First Published Autobiography Of An Indian Immigrant In Surinam By Francis C. Assisi

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Secondly, our subject Munshi Rahman Khan (1874-1972) was an unusual migrant. A poet, writer and vidwan, he kept a detailed and fascinating account of his life's experiences in the form of a diary. Because there is almost no written information available that describes first hand the lives of the first generation of Indian indentured laborers in Surinam or, for that matter, anywhere else, this autobiography is of historic significance.

This translated autobiography, originally written in Devanagari, and first published in a Dutch translation, is therefore a unique source. Translators Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, Ellen Bal and Alok Deo Singh have also added an introductions in which they place the autobiography in its Indian and Surinamese colonial contexts. The final outcome should interest students of the Indian diaspora, labor historians and other social scientists as well as the reader interested in colonial and subaltern history; transnational migration, and issues of religion and communalism.

Rahman Khan, a pathan Muslim, was 24 years old when he left for Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam. At the age of 67, he completed his autobiography entitled Jeevan Prakash in which he connects India, the land of his birth, with Surinam, the country in which he married, became a contract laborer and later becomes a plantation overseer and a teacher in Hindi and Hinduism and blessed with five sons and two daughters.

Born in Hamirpur in Uttar Pradesh, (in the then United Provinces) Rahman Khan studied up to middle school and became a teacher (munshi) in a government school but his restless and inquiring spirit took him to Kanpur to see the famed Ramlila in the city. There he met two recruiters who offered him a supervisory job in Surinam and he succumbed to their offer.

Khan recorded the vast changes that took place in the lives of the migrants as they embarked on the voyage abroad, how the indentured migrants learned to live together and how the Hindus dropped their caste inhibitions and practices, and began eating in the common kitchen. His story relates how Indians lived on the plantations, the new experiences, the troubles, and the black magic practised in the region.

He came into confrontation with the authorities on the plantation, but his intrinsic abilities came to be recognized and he was offered the position of Sardar of the workers. Among the Indian workers, he was regarded as a Pandit and, though a Muslim, his knowledge of the Ramayana made him a popular teacher in Surinam.

A few years later, the Arya Samaj preachers led a boycott of the Muslims, which put an end to the close social and cultural contacts that had existed within the Indian community. It was a difficult time for the author for he was no longer welcomed as a `vidwan' among the Hindus or asked to recite the Vedas.

The autobiography is divided into four sections:

The first deals with his life in village Bharkhari, Hamirpur district in the United Provinces till his departure to Surinam; the second is about his experiences under indenture; and the third is about making a living in Surinam. The fourth is shorter but it deals with a painful period for the Indian community and Khan personally. It gives an account of the breakdown of the harmony forged during the indenture days, of how the Hindus got divided into different sects, and the communal differences that arose between the Hindus and the Muslims. The early migrants shared a way of life with similar traditions and evolved a common language for themselves. But later arrivals brought with them the differences that were developing between the Hindus and the Muslims in India. Apparently the arrival of Arya Samaj preachers in Surinam, in 1929, caused a rift in the Hindu community, between the followers of Sanatana Dharma and the Arya Samaj.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

In his autobiography Khan described his sojourn and settlement in the following words.

" The clock of the bazaar (Parade grounds vicinity in Kanpur) indicated that it was 7 o'clock. While I was standing on the bridge of the canal and looking at the water, two Muslims, who later proved to be money-minded devils, came to me. Thinking them to be sympathetic gentlemen, I greeted them. Because they were wearing clean and fine dresses, they were looking nice. They replied my greetings and asked me from where I was coming. I said, ‘I am coming from an inn (sarai) of the Parade grounds’. Then they asked me where I was going. I told them, by the train of 8 o'clock I am going to Chandpur ...They asked again, ‘We would like you to have a job,?’ I said, ‘What kind of job?’ They said it is a government job. Then they asked, ‘Are you educated?’ I said, ‘Yes. I have passed the middle school’.

They happily told me, "Then you could become a saradara (headman) and receive a salary of 12 Annas per day. The work has to do with sugar. There you will have to supervise the laborers and you will have to travel on the government's boat on the expenses of the government. And at every third or fourth month on the same boat you will have to bring the load of sugar and return to your plantation. The ship from Calcutta takes three months to reach there (Sriram tapu). If you are doubtful about your salary, then come with us and we get you registered in the government office. Come now, we will show you those laborers whom you will have to supervise. And from today on you will have all expenses of your food, etc. paid by the government. You will not have any sort of problem. Enjoy your drink and food happily, live comfortably and carry on the government work honestly, this is the only way of getting your own promotion".

