By Adapa Satyanarayna. Satyanarayana is retired Professor of History at Osmania University. He has published extensively on the social and economic history of modern India with a focus on subaltern history. His most recently published article looks at the Telugu labour diaspora in Southeast Asia.
“Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because the elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie.”
– George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant (1936)
In the words and worlds of George Orwell, the life of a “Coringhee coolie” – and the trival value it possessed – was a brutal emblem of the British colonial order’s racial hierarchies. The Coringhee coolies, as the Telugu-speaking labourers of the early twentieth century were commonly called, entered the colonial lexicon of the Bay of Bengal and beyond through the writings of Orwell and the poetry of Pablo Neruda. As with much of the Anglo-Indian world, the word and its history remain elusive and lost to us today.
This article explores the oceanic journeys of the Coringhee coolies from the Andhra coast to Burma and back. Coringhees were so called after the village, Korangi, on the Coramandel coast just south of Kakinada. This was a port of departure where many Telugu migrants embarked on ships heading across the Bay of Bengal.
The Coringhee coolies have seldom caught the interest of historians and are not popularly remembered today. A key aspect of their migration is that many of these workers, often from Dalit and lower caste backgrounds, leveraged their transregional movement into social mobility in order to acquire greater cultural and intellectual influence in their home districts. It is important to consider the evolution of their migratory circuits, their motivations – and most importantly – the impact of their social mobility on caste dynamics in Andhra.
Crossing the Bay of Bengal: From Korangi to Rangoon
Colonial Burma, 1931 Source: Wikipedia
During the late 19th century, the British empire expanded into Burma and Malaysia. The development of a colonial plantation economy in these regions solicited the large scale emigration of labor from the Coramandel coast of the Madras Presidency. These migrants were generally unskilled labourers and drawn predominantly from the lower rungs of coastal Andhra society.
Burma was commonly known in Telugu records as Suvarnabhoomi. The region was part of broader trade networks across the Bay of Bengal and the Deccan. The Burma Gazetteer tells us that the historical relations between the Andhra coast and Burma go back to a couple of centuries before the birth of Christ.
However, while the Andhra coast had regular trade and cultural contacts with lower Burma during the pre-colonial period, it was only after 1871, with the introduction of the regular fortnightly steamer service, that the number of people crossing the Bay of Bengal from coastal Andhra increased sharply.
Emigration to Burma was essentially a Telugu phenomenon in the Madras Presidency. In fact, most of the emigrants hailed from just three of the northern coastal districts: Ganjam, Visakhapatnam, and Godavari. Migrants from these districts constituted about two-thirds of all South Indians in Burma during the early 20th century.
Northern Telugu Districts, Madras Presidency (1909) Source: Wikipedia
The British India Steam Navigation Company’s steam ships carried emigrants from the ports of Kakinada and Korangi to Rangoon (Yangon). Srinivasa Raghava Iyengar, in his 1893 Memorandum on the Progress of the Madras Presidency noted that “the port of Rangoon can be reached from any one of the northern parts by steamer in a week. The emigrants there find large numbers of their countrymen already at work and they can return to their homes when they please.”
What drove the Coringhee coolies to leave their homes? One major factor was economic opportunity. Wages for untouchables in the Andhra coastal districts were nearly 25 per cent lower than those paid to caste Hindu labourers for similar tasks in British India. This depression of wages was closely tied to caste and also impacted the possibility to improve life circumstances. In many parts of South India, powerful social sanctions prevented low-caste laborers from owning land and left them with little opportunity to escape their oppressive situations.
As Srinivasa Raghava Iyengar’s Memorandum noted, for the “labouring classes” from Kakinada and Korangi, Burma offered an “ample field of labour at high rates of wage.”
