Mission
The kalapaniacademia.com is a popular science website beyond British Indian indentured servants, who were transferred from India during European colonization as plantation workers across wild oceans to various parts of the world. In it, scientific knowledge is simplified and didactically built up so that complex subjects still reach broad layers of the population as fully as possible. The mission is to make scientific information clear to a large audience through digital media and lectures. The central topic is the transoceanic movement of more than 1.2 million British Indian indentured servants to countries on different continents in colonial times. They are referred to as girmityas. Many girmityas experienced the months-long transoceanic crossing under appalling conditions as a traumatic journey overseas, the black-waters: the ‘kalapani’. Globally this concept became a common phenomenon that connects emotionally the descendants of more than 1.2 million indentured labourers with their relatives in India. Their narratives were orally passed on from generation to generation. Unfortunately, that legacy is not well preserved. This website wants to offer a platform to all those who like to share and increase personal knowledge about their ancestors and their family history in contemporary diasporic countries. Launching the website is an initiative of Dr. Shardhanand Harinandan Singh, who was inspired by his children and grandchildren, all living in the Netherlands. He himself belongs to the third generation of girmityas in Suriname. Articles on this website are divided into several categories.
Purpose
The kalapaniacademia.com is a popular science website beyond British Indian indentured servants, who were transferred from India during European colonization as plantation workers across wild oceans to various parts of the world. In it, scientific knowledge is simplified and didactically built up so that complex subjects still reach broad layers of the population as fully as possible. The mission is to make scientific information clear to a large audience through digital media and lectures. The central topic is the transoceanic movement of more than 1.2 million British Indian indentured servants to countries on different continents in colonial times. They are referred to as girmityas. Many girmityas experienced the months-long transoceanic crossing under appalling conditions as a traumatic journey overseas, so called the black-waters: the ‘kalapani’. Globally this concept became a common phenomenon that connects emotionally the descendants of more than 1.2 million indentured labours with their relatives in India. Their narratives were orally passed on from generation to generation. Unfortunately, that legacy is not well preserved. This website wants to offer a platform to all those who like to share and increase personal knowledge about their ancestors and own family history in contemporary diasporic countries. Launching the website is an initiative of Dr. Shardhanand Harinandan Singh who was inspired by his children and grandchildren, all living in the Netherlands. He himself belongs to the third generation of girmityas in Suriname. Articles on this website are divided into several categories.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Social Sciences | Psychology | Sociology | Education