Indentureship ended?

…what has really changed?
Next March 12, it will be 100 years since Indian Indentureship was effectively ended. But what has really changed? When the workers protested management’s breaking of their contracts, the standard responses were: charging them criminally; ejecting them from the plantations; docking their pay and ever so often, calling in the police to shoot them down after like dogs.
The immigrants had very few partisans in authority to champion their cause – even though there was supposed to be a “Protector of Immigrants” department. After an 1869 protest by immigrants at Leonora, a sympathetic ex-magistrate wrote a devastating critique of the abuses of immigrants. It led to the usual British response: a Commission of Enquiry in 1870-71 – right before five protesting workers were shot and killed at Devonshire Castle in Essequibo in 1872.
But the abuses continued unabated and in 1896 at Pln Non Pariel, another five immigrant workers – protesting slashed wages – were gunned down and fifty-nine wounded. A champion of their cause came from an unexpected source: Bechu, an indentured Indian who had arrived two years before, bound for Enmore. He wrote a letter to the Daily Chronicle that inspired other Indians in the colony to defend their exploited compatriots in the sugar fields.
Bechu wrote:
Sir,
Will you kindly permit me, through the medium of your widely circulated paper, to say a few words with regard to the official investigation which has been made concerning the rate of wages paid to the indentured workers on Pln Non Pariel?
Being a coolie myself, and an indentured one in the bargain. I have up to now refrained from saying anything in the matter but as I see it mentioned in last Saturday’s issue of The Argosy that the referees after due enquiries are satisfied that the wages paid for punt loading and cane cutting is ample, and that the price for weeding is only a trifle below the usual rate. I am curious to know on what they have based their decision.
Prior to registering myself for service in this colony, I, in common with the rest of my countrymen, had to sign an agreement which is printed in three different languages and which reads as follows:
[Bechu then reproduces in detail the terms of the agreement with reference to (1) Period of Service. (2) Nature of Labour. (3) Number of days per week for labour. (4) Number of hours daily for labour. (5) Monthly or daily or task work rates – for men, women and children. (6) Conditions as to return passage and (7) Other conditions. Bechu then delivered his indictment.]
It will be observed from paragraphs 4 and 5 above that every male immigrant above 16 years of age is entitled to a rate of wage of not less than one shilling per day and every male and every female under 16 is similarly entitled to a wage of not less than 8 pence per day for seven hours of work in the field and ten hours in the factory and when performing extra work shall be paid in proportion for every extra hour of work.
[Bechu details how these rules are violated preventing workers from earning even the measly stipulated wages.]
In this colony however, an agreement appears to be binding on one side only, for we constantly see coolies being brought up for neglecting to attend work?, for ?not completing their task?, and for many such trivial breaches in contract, but in not a single instance have I seen a Protector charge an employer for not fulfilling his part of the contract…Is this fair?
…[Bechu concluded] “Verily unto everyone that hath been given and he shall have abundantly; but unto him that hath not shall be taken away even which he hath.”
It is really an indictment on our humanity that 120 years after Bechu, sugar workers still have to protest broken agreements – most recently API! But this time they face the arbitrary and draconian decision to close Wales and to have the “Cutlass of the Massa” hanging over their heads till December on the possible closure of the entire industry.