Recovering the Lives and Careers of Forgotten Coringhee Coolies
The Burma Census Report of 1931 reports that nearly a quarter of the Indian population in Burma were of Telugu origin. The Telugu castes with the greatest presence in Burma were the Agnikula-Kshatriyas, Setti-Balijas, Tsakalis, Telaga-Naidu-Kapus, Malas, and Madigas. Among them, the Malas can be considered the most numerical. A few upper caste persons belonging to Brahmin, Vaisya-Komati, Reddy, and Kamma castes migrated to Burma for economic opportunity. However, for lower castes workers, emigration also meant escaping social oppression and caste exploitation.
Rangoon docks in early twentieth century, a steamship is visible in the distance Source: Wikipedia
As manual labourers, the Telugus in Burma primarily worked in rickshaw-pulling, paddy fields, rice mills, the port, dockyards, and sweeping and scavenging. Most of this work was done by the lower Shudra castes and Dalits. On the other hand, upper-caste persons worked mostly as professionals, employees, contractors, and traders. Those who claimed Kshatriya status, such as the Setti Balijas and Agnikulas, dominated the docks and mills. Dalit communities like Rellis, Malas, and Pariahs worked mainly as scavengers for the Rangoon municipality.
We can note here that the type of work that the various castes undertook was not significantly different from that in Andhra. However, Burma still offered an avenue for upward mobility. Casual and manual workers could, and did, earn higher wages in agriculture, industry, ports, and docks. They were paid equally according to the amount and type of work done rather than based on hereditary caste status and rank.
Factory workers were well paid when compared to similar employment in India. It has been estimated that manual and unskilled labourers in Burma earned two to three times the wages they would have received in their native villages. For instance, an agricultural male labourer in Andhra districts was paid about 2-3 annas per day, while in Burma the daily wage of a dockworker or rice mill worker was about one rupee, i.e., 16 annas.
The life of Malladi Satyalingam Naickar (1840-1915) personifies the mobility experienced by many Telugu lower-caste workers in Burma. Satyalingam was born in Korangi to an Agnikula-Kshatriya fishing family. He left Korangi on a boat to Rangoon and tried his hand at many jobs. During his time in Burma, he worked as a kalasi (ship worker), a boat-builder, and a maistry (construction worker). Eventually, he became a labor contractor for rice mills and naval yards in the city.
By the time Satyalingam returned to Kakinada, he had grown wealthy enough to become philanthropist. He established charitable trusts, technical schools and colleges, agricultural land trusts, and feeding houses for the poor in places across the Godavari delta. The career of Satyalingam was not an isolated one. Indeed, many similar stories unfolded across the Bay of Bengal.
Vari Bhoomaiah was a resident of Bandapally, a village in today’s Telangana Karimnagar District, and belonged to an agricultural caste called Munnuru Kapu. His life tells the tale of a drastic transformation from bonded labourer to millionaire cultivator.
However, no group experienced more radical opportunity for economic and social mobility from migrating to Burma than those from Dalit communities. We can consider the example of Vundru Tatayya (1850-1930), a Dalit entrepreneur. By the end of his life, he had become a “Dalit Landlord” by acquiring hundreds of acres of land in the Godavari Delta as well as Burma. With his considerable wealth, he sponsored many cultural and political organizations, including special schools for his fellow Dalit community members. Most importantly, he served as a role model and inspiration to later generations of Dalit intellectuals in the fields of education, journalism, and social welfare.
Of course, the transformation in the personal circumstances of these individuals was exceptional in many ways. Broader social changes were not over night and took longer to achieve. Yet we can still notice that these changes did take place and gradually transformed the social and economic dynamics of coastal Andhra.
From Coolie to Contractor: The Maistry System in Burma
In Burma, while the Telugu workers were ubiquitous across major industries, they were directly recruited by the owners of the docks, mills, and shipyards. In order to do this, the industries depended on individuals known as maistries and other labour contractors to recruit workers.
Maistries dominated labour recruitment and supervision in Burma and were therefore a key aspect of the colonial capital-labour relations. A closer look at the structure and function of the maistry system reveals a distinctive caste based arrangement.
