Women, Indenture, and Resistance

Women, Indenture, and Resistance explores the lived experiences of Indian indentured (girmitiya) women in the Fiji Islands between 1879 and 1920, during the height of British colonial rule. Set against the backdrop of sugar-cane plantations, the book delves into themes of migration, displacement, colonialism, physical and sexual violence, wife-murder, maternal neglect, madness, and economic hardship—exacerbated by fixed wages and the high cost of living. Employing the framework of minority history and drawing on intersecting theories from colonial, postcolonial, subaltern, and feminist historiography, this study excavates archival fragments from the underbelly of the National Archives of Fiji. It critically engages with the British Colonial Secretary’s Office Minute Papers, Indian Birth, Death, Plantation and General Registers, Supreme Court depositions, and Emigration Passes to interrogate the power dynamics, contradictions, and silences embedded in these colonial records. Throughout, the book challenges dominant portrayals of indentured women as passive or victimised. Instead, it brings to light minute yet powerful details of women’s individual and collective responses to colonial and patriarchal structures. These narratives of trauma, resilience, and resistance offer a vital contribution to the study of indentureship and gender in Fiji. The interdisciplinary investigation concludes with a personal homage to Jasni, a great-great-grandmother of indenture, whose memory anchors the work in lived history.

Margaret Mishra is a scholar of colonial and feminist history whose work centers on the lived experiences of marginalized communities under empire. With a focus on Indian indentured women in the Fiji Islands, her research draws on minor history and interdisciplinary frameworks spanning postcolonial, subaltern, and gender studies. Through meticulous archival excavation and critical analysis, she challenges dominant narratives of victimhood and foregrounds stories of resistance, resilience, and survival. Her work is both a scholarly intervention and a personal homage to her own ancestral lineage of indenture.