Peggy Mohan was born in Trinidad. as a Linguist, She specialises in Trinidadian Bhojpuri. In India she worked in the fields of linguistics and animation. Her BOOK, “Jahajin”, illustrates the extraordinary voyage across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans of the ‘Girmityas’, who sailed from Calcutta to Trinidad to work as indentured labour on Sugar estates. In AN interview with TSI’s Saurabh Kumar Shahi, she talks about different aspects of the life of ‘Girmityas’. Some excerpts
Tell us something about the migration of the ‘Girmityas’.
This migration story began in the 1850s with British plantation agents looking for poor people from areas near the port. So a majority of them came from Calcutta and from what is now called Jharkhand. They took poor people irrespective of their skills in agriculture. The conditions on the ships were terrible and in most cases, half the people would die due to disease and other things before the ships hit the Caribbean.
So were the mid-1860s a sort of cut-off point in the story?
Yes. Two things happened that changed the story. Conditions on the ships started to get better. They started to consider these labourers as precious resource. Second, the condition in the Bhojpur region must have worsened in terms of problems with the British. The 1857 revolt had ended and the area was being penalised. It was under the new form of land-tenure. So, suddenly, the lands that belonged to a whole family started passing into the hands of elder sons. Therefore, lots of youngsters, younger brothers, started being thrown out of the family land. Famines aggravated matters. The situation was ripe for migrations. That wasn’t something new for the Bhojpur region. During the Mughal era, the “Muglasiyas” used to migrate without their families. The same happened in Trinidad, where lots of single women migrated.
The role of Bhojpuri women in migration is important in other ways too…
Yes. With women came the possibility of continuity, family structures, children reared by ‘Khelaunis’ — a loose version of crèches — which were run by migrants themselves. Therefore, the language that came up was the language of ‘Khelaunis’. Although people were from Awadhi, Nepali and Maithili regions, the language their children learnt was Bhojpuri. And once the language is set down, there is no need for more infusion. People who go there just learn it. That version of Bhojpuri is similar to a large extent to what I see now in India. It was different when I first came to India. People used to show off the variety in the language not knowing that it was nothing but a lack of cohesion. And as it was fragmented, it became a junior partner in coalition with Hindi.
You have said the language is dying. But I don’t see any sadness. Why?
There is a reason. When I started the work I was as passionate as white people who go to a tribal region and become passionate about natives speaking an “interesting language”. I also felt it would be good if languages could be preserved. But then, the entire history of the world is a history of extinctions. After all we wouldn’t have been here if dinosaurs wouldn’t have gone. We need to look into the future. I am sitting here, talking to you in English and being treated seriously. My maali, who comes from the same area, won’t be because he speaks Bhojpuri. Therefore, he has moved on towards a global stream.
That’s why you are judgmental…
We don’t want people to look at us from time to time and smile with nostalgia. The language is dying because it was never associated with the kind of world we were growing in—the world of education, certain empowerment, middle-class and engagement with political power. And therefore among the changes that take place in migrant communities, language is the first casualty. There are migrants who have not changed, like Gypsies. That sounds exotic. Wow! A Rajasthani-based language in a community in Eastern Europe! But look at their condition. They are one of the most criminalised tribes in the world. Millions died in Hitler’s camps and they are on the fringes of society, living by their wits and constantly harassed by police. I think what we have achieved is better than that. We made a big sacrifice of language but much later than similar people in India who became part of the larger Hindi-speaking/writing stream. Learning English is an attempt to engage with the world as equals.
You have said that Bhojpuri is not a dialect of Hindi but a different language altogether.
There are two aspects. From the structural point of view, Bhojpuri falls with Bangla, Oriya, Maithili and other Eastern Indic languages. They have this “Bolbe, jaibe, gail…”, “ego instead of ek”, structure. So it is Eastern-Magadhan-Prakrit-based. From the political point of view, Bhojpuri is under the shadow of Hindi. And because the Hindi belt has ruled for so long and because it captured the literate and middle-class life of that area, they say Bhojpuri is a dialect of Hindi.
Tell us something about the migration of the ‘Girmityas’.
This migration story began in the 1850s with British plantation agents looking for poor people from areas near the port. So a majority of them came from Calcutta and from what is now called Jharkhand. They took poor people irrespective of their skills in agriculture. The conditions on the ships were terrible and in most cases, half the people would die due to disease and other things before the ships hit the Caribbean.
So were the mid-1860s a sort of cut-off point in the story?
Yes. Two things happened that changed the story. Conditions on the ships started to get better. They started to consider these labourers as precious resource. Second, the condition in the Bhojpur region must have worsened in terms of problems with the British. The 1857 revolt had ended and the area was being penalised. It was under the new form of land-tenure. So, suddenly, the lands that belonged to a whole family started passing into the hands of elder sons. Therefore, lots of youngsters, younger brothers, started being thrown out of the family land. Famines aggravated matters. The situation was ripe for migrations. That wasn’t something new for the Bhojpur region. During the Mughal era, the “Muglasiyas” used to migrate without their families. The same happened in Trinidad, where lots of single women migrated.
The role of Bhojpuri women in migration is important in other ways too…
Yes. With women came the possibility of continuity, family structures, children reared by ‘Khelaunis’ — a loose version of crèches — which were run by migrants themselves. Therefore, the language that came up was the language of ‘Khelaunis’. Although people were from Awadhi, Nepali and Maithili regions, the language their children learnt was Bhojpuri. And once the language is set down, there is no need for more infusion. People who go there just learn it. That version of Bhojpuri is similar to a large extent to what I see now in India. It was different when I first came to India. People used to show off the variety in the language not knowing that it was nothing but a lack of cohesion. And as it was fragmented, it became a junior partner in coalition with Hindi.
You have said the language is dying. But I don’t see any sadness. Why?
There is a reason. When I started the work I was as passionate as white people who go to a tribal region and become passionate about natives speaking an “interesting language”. I also felt it would be good if languages could be preserved. But then, the entire history of the world is a history of extinctions. After all we wouldn’t have been here if dinosaurs wouldn’t have gone. We need to look into the future. I am sitting here, talking to you in English and being treated seriously. My maali, who comes from the same area, won’t be because he speaks Bhojpuri. Therefore, he has moved on towards a global stream.
That’s why you are judgmental…
We don’t want people to look at us from time to time and smile with nostalgia. The language is dying because it was never associated with the kind of world we were growing in—the world of education, certain empowerment, middle-class and engagement with political power. And therefore among the changes that take place in migrant communities, language is the first casualty. There are migrants who have not changed, like Gypsies. That sounds exotic. Wow! A Rajasthani-based language in a community in Eastern Europe! But look at their condition. They are one of the most criminalised tribes in the world. Millions died in Hitler’s camps and they are on the fringes of society, living by their wits and constantly harassed by police. I think what we have achieved is better than that. We made a big sacrifice of language but much later than similar people in India who became part of the larger Hindi-speaking/writing stream. Learning English is an attempt to engage with the world as equals.
You have said that Bhojpuri is not a dialect of Hindi but a different language altogether.
There are two aspects. From the structural point of view, Bhojpuri falls with Bangla, Oriya, Maithili and other Eastern Indic languages. They have this “Bolbe, jaibe, gail…”, “ego instead of ek”, structure. So it is Eastern-Magadhan-Prakrit-based. From the political point of view, Bhojpuri is under the shadow of Hindi. And because the Hindi belt has ruled for so long and because it captured the literate and middle-class life of that area, they say Bhojpuri is a dialect of Hindi.
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