Mangru, Basdeo

History of East Indian Resistance on the Guyana Sugar Estates, 1869-1948

1996 0-7734-8790-5
This volume seeks to demolish the notion of East Indian docility and passivity in the Caribbean by demonstrating that they respond resolutely to pressures. Based primarily on documentary evidence at the Public Records Office and the India Office Library and Records in England, the book argues that it was resistance, both overt and covert, rather than accommodation which asserted itself on the plantations in the indenture and post-indenture periods. Stymied by a lack of indigenous leadership and organization, and confronted by a powerful, influential plantocracy and repressive state apparatus, Indian workers had demonstrated consistently that they were not afraid to protest when aggrieved. The nearly 1000 strikes and 54 deaths attested to their militancy. By its concentration on a relatively unexplored topic, this study makes a powerful contribution to Guyanese, Caribbean, and imperial history.