The word girmit encoded both promise and betrayal in migrant workers’ consciousness

Evidence

The term ”Girmit” thus was derived not only from agreement but also from betrayal. The racialized process of recruitment, deception by brokers, indignities of the depot system, hardships and su√ering of plantation life, and corporal punishment were all elements that represented the idea of non-agreement in a hybridized girmit that was transposed into the a√ective being and working bodies of the Girmitiya. In this way, the girmit represented the unknown realities that became a condition of the Girmitiya in an ontological and a√ective formation whose expressions remained rooted in the unspeakable agonies of labor migration (Mishra 2005, 31). Complex forms of worker consciousness continue into the postcolonial period in which the promises of migration are contradicted by the risks and vulnerabilities of the experience of labor diaspora. The indentured Girmitiya, as an embodied consciousness of promise and betrayal, persists in contemporary working-class migrations as an a√ective condition of laborers’ life worlds through the imaginaries of diaspora and exploitation that I discuss more fully in the next chapter. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 488

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the origin and double meaning of ‘Girmit’ — derived from a corruption of ‘agreement’ but carrying betrayal into the affective memory of migrant workers.
• XREF: Echoes the double-edged meaning behind ‘coolie’ and other racialized labor terms; connects to the broader literature on indentured labor and postcolonial migration consciousness.