Tracing the Memory of Migration

This photo-essay looks into the lost memory of migration connected to women indentured labourers from north India, who migrated to the Caribbean, Suriname and Mauritius in the nineteenth century.

- Sarojini Lewis

Indentured migration from India to Suriname took place around 1873 when famine and droughts heavily affected parts of the northern Indian region. After the abolishment of slavery by the Dutch government in 1863, indentured labourers were required in Suriname. The ancestors and places described in this research are from the emigration contracts that mentioned villages of migration based in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Tracing villages is done with a focus on indentured labour contracts found in the National Archives of Suriname. The exploration of migration in present villages in India starts with the indentured labour contract of Dhannu Munia, who is a first-generation family member who migrated from Uttar Pradesh to Suriname. I have attempted to find out more about the current memory of migration and the traces of visual culture related to the identity of my ancestors and imagining the place of departure.

I refer to my own family lineage, which consists of descendants of Bhojpuri migrants, as described in my mother Chitra Gajadien's oral testimony—A Silenced History. It talks about the migration of Indians to Suriname and their second migration to the Netherlands. I created a collection of photographs that are published in a book titled Kahe Gaile Bides (Why did you go overseas?)

In January, I walked into the premises on the Lachmisinghweg where the Gajadiens live. The ninety-five-year-old Sewrattan was not used to conversing with a woman, and certainly not with a family member who had lived in the Netherlands for thirty years. I wanted to know, by all means, where the graves of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were. They had been buried in the compound of their house, but where exactly? A stately gesture in the direction of the mango tree—“somewhere over there”.