This book examines the role played by institutions, employers, politics and the inventiveness of Tamil migrants themselves in shaping the labour markets instead of theorization the production relations that determined migration. It explores the patterns of migration, occupation, adaptation, causes, correlates, consequences and trends. The volume explains the indentured labour, the mobility of workers and return, poverty and labour migration, colonial policy, the demand for labour work overseas, culture of labourers, status in society and the relationship with the evolving colonial state.

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Free Labour and Coolie Migration under the French from Pondicherry and Karaikal to Mauritius and Reunion and the Social Life of the Tamils in the Colonies, 1729-1883. 3. Indenture Labour Tamil Migrants from Pondicherry and Karaikal to the French West Indies and the Life Style in the Sugar Plantations, 1851-90. 4. Immigration of Tamils from Madras and the Indentured Labour Contracts for Mauritius: Understanding the Lived and Remembered Lives of the Migrants, 1829-90. 5. Migration of Wage Labour Tamils to Ceylon and the Social Life of the Migrants in the Coffee Plantations under the British, 1828-83. 6. Social Life of the Tamil Merchant Migrants, Exiled Convicts and Coolies in Malaya, 1786-1870. 7. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.