Kala Pani Crossings #4: Jahaji bhai / Jahaji behen: Fraught Legacies, New Kinships, Reimagined Solidarities
Kala Pani Crossings #4:
Jahaji bhai / Jahaji behen: Fraught Legacies, New Kinships, Reimagined Solidarities
Institut Français de Pondicherry / French Institute of Pondicherry
in partnership with EMMA (University of Montpellier Paul-Valéry),
IHRIM (ENS-Lyon, France), VALE (Sorbonne University)
& DIRE and LCF (University of Reunion Island)
Dates: February 16-17, 2027
Venue: IFP (French Institute of Pondicherry)
Languages: English & French
Deadline for submitting proposals: May 15, 2026
Notification of acceptance: June 15, 2026
The academic cycle of events ‘Kala Pani Crossings’ seeks to interrogate the 19th century migrations from India during which over one million Indians were transported between 1834 and 1917 to sugar colonies under the system of indentured labour in order to meet the demand for cheap, unskilled labour after the abolition of Atlantic slavery in 1833. Substantial work has been produced over the past 30 years by scholars in the Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, Reunion Island, South Africa, etc., gradually granting more visibility to the field. Yet, it is a chapter that has long struggled to be included within the framework of Indian history.
This conference seeks to build on the previous events part of this cycle. Symposium #1 ‘Kala Pani Crossings: India in Conversation’ (IIAS, Shimla, Sept 2019) had meant to interrogate the relative absence from the historiography of those 19th century migrations from India to Fiji, Mauritius, Reunion and the Caribbean, from the perspective of India, suggesting new understandings of the relationship between India and its post-indenture diaspora. Symposium #2 ‘Diaspora and Gender across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans’ (University of Pondicherry, Feb 2020) had been interested in exploring the intersections of diaspora and gender within the diasporic and Indian imagination, while Symposium #3 ‘Across the Oceans: Post-Indentureship Trans-Oceanic Transformations’ (French Institute of Pondicherry, Feb 2024) endeavoured to widen the scope in space and time, and include countries such as South Africa, Malaysia or Indonesia, as well as other kinds of labour recruitment and organisations such as the kangani system in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, or even the more recent migrations towards the Gulf countries under the kafala system. The research presented in these academic events is reflected in the publications that emerged from these three academic events: Kala Pani Crossings: Revisiting 19th century Migrations from India’s Perspective (Routledge 2021); Kala Pani Crossings, Gender and Diaspora: Indian Perspectives (Routledge 2023), and Kala Pani Crossings: Stretching the Boundaries (Routledge forthcoming 2026).
The focus this time will be placed on the figure, the history, and the concept of jahaji bhai/behen and, more particularly, on its representations as well as its fraught post-indenture legacies. We are interested in engaging with the contemporary labour regimes and the precarious, gendered patterns of migration they produce: to what extent do these regimes reproduce Kala Pani inherited models in terms of everyday labour and migration patterns?
How has this ‘brotherhood’ and ‘sisterhood’ of the boat structured the imaginaries of indentureship and post-indentureship? How has it evolved beyond the end of the indenture period in 1920, a century later? What literary and artistic creations has it contributed to shape? How can we perceive the echoes of the voices of brothers and sisters of the boat in the period we are living in? How has it given birth to a new form of family beyond one’s biological family, determined by blood, place and caste? What solidarities have they taught us? How do these solidarities still intersect across oceans and generations, in India and in the diaspora?
As the trans-oceanic labour migrations have morphed into many different avatars in the 21st century, this Kala Pani #4 conference seeks to raise the question of the legacy of indentureship and of its historiography through the figure, the history, and concept of jahaji bhai/behen, to explore similarities and divergences between patterns of labour migrations.
This is a non-exhaustive list of what it aims to study:
- the legacy of the inter-racial and inter-caste conflicts and solidarities in the indenture and post-indenture colonies, and their representations in the cultural productions;
- from the depots in Calcutta or Pondicherry, past and present networks of solidarities;
- the social relations and friendships developed on the ships;
- new migrations and labour regimes, new solidarities and models of resistance, and how they echo indenture;
- labour regimes; labour unions and labour networks in India and in the diaspora; precarity; resistance; political friendships; forms of victimhood vs forms of agency;
- creation of new solidarities and networks of resistance through political, religious and industrial action;
- literature and the arts as new spaces of solidarities and resistances;
- experiences of conviviality; inter-race, inter-class and inter-caste togetherness;
- modalities of kinship, filiation and affiliation;
- how visual artists, musicians, writers, film makers, playwrights etc. complicate and enrich the representations of the relationships that are developed across migrations, from the diaspora and / or from India; relationship of such to race, class, caste, gender and region;
- the role of memory and post-memory in literary, folk and artistic creations, particularly when it comes to the figure of the jahaji bhai/behen;
- what it can mean for contemporary India to look at the dynamics of racial and cultural formations in the diaspora, and to learn about the alternatives to norms of gender, patriarchy, class and caste;
- feminist assertions of female solidarities and kinship on and outside the plantation;
- how the figure of the jahaji bhai/behen can be an inspiration in the Indian context and in the context of 21st century migrations from India;
- how fruitful it would be to make comparisons between trans-oceanic and internal migrations within the Indian sub-continent, especially as regards folk and artistic productions written about indentured labourers or internal migrants (movies, folk stories, songs etc);
- how the traditional definitions of Indianness, gender, and caste were reshaped along the migratory routes through the figure of the jahaji bhai/behen, as well as the impact such a reshaping had, if any, on the subcontinent in the 21st century;
- the return migration and how the solidarity networks were undermined or even potentially damaged beyond repair;
- what connections, dialogues, and solidarities can be conceived today in the arts, culture and politics, that echo past solidarities created through indentureship.
We invite contributors to send their proposals (a 250-word abstract, title, author’s name, a 150-word bio, and contact information) to the co-convenors’ Kala Pani email address: kalapanipondicherry2027@gmail.com
It is to be noted that the conference will be an in-person event only. Speakers will be expected to find their own funding for travel and accommodation.
To know more about the Kala Pani Crossings cycle:
Co-organisers
Dr Jenni Balasubramanian, Department of French, Tagore Government Arts and Science College, Pondicherry
Dr Rémi de Bercegol, Head of Social Sciences, IFP, Pondicherry
Dr Nandini Dhar, Adamas University, Kolkata
Prof Vanessa Guignery, IHRIM, ENS-Lyon
Scientific committee
Dr Lawrence Aje, DIRE, University of Reunion Island, St Denis de La Réunion
Dr Jaine Chemmachery, VALE, Sorbonne University, Paris
Dr Nandini Dhar, Adamas University, Kolkata
Dr Valérie Magdelaine-Andriajafitrimo, LCF, University of Reunion Island, St Denis de La Réunion
Conveners:
Prof Judith Misrahi-Barak, EMMA, University of Montpellier Paul-Valery
Prof Alexis Tadié, VALE, Sorbonne University, Paris