About

Indenture Papers: Studies on Girmitiyas, is a collaborative publication of 5 institutions:

  • Global Girmit Institute
  • NCIC-Heritage Centre
  • Banaras Hindu University
  • Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and
  • IIT (Patna)

These ‘Girmit Partners’ have nominated persons of repute and good track records to be on the Editorial team of the journal.

The journal is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the study of the history, culture, politics and life of the Indian and South Asian indentured diaspora more generally, across the world. The journal recognizes that ‘Indenture’ existed prior to the commencement of the Indian and Asian indenture system, essentially involving people of European descent. The prior indenture systems resulted in societies which have emerged to be well-integrated with respect to the descendants of the indentures people and others, while the later indenture systems produced a large number of critical issues which deserve closer academic and policy scrutiny.

Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing interest in and engagement with studies on the indenture systems, and on the descendants of the indentured people, who we refer to as ‘Girmitiyas’, in various countries, including the countries where the Girmitiyas now reside.

Indenture Papers hopes to be the dedicated publication opportunity for such research output. The journal aims to facilitate the publication of scholarship and research on a subject that so far does not have a single, established scholarly outlet.

This journal shall publish various categories of materials. While Indenture Papers would publish fully refereed articles, there are opportunities for lighter, non-refereed publications as well. The non-refereed materials would be published as Indenture Dialogue. The Dialogue will also carry Research Notes and Statistical Reviews. The 3rd section of the publication is Indenture Reviews, which shall publish literature surveys,book reviews, reviews of creative arts productions, and related materials, including records on indentures. The only guiding framework is that the materials need to be elated to one or more aspect of the lives of Girmitiyas.

Indenture Papers is a fully electronic journal. This provides the unique feature that it shall publish articles as there are processed, without awaiting the processing of clusters of papers which are necessary for hardcopy publications. Volumes shall be annually sequenced.

While the main custodian of the journal is www.girmit.ac.fj, the papers may be co-posted on the appropriate sites of each of the Girmit partners.

All correspondences related to the management of the journal and related matters are to be addressed to the Managing Editor of the Journal on: papers.indenture@gmail.com with copies to ggi.officeggi@gmail.com. Hardcopy mails can be sent to: Indenture Papers, C/- P O Box 7580, Lautoka, Fiji.

Journal Partnership Management Team:

NCIC/Heritage CentreGlobal Girmit InstituteTata Institute of Social SciencesBanaras Hindu UniversityIIT Patna
Deoroop TeemalGanesh ChandMadhushree SekherGhan ShyamAditya Raj
Primnath GooptarSunil KumarManish K. Jha
Brinsley SamarooAnand Chand
Arvind SinghJagannath Sami