Associate Professor Dr. MUSLEEM JUMEER
Historians in their effort to reconstruct the past more objectively and to move away from the repetitive cut-and-paste approach are constantly on the lookout for more and more reliable sources ranging from primary and secondary sources, epitaphs, diaries, oral recollections etc. One such source rather neglected is our day-to-day use of language.
The National Assembly
The National Assembly besides its function as a law-making institution has been called upon despite itself to decide on the words that are admissible in its midst. Past sessions had turned at times into a battlefield of political confrontations and had been quite lively; passions had run high and many honourable members were “named” and ordered out. Its decision, considered to be supreme in the land , was even challenged in an external institution, the Supreme Court. In this hustle bustle chaotic situation the wordings used by honourable members have to be forcibly selective but unfortunately such is not the case and a buzz word has emerged and was repeatedly hurled at opponents – “Bachara”.
Origin of word
This insulting word is banned in society and denotes an individual of the lowest morality, untrustworthy and deceitful. It has nevertheless found its way in one of the most select societies of the island. It belongs to our history and is quite revealing of a state of mind that has evolved throughout the Indian Indentured saga. Both historians and sociolinguists are keen to analyse its evolution over time in our society. Opinion differs however about its origin.
According to online dictionaries, it originates from the Hindustani word “Betchara”, meaning a poor guy, and inspires much more feelings of pity and commiseration than anything else. This is obviously a plausible explanation from the point of view of phonetics from “Betchara” to “Bachara” but the wide gap between a helpless “Betchara” and an evil-minded “Batchara” makes it unacceptable from the historical viewpoint. This interpretation is not also retained by the Akademi Kreol Morisien which proposes instead in its Diksioner Morisien the Hindustani word “ Bathiyara“. This is outright pointless as “Bathiyara” means innkeeper and this occupation was not within the experience of Indentured labourers but valid if it is understood to mean a trickster. This paper proposes instead that “Bachara” originates from the concept of “Battachariya” and to support this, it is essential to put the history of Indian Immigration in its right perspective.
Nature of Indian Society
During the 1830s when it was clear that the prevailing system of Slavery in the British colonies was on the brink of collapse, an alternative system of cheap labour had to be sought for the development of these colonies. Africa had to be ruled out for fear of its amalgamation with Slavery and Indian labour became the obvious choice for replenishing the sugar fields in its colonies with an abundant supply of cheap labour.
But were Indian fieldworkers willing and eager to emigrate? African slaves were captured and forcibly sent abroad. Around 10% of the Mauritian slave population were of Indian origin and the mechanism of their arrival here is yet to be explored. As a rule, Indian agricultural workers in rural villages would not choose on their own to emigrate to Mauritius and other remote parts of the world except if forced by external circumstances such as natural calamities, poor harvest etc. beyond their control.
In the Indian society, specially the rural one, the place of each member of the society is well-defined. Respect for elders, rulers, landlord, employers etc. was part of an extricate system of social norms that demanded strict adherence. For the agricultural worker, the landlord was usually considered as a Protector by the employees. This attitude to work conditioned the Indian landscape and ensured the smooth running of the rural countryside and the need to emigrate was not a compelling one except in dire cases.
Mechanism of Created Push factors
What was needed were some potential push factors for a well-established static if not frozen society in which everyone knew one’s place. At times, natural calamities can upset that society and lead to migration but the British could not rely on that factor alone and had to resort to other means to create the necessary push factors to compel the Indian agricultural sector based on family exploitation of small plots of land to emigrate to other colonies.
In 19th century mentality colonies had to produce primarily for the needs of the colonizing countries. India was no exception. The Indian sector had to produce no longer for the demands of the Indian market but for the British one instead. As an example cotton was needed in plentiful supply following the Industrialisation process of England and the Indian market was compelled to uproot its staple food crops and to plant cotton instead. British authorities did not bother whether this would lead to widespread starvation, destruction of village life, migration to already overpopulated urban areas or simply suicide. That was the hard realities of Colonialism. Furthermore, the Indian peasantry was heavily taxed and the revenues collected were used for the comfort of the British administrators and for enrolling Indian soldiers to shoot down fellow Indians in case of revolt.
