As the first ever autobiography of an Indian indentured laborer, this book is important in more ways than one. Remarkable fact about this book is that it was originally written out in Devanagari Hindi script, by the Muslim author, first publishd in a Dutch translation and has been translated into English only now, some 33 years after its completion.  

Translators Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, Ellen Bal and Alok Deo Singh have also added an introductions in which they place the autobiography in its Indian and Surinamese colonial contexts. The final outcome should interest students of the Indian Diaspora, labor historians and other social scientists as well as the reader interested in colonial and sub-altern history; transnational migration, and issues of religion and communalism.

Coming to the narrative itself, first of all, it chronicles the legacy of an Indian migrant to Surinam in his own words. Though it is estimated that over one and a half million Indians went overseas to earn a living as indentured workers in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries to Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific islands and, yet, there are no first person accounts of those early Indian immigrants.

Secondly, our subject Munshi Rahman Khan (1874-1972) was an unusual migrant. A poet, writer and ‘vidwan’ ((a learned man), he kept a detailed and fascinating account of his life's experiences in the form of a diary. Because there is almost no written information available that describes first hand the lives of the first generation of Indian indentured laborers in Surinam or, for that matter, anywhere else, this autobiography is of historic significance.

In his narrative, the authors tells his readers as to how he was lured into an all-expenses-paid journey by ship to ‘Srîrãm tãpû’ (that became ‘Surinam’ in the Dutch records) by two polite-looking government recruiting agents, while he stood on the canal bridge in the city of Kanpur, just over a century ago. It is a fascinating story of temptation leading a saintly soul to abandonment of his roots and his launching into a new adventure, commonly known as ‘economic betterment’.

Rahman Khan, a Muslim pathãn, was 24 years old when he left for Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam. At the age of 67, he completed his autobiography, entitled Jeevan Prakash, in which he connects India, the land of his birth, with Surinam, the country he entered as a contract laborer and where he later rose to become a plantation overseer and a teacher of Hindi and Hinduism, got married and was blessed with five sons and two daughters.

Born in Hamirpur in Uttar Pradesh, (in the then United Provinces) Rahman Khan studied up to middle school and became a teacher (munshi) in a government school but his restless and inquiring spirit took him to Kanpur to see the famed Ramlila in the city. There he met two recruiters who offered him a supervisory job in  Srîrãm Tãpû (now known as Surinam) and he succumbed to their offer.

Khan recorded the vast changes that took place in the lives of the migrants as they embarked on the voyage abroad: He narrates how the indentured migrants learned to live together and how the Hindus dropped their caste inhibitions and practices, and began eating in the common kitchen. His story relates how Indians lived on the plantations, impoverished, enslaved and corralled, their new experiences, the troubles, and the black magic practised in the region.

He came into confrontation with the authorities on the plantation, but his intrinsic abilities came to be recognized and he was offered the position of Sardar of the workers. Among the Indian workers, he was regarded as a Pandit and, though a Muslim, his knowledge of the Ramayana made him a popular teacher in Surinam.

A few years later, the Arya Samaj preachers led a boycott of the Muslims, which put an end to the close social and cultural contacts that had existed within the Indian community. It was a difficult time for the author for he was no longer welcomed as a `vidwan' among the Hindus. Nobody asked him to recite the Vedas anymore. .

The autobiography is divided into four sections: The first deals with his life in village Bharkhari, Hamirpur district in the United Provinces till his departure to Surinam; the second is about his experiences under indenture; the third is about making a living in Surinam. The fourth section is shorter and deals with a painful period for the Indian community and Khan personally. Some Arya-Samaji preachers stepped in, in 1929, and launched a boycott of the Muslims, thus destroying the socio-cultural intercourse within the Indian community there. It lead to the breakdown of  harmony forged during the indenture days. The common language and social norms that the early migrants had evolved and shared was rendered waste by the later arrivals, who brought in, with them, the awareness of differences that were raising their head between the Hindus and the Muslims, even between Arya samaj and Sanatan-Dharma traditions, in India.

Hindus and Muslims to him were the two hands of mother India. He wrote: "Dui jati bharata se aye, Hindu Musalmana Kahalaye, Rahi priti donom maim bhari, jaise dui bandhu eka mehatari “ (Doha Siksavali, 1953). Two communities came from India (to Surinam), they were called Hindus and Muslims; between them existed an intense love, as that between two brothers born of the same mother.

Rahman Khan’s narrative is absolutely simple, even naïve and totally shorn any pretense of being ‘smarter’ than those others he travelled with, to his new domain. He tells us—“The clock of the bazaar (Parade grounds vicinity in Kanpur) indicated that it was 7 o'clock. While I was standing on the bridge of the canal and looking at the water, two Muslims, who later proved to be money-minded devils, came to me. Thinking them to be sympathetic gentlemen, I greeted them. Because they were wearing clean and fine dresses, they were looking nice. They replied my greetings and asked me from where I was coming. I said, ‘I am coming from an inn (sarai) of the Parade grounds’. Then they asked me where I was going. I told them, by the train of 8 o'clock I am going to Chandpur ...They asked again, ‘We would like you to have a job,?’ I said, ‘What kind of job?’ They said it is a government job. Then they asked, ‘Are you educated?’ I said, ‘Yes. I have passed the middle school’.

Later on, having said ‘yes’ to the Magistrate about his contractual arrangement and then being corralled  in a courtyard with his fellow-travellers, he seems to have become aware that he has been trapped: I just forgot my own self, got separated from my own family and fell into the trap of my luck. I thought in my heart that these people were rightly telling all these things for my welfare. Because a salary of 12 Annas per day becomes 24 Rupees a month in India. To get such a high salary at this time was very difficult. Come on. let me take this job and experience it. Further let me see what will happen. If the registration in the government is realised then every thing will be alright. There will not be any risk in getting the salary. Having thought so shortsightedly I told them, ‘Alright, let us move, let me first see it’. As soon as I had said so they both accompanied me while keeping my mind busy with big attractive plans. They took me across the canal to the depot of Babu Ram Narain Singh. At that time Babu Sahib was in the house (Depot). First all those three persons talked very seriously, then they called me inside. And having taken me into the courtyard they showed me the collected recruited men and women and said, ‘Please ,see all these people, they will be going with you. And this Babu who is a government employee will get you registered at the court sitting of Magistrate Sahib Bahadur’.

had banished me forever from Hindustan. It was sad and very sad" (Part I, Chapter 17, pp 128-130).

On 13 April 1898, after three months of stay in the sub-depot in Kanpur and the Depot in Calcutta, and 3 more months in the sea voyage, the steamship AVON with a cargo of 618 emigrants, including Munshi Rahman Khan, anchored near the fort of New Amsterdam in Surinam….Well, the rest is history. Srîrãm Tãpû had become Surinam.

Hindus and Muslims to him were the two hands of mother India. He wrote: "Dui jati bharata se aye, Hindu Musalmana Kahalaye, Rahi priti donom maim bhari, jaise dui bandhu eka mehatari “ (Doha Siksavali, 1953). Two communities came from India (to Surinam), they were called Hindus and Muslims; between them existed an intense love, as that between two brothers born of the same mother.