Anand A. Yang (2003), ‘Indian Convict Workers in South East Asia in the Late Eighteenth Century and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of World History, Vol. 14, No.2, pp. 179-208, David Northrup (2003), ‘Free and Unfree Labour Migration, 1600-1900: An introduction’, Journal of World History, vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 125-30, David Eltis ed. (2002), Coerced and Free Migration: Global Perspectives (Stanford: Stanford University Press), Satadru Sen (2000), Disciplining Punishment, Colonialism and Convict Society in the Andaman Islands (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), Stephen Nicholas, D. Oxley and Peter M. Shergold, eds (1988) Convict Workers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), Stephen Nicholas ed., (1988) Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past ( Australia: Cambridge University Press).
Stephen Nicholas ed., (1988) Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past ( Australia: Cambridge University Press), Anand A. Yang (2003), ‘Indian Convict Workers in South East Asia in the Late Eighteenth Century and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of World History, Vol. 14, No.2, pp. 179-208, Aparna Vaidik (2009), ‘Working an Island Colony : Convict Labour regime in the Colonial Andamans , 1858-1921’, Marcel Van Der Linden and Prabhu P. Mohapatra eds. (2009) Labour matters: Towards Global Histories (New Delhi, 2009), Claire Anderson, The Indian Uprising of 1857: Prison, Prisoners and Rebellion ( Anthem, London).
Stephen Nicholas ed., (1988) Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past ( Australia: Cambridge University Press), Anand A. Yang (2003), ‘Indian Convict Workers in South East Asia in the Late Eighteenth Century and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of World History, Vol. 14, No.2, pp. 179-208, Aparna Vaidik (2009), ‘Working an Island Colony : Convict Labour regime in the Colonial Andamans , 1858-1921’, Marcel Van Der Linden and Prabhu P. Mohapatra eds. (2009) Labour matters: Towards Global Histories (New Delhi, 2009), Claire Anderson, The Indian Uprising of 1857: Prison, Prisoners and Rebellion ( Anthem, London).
De Vito and Lichtenstein make a strong case that ‘attention to transportation or ‘excarcertion’, instead of incarceration alone, must be the central element to the history of convict labour, De Vito and Lichtenstein eds., Global Convict Labour (Leiden, 2015), p. 39. A cursory glance into what is now considered as a very important intervention into such a gap, Christian Giuseppe De Vito and Alex Lichtenstein eds., Global Convict Labour (Leiden, 2015) would reveal the lack of studies pertaining to domestic regimes of convict labour. Most of the essays in the collection is dedicated to a study of the convict work regimes in the penal colonies and a few to the domestic convict labour.
David Arnold, ‘The Colonial Prison: Power, Knowledge and Penology in 19th Century India’, in David Arnold and David Hardiman eds, Subaltern Studies VIII: Essays in Honour of Ranajit Guha, (New Delhi, 1994) pp-147-187, Arnold, ‘Labouring for the Raj: Convict Work Regimes in Colonial India, 1836- 1939’, in Christian Giuseppe De Vito and Alex Lichtenstein eds, Global Convict Labour (Leiden, 2015), pp- 199-221.
Arnold (1994), Sen (2000).
Chitra Joshi, ‘Fettered Bodies: Labouring on Public Works in Nineteenth Century India’ in Marcel Van Der Linden and Prabhu P. Mohapatra eds. (2009) Labour matters: Towards Global Histories (New Delhi, 2009), pp- 3-21.
Chitra Joshi, ‘Fettered Bodies: Labouring on Public Works in Nineteenth Century India’ in Marcel Van Der Linden and Prabhu P. Mohapatra eds. (2009) Labour matters: Towards Global Histories (New Delhi, 2009), pp- 3-21, Radhika Singha, A Despotism of Law: Crime and Justice in Early Colonial India (Oxford, 1998).
The past two decades have seen a gradual coming together of convict and labour studies. One of the main contribution of this development has been the fact that convict transportation that is now seen as essentially another category of workers. In the Indian context also, the history of convict labour in the Andamans appear like another case study which bears out the conclusion of this revisionist historiography, Aparna Vaidik, ‘Working an Island Colony: Convict Labour regime in the Colonial Andamans’, Marcel Van Der Linden and Prabhu Mohapatra eds. Labour Matters: Towards Global Histories (New Delhi, 2009), pp. 57-81.