Unlike in places like Bihar and Bengal during the early 20th century, the labour contractors, or maistries, were not “outsiders” to rural Andhra but were an integral part of the caste and clan networks of the region. They were thus familiar through caste and kin networks to the workers.
The Burma maistry system was comparable to other labor recruitment systems that flourished in the colonial period. Consider for example the kangani (Malaya) and sirdar and jobber (Bombay), in that they acted as important mediators between the employers and employees.
Cash advances as inducement to migration and debt-bondage were certainly a prominent part of these systems. Maistries were drawn predominantly from Shudra castes like Agnikula Kshatriyas and Kapus.
The career of Satyalingam Naicker, as discussed earlier, is a notable instance of the movement from coolies to contractors. Naicker became a prominent contractor supplying labour to multiple industries across southern Burma. It was an illustration of the fact that migration acted as a lever of social change.
The rise of maistires also represents the expression of entrepreneurial skills among migrant workers as well as economic mobility. However, it is noteworthy that very few maistries belonged to Dalit communities.
The Legacies of the Coringhee Coolies in Andhra
An examination of the cultural and religious life experience of migrant laborers suggests that the oppressed lower castes utilized emigration and its resources to overcome their multiple disabilities at home and challenge the hegemony of higher castes.
A descendant of a Telugu migrant to Burma Source: Author
This newfound awareness of equality and dignity precipitated caste conflicts. The upper castes resented lower caste attempts to overcome subordination. The growing Dalit assertion and articulation in the first half of the 20th century is clear proof of this. It had an important bearing on the growth of identity and liberation movements in Andhra during the pre-independence period.
The lower castes benefitted in more tangible ways as well. In Burma, while a colonial racial order shaped overall social hierarchies, it gave the Coringhee coolies reprieve from the violent and repressive caste discrimination experienced at home that kept the majority from accumulating wealth.
Returnees to Andhra, especially those from lower and Dalit castes began to question and oppose the status quo and caste system. They also played a significant role in social reform movements.
Lower caste and Dalit migrants returned with hard cash and many bought plots of land for cultivation. Land was often the asset of choice for those returning from Burma. It served as both an economic and cultural capital in an agrarian, caste inflected society. Further, many migrant labourers in Burma regularly sent remittances to their families back home in order to clear off debts and purchase agricultural land.
Burma also played an important role in the making of a pan-Telugu cultural identity and gave rise to cross-caste cultural solidarities back in Andhra. Language, kinship-bonds, caste-community affiliation, and ancestral origin also became significant symbols for the construction of a separate Telugu ethnic identity and consciousness. Organizations such as the AndhraMahasabha,Andhra Mahajana Sangham, and Andhra Buddhist Samajam were established mainly for the social upliftment of the Telugu inhabitants in Burma.
Dalit encounters with Buddhism in Burma played an important role in the cultural awakening in Andhra. The Adi-Andhra movement, aDalit dominated movement in colonial Andhra derived both moral and material support from Telugu Burmese immigrant laborers. For instance, Kusuma Dharmanna, Arjun Rao and others solicited support from the Andhra Buddhist Samajam in Burma.
Buddhism’s prominence among the untouchable laborers in Burma owes in no small measure to the lower caste migration to Burma during the turn of the century. The immigrant laborers rejected their low and undignified status accorded to them by Hinduism and embraced Buddhism as an alternative and emancipatory religion.
Revisiting the legacies of the Coringhee Coolies sheds light on a significant but forgotten aspect in the history of caste and the Andhra coast. Many labourers migrated because relatives who had previously been to Burma told them of the high wages obtainable there and assured them that employment could be found there. This contributed to a gradual transformation in Andhra society.
Increased wealth and experience abroad enabled these individuals to acquire greater economic resources and social confidence in challenging local customs and restrictions. Ultimately, many were able to improve their personal and social circumstances while shaking the foundations of caste society in colonial Andhra.