Hearing such tempting words I became very happy. I just forgot my own self, got separated from my own family and fell into the trap of my luck. I thought in my heart that these people were rightly telling all these things for my welfare. Because a salary of 12 Annas per day becomes 24 Rupees a month in India. To get such a high salary at this time was very difficult. Come on. let me take this job and experience it. Further let me see what will happen. If the registration in the government is realised then every thing will be alright. There will not be any risk in getting the salary. Having thought so shortsightedly I told them, ‘Alright, let us move, let me first see it’. As soon as I had said so they both accompanied me while keeping my mind busy with big attractive plans. They took me across the canal to the depot of Babu Ram Narain Singh. At that time Babu Sahib was in the house (Depot). First all those three persons talked very seriously, then they called me inside. And having taken me into the courtyard they showed me the collected recruited men and women and said, ‘Please ,see all these people, they will be going with you. And this Babu who is a government employee will get you registered at the court sitting of Magistrate Sahib Bahadur’.

Having told this those people with their devilish appearances left me there and disappeared. Then Babu Ram Narain Singh told me, "You stay in this courtyard and in my absence keep a watch on all these people". All these talks I accepted and I began to live in the Depot. The bird was now trapped. Now nothing could be altered. Well, it could have been if I would have said, ‘no’ to the Magistrate. Then I would have escaped. But this way was not known to me. If it had been known to me, then what could I have done? Because the Great Allah had removed my subsistence from India and transported it into Surinam. And he had banished me forever from Hindustan. It was sad and very sad" ( From Munshi R. Khan's Jivan Prakash, Part I, Chapter 17, pp 128-130).

On 13 April 1898 after three months of stay in the sub-depot in Kanpur and the Depot in Calcutta, and 3 more months on the sea voyage, the steamship AVON with a cargo of 618 emigrants, including Munshi Rahman Khan, anchored near the fort of New Amsterdam in Surinam.

Together with five other emigrants Khan was first sent to the cocoa plantation of Rudolf Horst at Lust en Rust estate for a period of 5 years. During this period he did not forget his place of birth, his school, his classmates and relatives. He always yearned to return to India. After the expiration of his contract Munshi Rahman Khan had three options: either to return to India or to renew the contract for another five years or to become a "free man". He opted for being a free man and settled down in Surinam. He bought a small piece of land and began small-scale farming, selling vegetables and dairy products. In his leisure time he taught Hindi to the children of the neighborhood and during the religious gatherings he discoursed on the Ramayan.

The values of the Ramayan of Tulsidas meant to him the ideal culture of the India, which he revived by publicizing the Ramayan ideals. In the mean time he got remarried and was blessed with children. The responsibility of raising the children became his main task. But to him life had no meaning without the support of the Indian group. He was a Muslim at home but a staunch Indian, proud of his Indian background and the Indian community. Hindus and Muslims to him were the two hands of mother India. He wrote: "Dui jati bharata se aye, Hindu Musalmana Kahalaye, Rahi priti donom maim bhari, jaise dui bandhu eka mehatari “ (Doha Siksavali, 1953). Two communities came from India (to Surinam), they were called Hindus and Muslims; between them existed an intense love, as that between two brothers born of the same mother.

Since Munshi Rahman Khan was the only son of his parents, his parents and friends constantly asked him to come back to India. In one of the letters his parents wrote to him on 1.5.1908, this is what they said: "Your letter was received. We came to know about you and we were very happy. Your mother has become very old and blind.... The money which you want to send to us, it is the opinion of all people here that with the same money please come for one time (to India ) and meet us. Everyone wants to see you."

According to Professor Mohan K. Gautam who has extensively studied primary documents relating to Munshi Rahman Khan, his heart was always in India. Khan always wanted to go to India to see and serve his old parents, but circumstances did not help him to realize his goal. He stayed in Surinam. He regarded the Indians as a single united group and made them aware of their cultural heritage. He taught his children, friends and neighbors Indian culture and saw it as a real and visible culture brought from India by so many emigrants. He always wanted to know the latest situation in India and for this purpose he not only kept correspondence with friends, but also with many publishing concerns, such as the Venkateshwar press in Bombay.

