‘Freedom and Whatever that Means: a roundtable discussion on the politics of overseas labour migrations from India between c1833 and 1967’ takes place on 23 October 2025 from 3pm to 6pm at the Graham Wallace Room, Old Building, London School of Economics.

Attendance is in-person or online via Zoom. Please register using the links below. The event is supported by a grant from the Society for the Study of Labour History.

Following the abolition of slavery in 1833, colonial India was the largest supplier of labour not just to the British but also to French and Dutch colonies. Whether as convicts, as indentured workers on five-year contracts, or under debt bondage to intermediary contractors, Indian labourers migrated through different channels both governmental and non-governmental-and in varying forms through the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.

The situation has remained unchanged as India continues to be the most dominant provider of international labour migrants. Given the centrality of India in the global labour market both in the past and the present, this roundtable panel reflects on how ‘freedom’ and ‘free’ labour were defined, contested, and produced both in India and the regions that received Indian labour migrants since the abolition of slavery until the early post-independence period.

Consisting of three academics – Dr Jonathan Connolly, Dr Kalathmika Natrajan, and Dr Purba Hossain, whose recent works look closely at the politics around Indian labour – the panel foregrounds how the meanings of ‘freedom’ and ‘free’ labour continued to shift at different historical junctures and in varying contexts while labour conditions remained unfree and were characterised by social hierarchies such as caste, race, and gender.

Chaired by Professor Joanna Lewis. Discussant, Pritam Singh.

Please register by completing this Google form.

Join the event online.