Marc Buggeln, ‘forced labour in Nazi Concentration Camps’, in Christian Giuseppe De Vito and Alex Lichtenstein eds, Global Convict Labour, ( Leiden, 2015), Lynne Viola, ‘Historicising The Gulag’ in Giuseppe De Vito and Alex Lichtenstein eds, Global Convict Labour, ( Leiden, 2015).
De Vito and Lichtenstein eds., Global Convict Labour (Leiden, 2015), p. 39
Marcel Van Der Linden, Workers of the World: Essays Towards a Global Labour History (Leiden, 2008), pp- 18-25.
Chitra Joshi, ‘Fettered Bodies: Labouring on Public Works in Nineteenth Century India’ in Marcel Van Der Linden and Prabhu P. Mohapatra (eds.) Labour Matters: Towards Global Histories (New Delhi, 2009), pp. 3-21 and Chitra Joshi,’Public Works and the Question of Unfree Labour’ in Alessandro Stanziani (ed.) Labour, Coercion and Economic Growth In Eurasia, 17-20th Centuries (Leiden, 2013).
Satadru Sen, Disciplining Punishment, Colonialism and Convict Society in the Andaman Islands (New Delhi, 2000).
Radhika Singha, A Despotism of Law: Crime and Justice in Early Colonial India (Oxford, 1998), Radhika Singha, ‘No Needless Pains or unintended Pleasures’: Penal ‘Reform’ in the Colony, 1825-45, Studies in History, 11, 1, n.s. (New Delhi, 1995), pp. 29-76.
Anand A. Yang ‘Indian Convict Workers in South East Asia in the Late Eighteenth Century and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of World History,2003, Vol. 14, No.2, Aparna Vaidik (2009), ‘Working an Island Colony : Convict Labour regime in the Colonial Andamans , 1858-1921’, in Marcel Van Der Linden and Prabhu P. Mohapatra eds. Labour matters: Towards Global Histories (New Delhi, 2009).
Singha (1998).
Ibid.,
Report of the committee on Prison Discipline in India (CPD), January 8, 1838, National Archives of India.
First report of the committee on convict labour, Military Board Proceeding, 6 June 1836, National Archives of India, p- 20.
First report of the committee on convict labour, Military Board Proceeding, 6 June 1836, National Archives of India.
Second report of the committee on convict labour, Military Board Proceeding, 28 june 1837, NAI.
Second Report of the committee on convict labour, MBP- 28 january, 1837.
Second report of the committee on convict labour, MBP- 28 june, 1837, NAI.
2nd Report of the Committee on Convict Labour, MBP June 28, 1837, NAI.
MBP no- 10, 23rd April, 1839.
MBP no- 14, 25th june, 1839.
MBP no- 40, June 4, 1839.
Mbp no- 322, 11-18 april, 1848.
MBP no- 74, 2nd July, 1839.
Mbp no- 3390, May, 1848.
Mbp no- 653 of 5-9th may, 1848.
MBP no- 1885, 20th December, 1836
MBP- , 4th May, 1841.
MBP no- 40, june 4, 1839
MBP, February 6th, 1844 ‘ on the discussion of the creation of a new penitentiary at Allyghur, the secretary to the government of the NW Provinces told the Superintending engineers that the new penitentiaries might be completed with the labour of the convicts themselves whose ’employment on the forts (which would be converted into a penitentiary)must be rendered available’. On 6th feb., 1844, R. Hamilton, the Secretary to the government North Western Provinces wrote to G. Mansel, the officiating secretary to the govt. of India that- ‘ his honor would beg the lordship to cause the erection of the necessary buildings to be carried on with as much alacrity as possible and is prepared to direct the removal of some of the life prisoners to be lodged in the fort at Allyghur and worked under the orders of the executive engineer.’- MBP- no- , 6th Feb, 1844,
Mbp, no- 2762, 6th feb, 1844.
MBP no- 10, april 4th, 1837.
MBP no- 410, 6th february, 1844.
MBP- 1771, 9th February, 1844.
MBP- no- 61, 26th April, 1844.
MBP no- 11, july, 1838.
MBP NO-24, December 12, 1837.
MBP copy no. 179, 21st june, 1844.
MBP no- 47, 13th august, 1844.
MBP no- 37, 10th may, 1844.
MBP no- 21, 8th January, 1841.
