Glancing away from the usual topics in Amrika, Britain, Canada and the Subcontinent–long before Microsoft was filling out H1-B forms, and even before Sputnik inspired the 1965 Immigration and Nationalization Act*, indentured laborers were crossing from South Asia to South America. At the age of 24 Munshi Raman Khan brought with him a love of all things Indian, particularly the Ramayan, on which he lectured the children of his Hindu brethren. Why do I have a feeling this guy could have had a great blog if he was around today?<\/p>\n\n
At age 24, Rehman M. Khan (1874-1972), a young Pathan arrived in Suriname in 1898 on the steamship Avon<\/strong>. . . .this young Khan knew the Qur’an as well as the Ramayana very well. He soon became popular in his plantation and among the surrounding Indians of the other plantations as a Ramayan specialist<\/strong>. He started propagating the Ramayana ideology<\/strong> and taught Hindi to the children of the Indian community. . . .there are many manuscripts available which he wrote in Suriname dealing with the Muslim problems in Suriname, the language issues and his own biography in four volumes.<\/strong> Coming from a middle class Pathan family, Khan was very educated. His knowledge of Urdu and Hindi helped his literary prose. He was also a poet and could compose poetry in standard Hindi “with a flavour of Braj”. . .He used his knowledge to educate the Hindu and Muslim community and to reconstruct the “Indian identity”.<\/strong> Khan kept in touch with India constantly and was also craving for news from his homeland<\/strong>. (Link<\/a>.)<\/blockquote>\n\nKhan wrote an autobiography, apparently in Hindi or a related dialect, that was previously only translated into Dutch. (According to one review in The Hindu<\/em><\/a>, he was even knighted by the Dutch Queen Juliana for his merits.) A translation into English has been popping up in reviews in The Hindu<\/em>, IndoLINK<\/em><\/a>, and The Tribune<\/a><\/em>. The Autobiography of an Indian Indentured Laborer<\/em>, by Munshi Rahman Khan, looks to be a fairly new release and seems available for purchase in dollars from Bagchee<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n
*Of which we sadly missed the 40th anniversary<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Glancing away from the usual topics in Amrika, Britain, Canada and the Subcontinent–long before Microsoft was filling out H1-B forms, and even before Sputnik inspired the 1965 Immigration and Nationalization Act*, indentured laborers were crossing from South Asia to South America. At the … Continue reading