Ethnic Identities as Resistance: East Indian Migrants, Labor, and Politics in British Guyana

Guyana (formerly British Guiana) offers a unique setting within which a collective identity of “East Indianness” developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to, in many ways, survive the harshness of the indentureship period (1838-1917). This ethnic identity played a key role in the resistance of colonialism, economic exploitation, and religious indoctrination. The formation of this identity occurred through social, religious, and labour organizations that developed. Drawing on records of ethnic groups, labour organizations and religious groups, this paper will show that the gatherings of these organizations offered social spaces where anti-colonial, nationalist sentiments bred. These meetings then led to the development of trade unions, the rise of nationalism, and the assertion of colonial independence. However, this study will also show that an unfortunate effect of the rise of ethnic identities (Indian nationalism and pan-Africanism especially) was the racialized development of nationalism and the resulting racial fragmentation that accompanied decolonization.