When Munshi Rahman Khan arrived in Surinam the emigrant Indian community had already defined their code of conduct and the way they would like to be seen by the others, including the Dutch Sahibs. The infra-structure was already set up. The Indian areas of ritual places, temples, and the places for cattle, etcetera were already worked out. The Pandit/Maulvi (priest) and his assistant the Nai/Hajjam (barber) became eventually the carriers of the culture of the emigrants and often in the evenings under the hurricane lantern, they revived the religious culture by relating the stories of India. From these stories some sort of moral education was handed over to the children. Before the beginning of 20th century the Indian emigrants had already developed a miniature India in Nickeri, Commowijne, Saramacca, and other places. Like Munshi Rahman Khan, many of the Indian emigrants established a bridge between India and the Indian colonies of the West Indies.

PIOs in Surinam and Netherlands

Present-day PIOs in Surinam and The Netherlands refer to themselves as Hindustanis (in Dutch: ‘Hindoestanen’ or ‘Hindostanen’). It seems that this has not always been the case. Initially the British Indian contract laborers were simply known as ‘coolies’. Free cultivators, however, developed a preference for the name British Indian. First, because Creoles used coolie in a derogatory way, and secondly, because it was intimately linked with unfree contract labor. In the course of the first few decades of the 20th century the term Hindustani became more popular. With India’s independence in 1947, when British Indian made no sense any longer, ‘Hindustani’ became the common designation.

Two years ago, the PIOs in Surinam marked the 130th year of the arrival of the first group of Indians in Surinam.

The first group of Indian indentured workers reached Paramaribo, Surinam (Dutch Guyana) in 1873 on the sailing ship, Lala Rookh. The Indians or Hindustanis, now form just about 35 per cent of the population in that multiracial country and speak a form of Hindustani known as Sarnami. It is one of the few countries, which has a large Indian diaspora, where the common Indian language is not merely a spoken language but a written one as well.

Sarnami is a mixture of Bhojpuri and Awadhi, with the addition of a few Dutch, Creole and English words. The language is widely used among the Surinamese of Indian origin. It is also used on radio and television channels that cater to the community. Of the 10 television channels in Suriname, five are in Sarnami and a large part of their programmes are based on Hindi films. The language has largely helped them in preserving their cultural identity.

In 1975 when the Government of Netherlands granted Suriname its independence, there were over three lakh people of Indian origin in the country. Almost 50 per cent of the younger generation of Hindustanis, as they are known, opted to move to the Netherlands under the Government's liberal citizenship laws. There is now a vibrant overseas Indian community in the Netherlands that speaks Sarnami and Dutch and maintains its close links with Suriname. Though Dutch is the official language of Suriname, most Surinamese are multi-lingual and speak at least three languages if not more.

In Dutch, Surinam is spelled and pronounced as ‘Suriname’. Surinam achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and lies on the north-central coast of South America and is the smallest nation on the continent. It is bordered by Guyana to the west, French Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south. The population is estimated at 420,000 in 1998 and PIOs, in Surinam known as Hindustanis, constitute 34.2 per cent of the total population, according to information provided by the embassy of the Republic of Suriname in New Delhi.

The Authors

Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff (1964) is Director Research in the Asian Development research Institute (ADRI), Ranchi, Jharkhand (India). She received her Ph.D. degree in 1995 (cum laude) from the Centre of Asian Studies in Amsterdam (CASA) with her study on Girlhood in colonial Calcutta entitled Save Ourselves and the Girls!

Ellen Bal (1967) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. She received her Ph.D. degree in 2000 from the Erasmus University Rotterdam with her study of ethnogenesis in South Asia. Currently she is involved in a research project about the Indian diaspora in Surinam and the Netherlands, and their linkages wtih ‘motherland’ India, and works closely with Dr. Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff.

Alok Deo Singh (1967) is presently Monitoring and Research Coordinator with Alternative for India Development (AID), UK. Between 2001 and 2004 he worked along with Dr. Ellen Bal and Dr. Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff as a Project Officer in a Project on ‘A Diaspora coming home? Overseas Indians re-establishing links with India’, supported by the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Tropical Countries (WOTRO), the Hague, The Netherlands. Related to this, Alok Deo Singh has carried out research in Mauritius, Surinam and in the Netherlands.

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