Reconnecting Roots: University of Hyderabad Part of Rs 1.20 Crore ICSSR Project on ‘Girmitiya Legacy’

Prof Gajendra Pathak from the University of Hyderabad is part of a team awarded Rs 1.2 crore by ICSSR to study the cultural history of Indian labour migration under British rule, focusing on the girmitiya diaspora and their forgotten stories

Hyderabad: Prof Gajendra Pathak, Senior Professor of Hindi from the University of Hyderabad (UoH), is part of the team that has been awarded the ICSSR Research Project of Rs 1.20 crore, under the ICSSR 2nd call for Longitudinal studies on ‘A Cultural History of Indian Labour Migration During British Colonial Rule’.

The composition of the ICSSR collaborative Research Project Team includes Project Directors – Prof Gajendra Pathak (UoH), Dr Chandan Shrivastava (BHU), Dr Rachna Vishwakarma (CUSB), Dr Anupama Pandey, Indian High Commission, London (UK) and Captain Om Prakash Singh, Maritime Expert, London (UK). The Project Coordinator is Prof Niranjan Sahay, Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth, Varanasi.

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GIRMITIYA is a dedicated research project that anchors a pioneering project focused on the cultural history of Indian labour migration during British colonial rule. Conceived under the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)’s 2nd Call for Longitudinal Studies in Social and Human Sciences, this research initiative aims to revisit, recover, and reconnect the fragmented narratives of the girmitiya diaspora.

The term girmitiya, rooted in the colonial mispronunciation of the word “agreement”, refers to the millions of Indian indentured labourers who were transported by the British Empire between the 1830s and early 20th century to various colonies like Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname, and South Africa.