second migratory phase, is
still functioning. But the serious reduction in the flow of entries
observed during the 1980s characterises the last phase of the cycle,
in which the question of integration arises because of the limited
numerical threat posed by future immigration. The various forms of
integration observed (assimilation, ethnic- recognition., .) involve
phenomena which are essentially external to the migratory cycle.
The main distinguishing feature of the Tamil cycle is certainly
the length of time over which it extended: more than 50 years passed
between the earliest departures and the first signs of the formation
of a permanent diaspora in comparison the European experience has
taken place much more rapidly. Reluctance on the part of the Tamils
to emigrate permanently for social reasons, and the strictness of
the controls applied, provide the main explanations for this.
Demography supplies an additional explanation: with the exception of
Malaya, the Tamils rarely migrated to under-populated areas, whereas
in Europe the demographic deficit was not inconsiderable.
The differences observed between the various target countries
suggest that the ability to absorb a population of external origin,
which is linked with the social and demographic flexibility of the
host society, is relatively independent of the economic mechanisms
which originally gave rise to the population transfers.
Notes
[This paper is drawn from a larger study of the demographic
history of Tamil Nadu since the end of the 19th century. My research
in India was made possible mainly by the hospitality of the Madras
Institute of Development Studies, and the support of Romain Rolland
grants from the French ministry of foreign affairs in 986-88. A
first version of this paper in French appeared in Revue Europeenne
des Migrations Internationales I, 1991]
1 This refers to the predominantly Tamil area at the
south-eastern extremity of India, which formed part of the
presidency of Madras during the colonial era. The overall
demographic context is described in Guilmoto [1992]
2 The economic context is analysed by Baker [1984]; see also
Kumar [1965].
3 Tamil dispersal in south-east Asia involved mainly Ceylon and
Malaya; cf Nilkanta Shastri (19751 and Sandhu [1962 21-30].
4 This period is described in detail by Tinker [1974]. For
migration in general, see also Kumar [1965: 128-31, Tinker [1976.
19771. Waiz [1934], as well as the chapters on migration in the
various Census of Madras (from 1871 to 1931).
5 The recent work of Singaravelou [I9871 deals with Indian
immigration to the Caribbean area. See too the Revue Carbet, [I989]
which contains much information on Reunion in particular.
6 Here the Tamils who immigrated between 1903 and 1915 were only
a few thousand amongst a north Indian majority, cf Cillion
7 Dutta [1972] shows moreover, on the basis of an econometric
analysis of the migratory flows between India and Sri Lanka
from 1920 to 1938. the specific role of economic differentials
(measured in terms of salaries and living standards), in addition to
the purely climatic factor (Indian agricultural seasons).
8 The data are drawn from the tables of Peebles [1982: 67-70] for
Sri Lanka. and from the appendices of Sandhu [1969: 304-171. These
are statistics from the target countries, which usually
underestimate departures, thus causing owr-estimation of the total
migrant population (this being the case for Ceylon in the early part
of the period). No comparable figures are available for Burma, which
in any case received a majority of non-Tamils.
9 Weiner [1982], and Burki and Subramaniam [1987].
10 On migration to Sri Lanka see especially Jayaraman (19671,
Meyer (19781, and Peebles [1982].
11. Several hundred thousand repatriated Indian Tamils have been
received in India since this, although for most of themit was not
their country of birth. Their reintegration proved to be very
difficult, mainly because of their lack of education and the absence
of a receiving network. For more details on this ment period, see
Guilmoto [I9871 and Fries and Bibin [1984].
12 The standard work on this question is Sandhu [1969]; see also
Stenson [1980] and Jain [1970].
13 For migration to Burma, Chakravarti [1971], and Mahajani
[1960] may be consulted.
14 In 1885, a semi-official document speaks of good living
conditions for coolies in Ceylon, requiring no government
intervention [McLean, 1885: 1,5031. For a much less optimistic
assessment, and statistics which reflect the terrible mortality
affecting the Indian immigrants, see especially Marjoribanks and
Marakkayar [1917: 18-21], Sandhu [1969:85, 171]. and Chakravarti
[1971: 49]
15 The Indian population of Malaya, estimated at 744,300 in 1941,
sinks to 599,600 in the 1946 Census, without any significant
migration in the interval. The description of a Malayan plantation
during the Japanese occupation [Jain. 1970 297-3071 gives a glimpse
of the mechanisms of this crisis.
16 See the examples of Tamil villages described by Slater [1918],
and Thomas and Ramakrishnan [1940]; the reports of the decennial
censuses in the presidency of Madras supply statistical details, in
particular of the degree of demographic stagnation affecting
districts with high emigration.
17 Cf. Dennery [1930]. Kumar [1965], Slater [1918], and Thomas
and Ramakrishnan
18 Departures for certain destinations had stopped before this:
Reunion (1882). the French Antilles (1888), Natal (1911). Fiji
(1916).
19 It may also be noted that in the host country, Tamil identity
was often disguised behind vague local labels such as
'Malbars'(Reunion), 'K(e)lings' (Malaya), 'Sammies' (south Africa),
'Z'indiens' (Guadeloupe), 'Kala' (Burma).
20 This is clearly the case in Asiatic societies where inherited
distinctions (caste, ethnic origin.. .) are among the main criteria
of social differentiation. The endogamy of social groupings
guarantees their historic identity.
21 On immigration in Germany, cf, Rist [I9781 and Leitner [1987].
See also Hammar.[1985] for a comparative perspective.
22 As is testified by the facilities enjoyed by the Irish and, up
to the I%, by Commonwealth immigrants [cf Holmes, 19821.. French
migratory history of migration is too long established and complex
[Noiriel, 19881 to allow of a brief interpretation here.
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