BBC

Misha Glenny and guests discuss how, after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, sugar planters recruited workers from India to replace or compete with their formerly enslaved labourers. Over the next 90 years, more than a million people in India travelled under five year contracts of indenture across the empire from Guyana to Trinidad to Mauritius and Fiji and colonies in between. These indentured labourers were to share vivid accounts of deception and abuse, especially in the early decades. From the outset there were critics and opposition gained pace with Gandhi and others in South Africa arguing the system was close to slavery and calling for the Indian government to stop the practice, which was to happen in 1917 with the last shipments of people in the 1920s. Meanwhile, rather than return after their contracts, a section of indentured labourers stayed where they were for their own reasons, negotiating their new identities alongside formerly enslaved people and the planter culture in a new Indian diaspora.

With

Purba Hossain

Lecturer in Modern History at the University of York

Neha Hui

Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Reading

And

Clem Seecharan

Emeritus Professor of History at London Metropolitan University

Produced by Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (Hurst and Co., 2013)

Marina Carter, Servants, Sirdars and Settlers: Indians in Mauritius, 1834-1874 (Oxford University Press, 1995)

Marina Carter and Khal Torabully, Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora (Anthem Press, 2002)

Jonathan Connolly, Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation (University of Chicago Press, 2024)

Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and David Dabydeen (eds.), The Other Windrush: Legacies of Indenture in Britain's Caribbean Empire (Pluto Books, 2021)

Neha Hui and Uma S. Kambhampati, ‘Between unfreedoms: The role of caste in decisions to repatriate among indentured workers’ (The Economic History Review 75:2, 2022)

Neha Hui and Uma Kambhampati, ‘The political economy of Indian indentured labor in the nineteenth century (Journal of the History of Economic Thought 47:2, 2025)

Madhavi Kale, Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Labor Migration in the British Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998)

Ashutosh Kumar, Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

Brij V. Lal, Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians (Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2004)

Brij V. Lal, ‘Kunti’s Cry: Indentured Women on Fiji Plantations’ (Indian Economic & Social History Review 22:1, 1985)

Andrea Major, ‘“Hill Coolies”: Indian Indentured Labour and the Colonial Imagination, 1836–38’ (South Asian Studies 33:1, 2017)

Basdeo Mangru, Indenture and Abolition: Sacrifice and Survival on the Guyanese Sugar Plantation (TSAR, 1993)

Kalathmika Natarajan, Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy: Caste, Class and Indenture Abroad, 1914-67 (Oxford University Press, 2026)

Clem Seecharan, 'Tiger in the Stars': The Anatomy of Indian Achievement in British Guiana, 1919-29 (Macmillan, 1997)

Clem Seecharan, Finding Myself: Essays on Race, Politics and Culture (Peepal Tree Press, 2015)

S. Sen, ‘Indentured labour from India in the age of empire’ (Social Scientist, 44:1/2, 2016)

Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830-1920 (Oxford University Press, 1974)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

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The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight.

Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment.

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A personal account of day-to-day life in Iran told through the conversations of two Iranian sisters – one in the UK, the other in the Iranian city of Shiraz. Since the outbreak of war at the end of February, a near total internet blackout and a shutdown of international phone lines by the Iranian authorities has meant limited information has got out of the country. But the sisters have made recordings of their conversations which have been shared with the BBC. They discuss when the bombs land, the destruction of places they love and the realities of an economy that’s being brought to its knees. They struggle to sleep at night. Salaries don’t come through. It’s a roller coaster of emotions. But there are also moments of calm and comfort, a spot of dark humour and the scent of hyacinths.

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(Photo: Cuba's former President Raul Castro watches a May Day rally in Havana, Cuba 1st May, 2025. Credit: Reuters/Norlys Perez)

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After 22 years, Arsenal has won another English Premier League title. The team is one of the most popular European football clubs in Africa, and had been running a multi-million sponsorship deal with the government of Rwanda which concluded at the end of the 2025–26 season. We speak to fans across the continent to hear what this win means for them.

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Presenter: Nkechi Ogbonna

Producers: Keikantse Shumba, Bella Twine, Blessing Aderogba and Rukia Bulle

Technical Producer: David Kinyanjui

Senior Producer: Charles Gitonga

Editors: Priya Sippy and Maryam Abdalla

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Also: The World Health Organization is exploring vaccine and treatment options to help contain the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has released a video showing him taunting detained activists from a Gaza aid flotilla. As investigations into how a group of experienced divers died in the Maldives continue, officials say all five bodies have now been retrieved from a deep cave. Russia's President Putin has met China's President Xi in Beijing and signed around 20 agreements just days after Donald Trump's visit. North Korea's Naegohyang football team has beaten South Korea's Suwon FC 2-1 in the semi-final of the Asian Women's Champions league in a rare match between the former enemies. English wines have won the highest percentage of gold medals per entry in a global competition, with experts describing the improvement as remarkable... and we find out why the T-Rex had such little arms.

The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight.

Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment.

Get in touch: [email protected]

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