MBP No- 22, 8th January, 1841.
MBP ‘ no 15, march 8, 1844.
MBP no- 25, december, 1837.
Report of the committee on Prison Discipline, page -46.
MBP no- july 11, 1837
Hutchison, Observation on the general and the medical management of Indian prisons, 1845 , National Archives of India (NAI).
Hutchison, Observation on the general and the medical management of Indian prisons, 1845, National Archives of India (NAI
Ibid.,
The indian Jail conference, 1877 noted the continuing use of the convicts in extramural labour, even declaring that its usage on the public work to be a most ‘valuable and almost”a necessary, adjunct to our system of jail administration. It provided a source of labour that was at once penal and profitable , it afforded a means by which to relieve the general problem of overcrowding in jail, and spaces could be made for the construction of the separate sleeping provisions for the main body of the prisoners, report of the Indian jail conference, 1877, NAI, p- 112.
Joshi (2009), p- 12.
Arnold (2015), p- 202.
Report of the Committee on Prison Discipline, p- 5-9.
Hutchison, Observations, 1845.
MBP no- 3258, 20th December, 1836.
MBP No- 42, 18th April, 1837
‘I deem it necessary that they (executive engineers), should be placed in possession of a copy of the letter and also informed that a copy of every letter received from the Boards’ office has been circulated to the several offices in charge of the divisions within this circle , so you should have framed the ( convict) establishment from the rules..’, E. Garstin, major, superintending engineer, N.W. Provinces to Lt. Graham, executive engineer, MBP ‘no 42, april 18th, 1837.
Joshi (2009), p- 12.
MBP no- 3258, December 20th 1836.
MBP no- 3258, 20th December 1836.
MBP no- 27, December 27th , 1836.
It was the responsibility of the executive engineer incharge of the public works to supply the required amount of blankets, which was successively changed, to the labouring convicts., MBP no- 13, 9th February, 1838.
MBP no- 15, 2nd February, 1836.
Mbp no- 27, 15th December, 1841
MBP no- 31, june 5, 1838.
MBP no- 1899, 22nd December, 1841.
MBP no-83, 29th December, 1841.
MBP no-515, 22nd December, 1841.
MBP No- 35, 4th may, 1841.
Observations on the general and the medical management of the Indian jails, 1845 , NAI.
Proceedings of the Military Board no-,58 July 1838 and MBP no- 59, July 1838.
MBP no- 19, July 1838.
Ibid.,
MBP no- 14, july, 1838.
First report of the committee on convict labour, also known as the convict labour committee or the Bengal convict labour committee, MBP no- 43, August 2, 1836.
MBP no- 23, April 4th 1837, NAI Stipulated that the recommendation of the Bengal convict labour committee, of the visit by the assistant Civil Surgeont to the road gangs be implemented in the Trunk road and the Delhi- Allahabad road also. For this, the Military Board also fixed the travelling expense for such an incurrence at 8 anna per mile.
First report of Committee on convict labour ( 1836).
MBP no- 73,2nd August, 1836
Second report of the committee on convict labour, (1837).
Report of the Observations on the general and the medical management of the Indian jails, 1845, National Archives of India.
MBP no- 76, 3rd August, 1838.
MBP no- 30, 2nd February, 1836.
Lt. W.M. Smyth, executive engineer of Burdwan division wrote to the Committee on Prison Discipline that ‘ a daily task was given to the prisoners, and they were not allowed to leave their work till it was finished. No harsh measures were found necessary as the task allotted to them was easy, 50 feet per man., page, 281, appendix no- 4, appendix to the report of the committee on Prison Discipline.
Appendix to the report of the committee on Prison Discipline, page 29.
Singh (1998), p- 248-253.
MBP no- 6, 28th august, 1838.
MBP no- 14, 25th june, 1839.
MBP no- 49, 9th February, 1836.
MBP no- 15, 2nd February, 1836.
MBP no- 31, 5th February, 1836
Ibid.,
Report of the committee on Prison Discipline in India, p- 138.
Ibid., p- 104.
Ibid., p- 59.
Ibid., Arnold (2015).
MBP no- 32, 5th February, 1836.
MBP no- 10, 16th February, 1836.
MBP no- 9, 16th February, 1836
MBP- 22nd December, 1841.
MBP no-5115 , 22ND December, 1841.