By Adapa Satyanarayna. Satyanarayana is retired Professor of History at Osmania University. He has published extensively on the social and economic history of modern India with a focus on subaltern history. His most recently published article looks at the Telugu labour diaspora in Southeast Asia.
“Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because the elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie.”
– George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant (1936)
In the words and worlds of George Orwell, the life of a “Coringhee coolie” – and the trival value it possessed – was a brutal emblem of the British colonial order’s racial hierarchies. The Coringhee coolies, as the Telugu-speaking labourers of the early twentieth century were commonly called, entered the colonial lexicon of the Bay of Bengal and beyond through the writings of Orwell and the poetry of Pablo Neruda. As with much of the Anglo-Indian world, the word and its history remain elusive and lost to us today.
This article explores the oceanic journeys of the Coringhee coolies from the Andhra coast to Burma and back. Coringhees were so called after the village, Korangi, on the Coramandel coast just south of Kakinada. This was a port of departure where many Telugu migrants embarked on ships heading across the Bay of Bengal.
The Coringhee coolies have seldom caught the interest of historians and are not popularly remembered today. A key aspect of their migration is that many of these workers, often from Dalit and lower caste backgrounds, leveraged their transregional movement into social mobility in order to acquire greater cultural and intellectual influence in their home districts. It is important to consider the evolution of their migratory circuits, their motivations – and most importantly – the impact of their social mobility on caste dynamics in Andhra.
Crossing the Bay of Bengal: From Korangi to Rangoon
Source: Wikipedia
During the late 19th century, the British empire expanded into Burma and Malaysia. The development of a colonial plantation economy in these regions solicited the large scale emigration of labor from the Coramandel coast of the Madras Presidency. These migrants were generally unskilled labourers and drawn predominantly from the lower rungs of coastal Andhra society.
Burma was commonly known in Telugu records as Suvarnabhoomi. The region was part of broader trade networks across the Bay of Bengal and the Deccan. The Burma Gazetteer tells us that the historical relations between the Andhra coast and Burma go back to a couple of centuries before the birth of Christ.
However, while the Andhra coast had regular trade and cultural contacts with lower Burma during the pre-colonial period, it was only after 1871, with the introduction of the regular fortnightly steamer service, that the number of people crossing the Bay of Bengal from coastal Andhra increased sharply.
Emigration to Burma was essentially a Telugu phenomenon in the Madras Presidency. In fact, most of the emigrants hailed from just three of the northern coastal districts: Ganjam, Visakhapatnam, and Godavari. Migrants from these districts constituted about two-thirds of all South Indians in Burma during the early 20th century.
Source: Wikipedia
The British India Steam Navigation Company’s steam ships carried emigrants from the ports of Kakinada and Korangi to Rangoon (Yangon). Srinivasa Raghava Iyengar, in his 1893 Memorandum on the Progress of the Madras Presidency noted that “the port of Rangoon can be reached from any one of the northern parts by steamer in a week. The emigrants there find large numbers of their countrymen already at work and they can return to their homes when they please.”
What drove the Coringhee coolies to leave their homes? One major factor was economic opportunity. Wages for untouchables in the Andhra coastal districts were nearly 25 per cent lower than those paid to caste Hindu labourers for similar tasks in British India. This depression of wages was closely tied to caste and also impacted the possibility to improve life circumstances. In many parts of South India, powerful social sanctions prevented low-caste laborers from owning land and left them with little opportunity to escape their oppressive situations.
As Srinivasa Raghava Iyengar’s Memorandum noted, for the “labouring classes” from Kakinada and Korangi, Burma offered an “ample field of labour at high rates of wage.”
