Scholarship and responsibility as the year of the centenary of the abolition of indentureship ends

Cover of a special publication by Stabroek News in 2017 to mark the centenary of the end of Indian indentureship

The study of indentureship since its establishment in British Guiana in 1838 has two historical landmarks. The end of the process of immigration in 1917, and the time when all contracts were terminated, and the scheme was abolished in January 1920. While the year-long period of observation in 2020 actually marked the abolition, all that is involved in this commemoration is indivisible from the study as a whole.

This is significant because even 100 years later, the independent nation Guyana, as a plural society, has not outgrown the importance, the impact and influence of indentureship and immigration to the cultural and demographic life, the social, political, and economic development of the country.