Role of Recruiting Agents
Under such circumstances, the Indian labourer had really no choice but to enroll for emigration. He had no say either concerning the quality of life he would find in the new environment, the wages, the climatic conditions, the food, the practice of his religion etc. He was well aware that conditions of work and adjustment would be difficult and could not be changed. What matters to him most was the expectation that the prospective employer would as was the case in India assume his role as a Protector and show proof of understanding, kindness and humanity.
Recruiting agents well-versed in this did not show any scruple however in misguiding the immigrants and by painting a most positive picture of the prospective employer. They did not care much about the welfare of the workers and were only interested in the commission that each labourer recruited would bring them. The Mauritian employer was depicted as a “Bhattachariya” belonging to the Kulmin Brahmin caste.
In an economic situation where the demand for workers was constantly high and supply relatively low and uncertain, planters were competing with each other to obtain the greatest number of the best workers. At the arrival of the immigrants at the Ghat, they dispatched their man of confidence, usually the Sirdar or any other employee who shared a common profile with the incoming immigrants in terms of religion, village, dialects etc. to lure them to sign for their respective employers.
The clerks employed at the Ghat assumed unofficially of course the role of Recruiting agents since they had direct access to the immigrants and reaped handsome commissions in return.
The Disillusion
It was in this way that the employer-Bhattachariya assumed a central role in the recruitment system of Indentured Labour. If the employer was a reliable person, respectful of the terms of employment of the contract and not liable to find ways and means to resort to abuses, the working relations between the employer and the workers could be smooth. In such cases, the employer assumed in the eyes of the Indentured labourers the status of a “Bhattachariya”. When abuses crept in, the employer is reduced to the pejorative status of a “Batchara” in the perception of the employees.
At the beginning of the Indenture Period (1834), which overlapped with the phasing out of Slavery through the Apprenticeship system, adjusting to the new circumstances proved to be difficult and industrial relations were quite tense. Abuses crept in and Indentured workers found themselves caught in a slave position. The positive image of the “Bhattachariya” painted by the unscrupulous recruiters took a severe blow. The British Indian authorities had to intervene and stopped the in-flow of immigrants temporarily on many occasions, question of bringing the employers to realise that their wealth depended on the sweat of the workers but the suspension was calculated to take place during the period when the need for workers was minimal.
It is also quite difficult to know when “Bhattachariya” evolved into “Batchiara” but it can be surmised that this should have been over a long lapse of time and when the condition of employment was at its worst, namely after the Vagrant Act of 1868. Immigrants who had terminated their initial contractual period of five years were unwilling to re-engage for five more years. They were considered as vagrants and could not move out of the districts where they were employed. They were imprisoned in the Vagrant Depot, tortured and had to re-engage forcibly under contract. Furthermore, the Royal Commission of Inquiry of 1872 identified the non-respect of some of the clauses of the contract as the main grievance of the labourers, specially concerning the payment of wages. This is also quite clear after an analysis of the list of grievances from the petitions submitted by De Plevitz before the same Royal Commission. Employers used all available devices either to retard the payment of the wages or in some cases not to pay them at all.
This left a bitterness which revealed itself in their language-use with the downgrading of the hitherto respected “Battachariya” into the pejoratively contemptuous “Batchara”. With time and with the dismantling of the Indentured System and the introduction of labour laws aimed at reducing abuses, industrial friction between employer and employee has become less acute, the word “Batchiara” has lost its raison-d’être and has been extended to any worthless individual. It now figures prominently among a list of words with a pejorative twist banned in Parliament and society.
Finally, a study of the evolution of the meaning of words in history reveals also a reverse process whereby, unlike that of “Batchara”, an originally pejorative connotation will evolve into a positive one. One such word is “Banian”. But this is a different story !