Recovering the Lives and Careers of Forgotten Coringhee Coolies
The Burma Census Report of 1931 reports that nearly a quarter of the Indian population in Burma were of Telugu origin. The Telugu castes with the greatest presence in Burma were the Agnikula-Kshatriyas, Setti-Balijas, Tsakalis, Telaga-Naidu-Kapus, Malas, and Madigas. Among them, the Malas can be considered the most numerical. A few upper caste persons belonging to Brahmin, Vaisya-Komati, Reddy, and Kamma castes migrated to Burma for economic opportunity. However, for lower castes workers, emigration also meant escaping social oppression and caste exploitation.
Source: Wikipedia
As manual labourers, the Telugus in Burma primarily worked in rickshaw-pulling, paddy fields, rice mills, the port, dockyards, and sweeping and scavenging. Most of this work was done by the lower Shudra castes and Dalits. On the other hand, upper-caste persons worked mostly as professionals, employees, contractors, and traders. Those who claimed Kshatriya status, such as the Setti Balijas and Agnikulas, dominated the docks and mills. Dalit communities like Rellis, Malas, and Pariahs worked mainly as scavengers for the Rangoon municipality.
We can note here that the type of work that the various castes undertook was not significantly different from that in Andhra. However, Burma still offered an avenue for upward mobility. Casual and manual workers could, and did, earn higher wages in agriculture, industry, ports, and docks. They were paid equally according to the amount and type of work done rather than based on hereditary caste status and rank.
Factory workers were well paid when compared to similar employment in India. It has been estimated that manual and unskilled labourers in Burma earned two to three times the wages they would have received in their native villages. For instance, an agricultural male labourer in Andhra districts was paid about 2-3 annas per day, while in Burma the daily wage of a dockworker or rice mill worker was about one rupee, i.e., 16 annas.
Source: M.S.N Charities
The life of Malladi Satyalingam Naickar (1840-1915) personifies the mobility experienced by many Telugu lower-caste workers in Burma. Satyalingam was born in Korangi to an Agnikula-Kshatriya fishing family. He left Korangi on a boat to Rangoon and tried his hand at many jobs. During his time in Burma, he worked as a kalasi (ship worker), a boat-builder, and a maistry (construction worker). Eventually, he became a labor contractor for rice mills and naval yards in the city.
By the time Satyalingam returned to Kakinada, he had grown wealthy enough to become philanthropist. He established charitable trusts, technical schools and colleges, agricultural land trusts, and feeding houses for the poor in places across the Godavari delta. The career of Satyalingam was not an isolated one. Indeed, many similar stories unfolded across the Bay of Bengal.
Vari Bhoomaiah was a resident of Bandapally, a village in today’s Telangana Karimnagar District, and belonged to an agricultural caste called Munnuru Kapu. His life tells the tale of a drastic transformation from bonded labourer to millionaire cultivator.
However, no group experienced more radical opportunity for economic and social mobility from migrating to Burma than those from Dalit communities. We can consider the example of Vundru Tatayya (1850-1930), a Dalit entrepreneur. By the end of his life, he had become a “Dalit Landlord” by acquiring hundreds of acres of land in the Godavari Delta as well as Burma. With his considerable wealth, he sponsored many cultural and political organizations, including special schools for his fellow Dalit community members. Most importantly, he served as a role model and inspiration to later generations of Dalit intellectuals in the fields of education, journalism, and social welfare.
Of course, the transformation in the personal circumstances of these individuals was exceptional in many ways. Broader social changes were not over night and took longer to achieve. Yet we can still notice that these changes did take place and gradually transformed the social and economic dynamics of coastal Andhra.
From Coolie to Contractor: The Maistry System in Burma
In Burma, while the Telugu workers were ubiquitous across major industries, they were directly recruited by the owners of the docks, mills, and shipyards. In order to do this, the industries depended on individuals known as maistries and other labour contractors to recruit workers.
Maistries dominated labour recruitment and supervision in Burma and were therefore a key aspect of the colonial capital-labour relations. A closer look at the structure and function of the maistry system reveals a distinctive caste based arrangement.
