Environmental and British-rule pressures pushed northeastern Indian peasants into indentured migration

Evidence

This area, the seat of ancient cultures, was overpopulated and economically depressed in the later part of the nineteenth century. The extreme heat in the summer, the floods in the monsoon leading to whole-scale destruction of crops, and the recurrent famines made life difficult under the British rule. Rural indebtedness was appalling and agriculture was “by no means an easy business by which to make a living.” Moreover, the Mutiny-cum-Revolt of 1857 had a disastrous socioeconomic effect on this region. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1145