How were the working condition for the indentured migrant overseas? How did the different cultural form blend into new forms??
Answers
Answer:
Indentured labourers discovered their own ways of surviving in foreign lands. Many of them escaped into the wilds, though if caught they faced severe punishment. Others developed new forms of individual and collective self-expression, blending different cultural forms, old and new.
The indentured labour in the Caribbean islands gave rise to new forms of individual and
collective self expression which blended different old and new cultural forms in the following
ways.
(a) In Trinidad, the annual Muharram procession was transformed into a riotous carnival called
‘Hosay’ (for Imam Hussain) in which workers of all races and religions joined.
(b) Similarly, the protest religion of Rastafarianism made famous by the Jamaican reggae star
Bob Marley is also said to reflect social and cultural links with Indian migrants to the
Caribbean.
(c) ‘Chutney music’, popular in Trinidad and Guyana, is another creative contemporary
expression of the post-indenture experience.
(d) These forms of cultural fusion are part of the making of the global world, where things from
different places get mixed, lose their original characteristics and become something entirely