Unlike in places like Bihar and Bengal during the early 20th century, the labour contractors, or maistries, were not “outsiders” to rural Andhra but were an integral part of the caste and clan networks of the region. They were thus familiar through caste and kin networks to the workers.
The Burma maistry system was comparable to other labor recruitment systems that flourished in the colonial period. Consider for example the kangani (Malaya) and sirdar and jobber (Bombay), in that they acted as important mediators between the employers and employees.
Cash advances as inducement to migration and debt-bondage were certainly a prominent part of these systems. Maistries were drawn predominantly from Shudra castes like Agnikula Kshatriyas and Kapus.
The career of Satyalingam Naicker, as discussed earlier, is a notable instance of the movement from coolies to contractors. Naicker became a prominent contractor supplying labour to multiple industries across southern Burma. It was an illustration of the fact that migration acted as a lever of social change.
The rise of maistires also represents the expression of entrepreneurial skills among migrant workers as well as economic mobility. However, it is noteworthy that very few maistries belonged to Dalit communities.
The Legacies of the Coringhee Coolies in Andhra
An examination of the cultural and religious life experience of migrant laborers suggests that the oppressed lower castes utilized emigration and its resources to overcome their multiple disabilities at home and challenge the hegemony of higher castes.
Source: Author
This newfound awareness of equality and dignity precipitated caste conflicts. The upper castes resented lower caste attempts to overcome subordination. The growing Dalit assertion and articulation in the first half of the 20th century is clear proof of this. It had an important bearing on the growth of identity and liberation movements in Andhra during the pre-independence period.
The lower castes benefitted in more tangible ways as well. In Burma, while a colonial racial order shaped overall social hierarchies, it gave the Coringhee coolies reprieve from the violent and repressive caste discrimination experienced at home that kept the majority from accumulating wealth.
Returnees to Andhra, especially those from lower and Dalit castes began to question and oppose the status quo and caste system. They also played a significant role in social reform movements.
Lower caste and Dalit migrants returned with hard cash and many bought plots of land for cultivation. Land was often the asset of choice for those returning from Burma. It served as both an economic and cultural capital in an agrarian, caste inflected society. Further, many migrant labourers in Burma regularly sent remittances to their families back home in order to clear off debts and purchase agricultural land.
Burma also played an important role in the making of a pan-Telugu cultural identity and gave rise to cross-caste cultural solidarities back in Andhra. Language, kinship-bonds, caste-community affiliation, and ancestral origin also became significant symbols for the construction of a separate Telugu ethnic identity and consciousness. Organizations such as the Andhra Mahasabha, Andhra Mahajana Sangham, and Andhra Buddhist Samajam were established mainly for the social upliftment of the Telugu inhabitants in Burma.
Dalit encounters with Buddhism in Burma played an important role in the cultural awakening in Andhra. The Adi-Andhra movement, a Dalit dominated movement in colonial Andhra derived both moral and material support from Telugu Burmese immigrant laborers. For instance, Kusuma Dharmanna, Arjun Rao and others solicited support from the Andhra Buddhist Samajam in Burma.
Buddhism’s prominence among the untouchable laborers in Burma owes in no small measure to the lower caste migration to Burma during the turn of the century. The immigrant laborers rejected their low and undignified status accorded to them by Hinduism and embraced Buddhism as an alternative and emancipatory religion.
Revisiting the legacies of the Coringhee Coolies sheds light on a significant but forgotten aspect in the history of caste and the Andhra coast. Many labourers migrated because relatives who had previously been to Burma told them of the high wages obtainable there and assured them that employment could be found there. This contributed to a gradual transformation in Andhra society.
Increased wealth and experience abroad enabled these individuals to acquire greater economic resources and social confidence in challenging local customs and restrictions. Ultimately, many were able to improve their personal and social circumstances while shaking the foundations of caste society in colonial Andhra.
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