The Political Economy of Indian Indentured Labor in the Nineteenth Century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21634912 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Neha Hui (University of Reading, corresponding author), Uma Kambhampati (0000-0001-5906-2394, University of Reading) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 141-163 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the History of Economic Thought (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1053-8372 • E-ISSN: 1469-9656 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s105383722400018x |
| OpenAlex | W4402893231 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
Abolition of slavery in British colonies led to the facilitation of Indian indentured migration by the British government. This form of migration came about when the discourse of economic freedom and individual liberty strongly resonated in British political economy circles, following the work of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. We analyze how unfreedom in indentured labor was rationalized when the rhetoric of freedom was essential to the dominant intellectual milieu. We consider why free labor was deemed unfeasible in the plantation colonies. We also consider the constraints that asymmetric information and unequal bargaining posed to freedom within the institution of indenture. We conclude that indenture represented an uneasy compromise between the problems of slavery and the unattainable goal of free labor
Economics · Labour economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Indian Economic and Social Development · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |