Indian Indenture in British Malaysia

"Whilst Chanderbali's book is not the first to deal with Indian migration to the Malay peninsula, it is the first to deal comprehensively with the workings of the indenture system in that region. As such it offers a contribution to South-East Asian studies by giving a more accurate and detailed account of the circumstances of the arrival of Indians in what is now Malaysia. It adds to the history of the movement of labour in the nineteenth century by confirming what was common to the indenture system wherever it manifested, and establishing what was local and distinctive. In this case it involved features of the local rumah kechil system, and forms of debt bondage not to be found in such a naked form in other versions of the indenture system." "Chanderbali's narrative, whilst amply documented with statistical tables, never loses sight of the people involved, whether Indian labourers or white planters. Above all, in its careful detail, it enables clear comparisons to be made in identifying the factors that shaped the commonalities and the distinctive features of particular indenture systems, features that have contributed to the contemporary position and inter-ethnic relationships of Indian communities in the Caribbean, South Africa, Mauritius and Fiji."--BOOK JACKET.