Listening to this song is a profoundly emotional experience.
This is the first Bhojpuri song which has got 11 singers from 7 different countries catering India, Surinam, Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana and Holland. The singers in the song are Terry Gajraj, Raj Mohan, Ragga Menno, Angel Aruna, Illhaam Ahmdaali, Hemelbesem, Ruksana, Vishwajeet, Arya Nandini, Chhotu Bihari and Munna Singh. While speaking about this song one of the singer from this song Ragga Menno from the Netherlands became so emotional singing 2 lines More Bap dada ki Kahani re Batohiya from this song.
I can’t quite explain why it resonates with me so deeply. This song gives me goosebumps, and I feel like an emotional fool for it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Not many of us may remember “Girmitiya,” a Hindi/Bhojpuri term used to describe indentured laborers. Britain abolished slavery in 1833, followed by the Dutch in 1863 and French in 1848. After the abolition of slavery, a system of indentured labor was established to meet the demand for low-cost manual labor in various colonies of the empires. This system brought laborers from different parts of the world to the colonies on five-year contracts, where they worked on plantations in places like the West Indies, Mauritius, Fiji, and South Africa. They were provided with free travel, food during the voyages, daily wages, and medical facilities.
The promise was that indentured laborers would be free to return home after five years. However, estimates of how many were able to return vary widely, with many unable to do so. Instead, they often acquired land in the colonies and settled there. Over the years, their numbers increased, and as the colonies gained independence, many descendants of the Girmitiya entered politics and held positions of power in their respective countries.
As a result, we now have a significant Girmitiya diaspora with roots in India.
While browsing the internet, I stumbled upon a page featuring this beautiful, heart-touching song that I could listen to endlessly. The web address is lallarookh.nl.
Incidentally, the Lalla Rookh was the name of the first ship that transported indentured laborers from Calcutta to Surinam in 1873 ten years after the Dutch abolished slavery in Surinam, then a Dutch colony. The name “Lalla Rookh” carries its own poetic history.
Lalla Rookh is a romantic work by Irish poet Thomas Moore, first published in 1817. The title refers to the fictional heroine of the frame tale, depicted as the daughter of the 17th-century Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. It consists of four narrative poems with a connecting tale in prose. The work was a resounding success, and its popularity gave rise to many ships being named “Lalla Rookh” during the 19th century. It also played an instrumental role in making Kashmir (called Cashmere in the poem) a household name in the English-speaking world.[1] The poem remains one of the great works of orientalist poetry and has been regularly adapted into films, musicals, operas, and other media.
From Wikipedia
I would like to express my gratitude to the creators of the web page https://www.lallarookh.nl/batohiya-song-raj-mohan-and-friends/# for bringing back such emotion-filled memories.
The following is a description of the Batohiya song by its creators on the Lalla Rookh website.
This song is a gift from Girmitiya Diaspora on the occasion of Indian independence day 2020.
This Batohiya song was written by Babu Raghubir Narayan from Dahiyawan, Saran, Bihar in 1911. Raghubir babu was an English writer before writing Batohiya. He was a freedom fighter as well. When he met Dr Rajendra Prasad he persuaded him to write in Bhojpuri and for the country. After persuasions from Dr Rajendra Prasad finally, Raghubir Narayan wrote Batohiya Song Sundar subhumi bhaiya bharat ke deshwa.This song was written keeping Indentured labourers Or Girmitiya’s in mind. This song became so famous that it was considered National song for Bihar specially Bhojpuria people. Even when the great Mahatma Gandhi heard this song from Raghubir babu he said it is like Vande Mataram.
The grace of this song crossed the boundaries of the nations and the bhojpuria or purabiya people who went to many countries and labourer on early 1900 were called Girmitiya they took this song as a remembrance of their motherland. This song was the feel of their motherland Bharat. The Batohiya song which depicted India as a heaven on earth and metaphorically portrayed how indentured Indians imagined their home country from the host country. The story is about the lakhs of Indian indentured laborers, who were uprooted from their beloved homeland and sent away to different countries like Mauritius, Surinam, Guyana, Holland, Trinidad, Fiji in hope of better future. These indentured contractual labourers were called girmitiya.
This is the first Bhojpuri song which has got 11 singers from 7 different countries catering India, Surinam, Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana and Holland. The singers in the song are Terry Gajraj, Raj Mohan, Ragga Menno, Angel Aruna, Illhaam Ahmdaali, Hemelbesem, Ruksana, Vishwajeet, Arya Nandini, Chhotu Bihari and Munna Singh. While speaking about this song one of the singer from this song Ragga Menno from the Netherlands became so emotional singing 2 lines More Bap dada ki Kahani re Batohiya from this song.
This song is a gift from Girmitiya Diaspora on the occasion of Indian independence day 2020.
I I recently found links to a two-part YouTube documentary that I had lost. In these videos, the protagonist Aji (Ram Raji) shares her firsthand experience of being kidnapped near her village in Basti district, Uttar Pradesh. She recounts her sea voyage and arrival in Surinam in 1910, her work on the plantations, her marriage, and her later migration to Holland to be with her children and grandchildren. She ultimately passed away in Holland. If you’re interested in learning more about the practices surrounding indentured laborers, I highly recommend watching these videos. The system of indentured labor was abolished in 1920s.
