Waiting on Empire : A History of Indian Travelling Ayahs in Britain

## Abstract Waiting on Empire: A History of Indian Travelling Ayahs in Britain is a tale of endless negotiations of migrant colonized subjects with powers that inevitably kept them waiting. The expansion of the British Empire facilitated movement across the globe for both the colonizers and the colonized. Waiting focuses on a largely forgotten group: South Asian travelling ayahs (servants and nannies), who travelled between India and Britain, but usually due to the irresponsibility of their employers often found themselves destitute in Britain as they struggled to find their way home to South Asia. Using individual case studies uncovered from a diverse range of archives to highlight the agency and activism of the travelling ayahs as they struggled to assert their rights, this book explores the ways in which travelling ayahs negotiated survival and employment opportunities in precarious conditions, capitalized upon social sympathy amongst sections of the British population, and confronted or collaborated with various British institutions and individuals to demand justice and humane treatment. This work seeks to draw attention to the complexities and nuanced aspects of the experience of waiting and its importance in the lives of those involved in transnational labour flows. This study shows that waiting has not been necessarily characterized only by passivity, inaction, paralysis, or lack of agency; rather, it has also been a zone of active negotiation, a zone of becoming, and a zone of constant action for those who wait and those who engage with them. The expansion of the British Empire facilitated movement across the globe for both the colonizers and the colonized. Waiting on Empire focuses on a largely forgotten group in this story of movement and migration: South Asian travelling ayahs (servants and nannies), who travelled between India and Britain and often found themselves destitute in Britain as they struggled to find their way home to South Asia. Delving into the stories of individual ayahs from a wide range of sources, Arunima Datta illuminates their brave struggle to assert their rights, showing how ayahs negotiated their precarious employment conditions, capitalized on social sympathy amongst some sections of the British population, and confronted or collaborated with various British institutions and individuals to demand justice and humane treatment. In doing so, Datta re-imagines the experience of waiting. Waiting is a recurrent human experience, yet it is often marginalized. It takes a particular form within complex bureaucratized societies in which the marginalized inevitably wait upon those with power over them. Those who wait are often discounted as passive, inactive victims. This book shows that, in spite of their precarious position, the travelling ayahs of the British empire were far from this stereotype. Dedication 6 Acknowledgements 8 Preface 12 Contents 18 List of Illustrations 20 List of Tables 26 Introduction: Mobile Caregivers for the Empire 28 1. Becoming Travelling Ayahs and Supporting the Empire: Historical and Contextual Background 44 2. Waiting in the Heart of Empire: Abandoned Travelling Ayahs and the Contradictions of a Liberal Empire 72 3. Creative Resilience in Crisis: Making Arguments and Evoking Sympathy 92 4. Capitalizing on Waiting: Creative Use of Time by Travelling Ayahs 110 5. Travelling Ayahs and Ayahs’ Homes: Humanitarianism, Evangelism, and Profit 125 6. Travellers’ Tales: Negotiating Waiting in Wars and ‘Exotic’ Spaces 152 Conclusion 172 Profiles of Travelling Ayahs 180 Bibliography 306 Index 314