Protests at the Colonial Capital: Calcutta and the Global Debates on Indenture, 1836–42

This paper positions Calcutta (Kolkata) not only as a key site for the practical implementation of the indentured labour system, but as a key arena for discussion and negotiation of, and resistance to, this form of labour migration. It analyses debates on indenture as they took place in the colonial capital between 1836 and 1842, exploring their influence on the colonial policies and regulations that came to govern the system throughout the British Empire. In so doing, it highlights how the coming together of economic, humanitarian, political, and imperial agendas in debates around the so-called ‘coolie question’ helped shape the global indentured system. By exploring Calcutta’s interactions with the indentured question and the influence of discussions in Calcutta on metropolitan debates and decisions, the paper considers how Calcutta functioned as a colonial capital within wider imperial networks. Drawing on recent studies that perceive the empire as a web, with nodes located at the metropole, colonial capitals, ports, entrepôts, and other interacting centres within the empire, it will seek to rethink Calcutta’s position within this system, and thus contribute to understanding how nodes of the Empire interacted outside strict binary divisions of colony and metropole.