Indians Overseas? Governing Tamil Migration to Malaya 1870-1941

A Tamil labourer travelling from South India to Malaya at the turn of the twentieth century would have encountered many authorities on his (almost invariably ‘his’) journey across the Bay of Bengal, and passed through many jurisdictions.1 At the emigration depot in the port of Nagapattinam a local magistrate, known as the ‘protector of emigrants’, would have interrogated our migrant as to the reasons for his journey. He would have declared to the magistrate, almost in the form of a confession, that he was emigrating willingly, and in full knowledge of the work and the conditions that awaited him at his destination. After a voyage of six or seven days, crowded as a deck passenger with many hundreds or thousands of others, he would have arrived on Malaya’s shores. There, he would have encountered Malaya’s quarantine officials, before being passed into the hands of the planters who would control his labour. Working on the plantation, he may also have come into contact with the local police or magistrate, with medical inspectors, or even with the coroner investigating the death of a fellow worker. Through the archival trail, his testimony may then have circulated back across the Bay of Bengal, to the Government of Madras or even as far as the imperial government in Calcutta.