MBP no- 8, 28th june 1839.
MBP no- 26, 30th july, 1839
Nicholas and Shergold (1988).
Report of the committee on Prison Discipline, p- 55-70.
Ibid.,
Ravi Ahuja, Pathways of Empire, circulation, ‘public works’ and social space in colonial Orissa, c. 1780-1914 (New Delhi, 2009).
Ibid.,
Joshi ( 2013).
Clare Anderson (2009) ‘Convicts and Coolies: Rethinking Indentured Labour in the Nineteenth Century’, Slavery & Abolition, 30:1, 93-109.
Stephen Nicholas and Peter Shergold have shown that in the context of New South Wales in Australia, the view that the transported convicts were habitual and professional offenders, a criminal class in search of a criminal opportunity does not hold. They argue that the convicts represented human capital. They show that convicts in Australia came from the same occupational population in England and that most of their crimes were work related. The convicts sent to Australia were ordinary working men and women, that they were broadly representative of the English and Irish working class and as such belonged to a cross section of the English and Irish working class. They likewise, also reject the notion that the convict workers represented a work regime of unrelenting terror, brute force and inefficiency. They argue that the convict workers represented a fundamentally productive and efficient workforce who were drawn from a myriad of the working class, Stephen Nicholas ed., (1988) Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past ( Australia: Cambridge University Press).
Anand A. Yang ‘Indian Convict Workers in South East Asia in the Late Eighteenth Century and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of World History,2003, Vol. 14, No.2.
Yang (2003), Anderson (2009).
Yang (2003).
Anderson (2009).
Arnold (2015).
Joshi (2009).
MBP no- 24, 26th February, 1836, NAI
MBP no- 61, 26th april, 1844.
MBP no- 30, Jannuary, 1849.
MBP no- 281, june 2, 1838.
MBP no- 469, August 1849.
MBP no- 3390, 5-9 May, 1848
MBP no- 2762, 6TH February, 1844
MBP no- 1771, 9th February, 1844
MBP no- 31, 11th June, 1844.
MBP no- 366, April 4th 1837.
MBP no- 58, July 1838.
MBP NO- 59, July, 1838.
MBP NO- 11, 22ND January, 1841.
MBP no- 6590, MBP 18th April, 1837.
MBP no- 3390, May 1848 and MBP No- 36, 24th August 1841.
Ahuja,
Ian J. Kerr, ‘Railway construction Labour in Nineteenth Century India’ in Tom Brass and Marcel Van Der Linden eds, Free-unfree labour, the debate continues.
For completing the road between Midnapore and Chardah, the Military Board approved the simultaneous employment of the convicts and the hired labourers, Proceeding of the Military Board no- 57, December 24, 1841.
MBP no- 11, 31st August 1841.
MBP no- 13, 9th February, 1838.
regulation of 9th June 1821 that was framed for the convicts, for the parties of hired labourers. MBP no- 5115, December 1841. Similarly, the parties of hired labourers working on the Burdwan- Benares road and those working on the Hazaribagh and Gaya roads were brought under the government regulations for the prisoners dated 9th june, 1821.MBP no- 1240, 28 june, 1839.
Joshi (2013)
During the famine of 1837-38, a large number of destitutes from the famines worked side by side with the convicts in the of the Delhi- Allahabad road. The government tried to recruit as many ‘destitutes’ a possible during the famine. MBP no- 29, October 1838. Apart from the physical coexistence of the convict bodies working simultaneously with the destitute/famine or pauper labour as the officials called them, what also linked the two was the allegation by the officials that both were inefficient labour and like the convicts, their labour was the central potential of the colonial concern with making roads and other public works- the repaired 54 miles of the roads, raised heavy earth embankments for the approaches of new bridges and drains to the extent of 2247 520 cubic feet and they dug broken and heaped 662, 352 cubic ft. of Kunkur metal.
Lucassen and Zwart have argued for Bengal and Nadri for Surat have argued about a thriving labour market, with a widespread existence of wage labour, Jan Lucassen and Pim De Zwart, ‘Poverty or Prosperity in Bengal c.1700-1875? New Evidence, Methods and Perspectives’, paper presented at the 11th International Conference on Labor History,( March 21-23, 2016), G.Nadri., Eighteenth-century Gujarat: The Dynamics of Its Political Economy, 1750-1800 (Leiden, 2009).