Indian Slavery Act, 1843

The Indian Slavery Act, 1843 (Act V of 1843), was an act passed in British India under East India Company rule, which outlawed many economic transactions associated with slavery.

The act states how the sale of any person as a slave was banned, and anyone buying or selling slaves would be prosecuted under the law, the offence carrying a strict punishment.

Implementation and effect

Some East India Company officials opposed the act, citing Hindu and Muslim customs and maintaining the fact that the act would be seen as interference in traditional social structures. Evangelical politicians who had led successful slavery abolition campaigns in the West Indies prevailed and the Act was implemented.

Historians are divided on whether the Act was able to exclude caste and slavery. The condition of workers in tea plantations in Tamil Nadu and Assam were compared to that of African, West Indian counterparts who worked in sugar plantations. Lack of alternatives meant tea plantation workers had become indentured labourers despite the Act, which historian Amalendu Guha maintained was a new form of slavery.

A 1996 Human Rights Watch report refers to Manjari Dingwaney's book, Unredeemed Promises: The Law and Servitude, and states:

Text

See also

• Abolition of slavery timeline
• Indian indenture system
• Slavery Abolition Act 1833
• Slavery in India

References

Further reading

• Bric, Maurice J. (2016) "Debating empire and slavery: Ireland and British India, 1820–1845." Slavery & Abolition 37.3 (2016): 561–577.
• Hjejle, Benedicte. (1967) "Slavery and agricultural bondage in South India in the nineteenth century." Scandinavian Economic History Review 15.1–2 (1967): 71–126. online
• Leonard, Zak. (2020) "‘A Blot on English Justice’: India reformism and the rhetoric of virtual slavery." Modern Asian Studies 1-46. online
• Scarr, D. (1998) Slaving and Slavery in the Indian Ocean. Macmillan, London.

Slavery in the South-Asian Subcontinent