Colonial depots functioned as sites where workers were disciplined into indentured subjectivity.

Evidence

The depot system involved a system of brokers, agents, and recruiters who worked on behalf of the state to find suitable workers. The depot itself was a waiting station in which the discipline and bodily health of workers was tested via regimented schedules based on colonial epidemiology. By the 1850s, major depots had been created in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay and, soon thereafter, in Lahore and Karachi, and agents were being sent to villages and towns to recruit potential laborers. The state mandated that an emigration agent oversee both the recruiting of laborers and the appointment of recruiters, who were required by law to obtain licenses from the Indian Protector of Emigrants. Until they embarked on their journey to colonial plantations, migrants were housed in the depots, where they were brought into the subjectivity of indenture. As Hugh Tinker (1974, 137) wrote about this moment: ”The labourer was ready to begin the process of becoming an indentured coolie; henceforth he was just one of many human parts in a vast assembly process.” This subject formation revolved around ensuring the health, well-being, and productivity of the labor migrant. Workers were put through a course of inspections, documentation, and disciplining by agents and recruiters (Tinker 1974, 137–42). A variant of this depot system is still used in many sending countries to control the flow of migrant labor. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 472

Categorization

• FICTION: The depot as a site where a person is processed into a docile ‘part of an assembly process’ is a vivid image of bureaucratic dehumanization that could anchor a story.
• QUESTION: How does the modern variant of the depot system in sending countries actually operate today, and who runs it?