Research Catalog

The plantation Tamils of Ceylon / Patrick Peebles.

Title
The plantation Tamils of Ceylon / Patrick Peebles.
Author
Peebles, Patrick.
Publication
London ; New York : Leicester University Press, 2001.

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TextRequest in advance DS489.25 .T3P384 2002Off-site

Details

Description
x, 252 p. : ill., maps; 24 cm.
Summary
"Based on exhaustive archival research and a complete review of the secondary literature, this book studies the Plantation Tamils of Ceylon through the dominant groups whose ideologies shaped the construction of their history over the century from 1840 to 1940. The Plantation Tamils, descendents of those who came from India to grow the crops on which the colonial economy was based, suffered generations of discrimination and political repression before they became citizens in the 1980s. As this work shows, they had become a distinct Sri Lankan community long before this time." "The information available about the Plantation Tamils was produced largely by planters, the government of Ceylon, the Colonial Office, the government of India and Ceylonese politicians. In the nineteenth century the planters and government of Ceylon, prodded by the Colonial Office, tended to blame each other for the hardships faced by the labourers. In the twentieth century, while Indian nationalists demanded that India take more responsibility for the living conditions of overseas Indians, Ceylonese nationalists demanded the exclusion of the Plantation Tamils from political life. Other scholars have screened out some of the biases in the records, but they have also reinforced biases that suited their own agendas. This book investigates more carefully how knowledge about the Plantation Tamils was produced and in doing so dispels some of the more persistent myths about them."--BOOK JACKET.
Series Statement
New historical perspectives on migration
Uniform Title
New historical perspectives on migration.
Subjects
Genre/Form
History
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-243) and index.
Processing Action (note)
  • committed to retain
Contents
Identity formation in colonial Ceylon -- Migration in Sri Lankan history -- Terminological confusion -- Plantation Tamil identity: cases -- Historiographical questions -- Aliens and Resident Strangers -- The role of the kanganies -- Plantation Tamil society -- Plantation Tamil population -- A New Kind of Slave -- Coffee-plantation era -- Tea-plantation era -- The tundu system -- Ceylon Labour Commission -- Changing role of the kanganies -- Seasonal Laborers -- The myth of seasonal labor -- Origins of government policy -- Master and Servant Laws -- Mortality -- Tea-plantation era -- People of Indian Origin -- The First World War and the abolition of indenture -- Unindentured emigration -- Indian concern for Plantation Tamils -- Immigration reform in Ceylon -- Impact of the Emigration Act -- An Indian Protectorate -- Recruitment of labor -- Wages -- 'Medical wants' -- Indian protection under the Donoughmore Constitution -- Undomiciled Immigrants -- The 'franchise question' -- Domicile and residence -- Anti-Indian politics -- The Non-Ceylonese -- Labor recruitment -- Plantation Tamils under a Sinhalese government -- Political reforms -- Labor unions -- Demographic changes -- The Stateless -- Indians in government employment -- Emigration ban -- State Council debates -- The Exploratory Conference of November 1940 -- Indian delegation's counterproposals -- Plantation conditions.
ISBN
0718501543
LCCN
^^^00063736^
OCLC
44818355
Owning Institutions
Harvard Library