“BIRDS OF PASSAGE

http://iish.net/clara/publicat/clara11.pdf


“BIRDS OF PASSAGE”;
MIGRATION OF SOUTH INDIAN LABOUR COMMUNITIES
TO SOUTH-EAST ASIA; 19-20TH CENTURIES, A.D.


In fact, during the late nineteenth century considerable quantities of European capital began to flow into the commercial and industrial sectors of Malaysia and Burma.


It has been pointed out by a prominent labour
leader of Burma that: “under British control the industrial expansion of the Province has
been so rapid that it has already attained prominence as a center of great industrial and

commercial activity… during the period from 1900 to 1930 the number of
factories hadincreased by 653 per cent, while the number of persons
employed had gone up by 431 per cent of children…14”. Rice fields, paddy
processing industries, mineral oil and refineries, saw mills and timber
yards, ports and harbours, railways etc., were the main sources of
employment. It was largely the south Indian labour who transported the
harvests, manned the industry, dealt with transport and cleared the
streets and built the sewage system in the cities of Burma. As the Census Commissioner of Madras (1931)put it, “He (the south Indian labourer in Burma)
tills the paddy fields… mans the railways… handles the cargoes at Rangoon.