The coin commemorates the 170th anniversary of Indian indentured immigration to British Guiana, which began in 1838 following the abolition of slavery when planters, facing acute labor shortages on the sugar estates, lobbied successfully for a system of contract labor drawn primarily from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Between 1838 and 1917, when indenture was finally abolished under pressure from Indian nationalists including Gandhi, roughly 239,000 Indians arrived in the colony under contracts binding them to estates for fixed terms at controlled wages — conditions critics at the time compared directly to the institution they had replaced.
The coin commemorates the 170th anniversary of Indian indentured immigration to British Guiana, which began in 1838 following the abolition of slavery when planters, facing acute labor shortages on the sugar estates, lobbied successfully for a system of contract labor drawn primarily from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Between 1838 and 1917, when indenture was finally abolished under pressure from Indian nationalists including Gandhi, roughly 239,000 Indians arrived in the colony under contracts binding them to estates for fixed terms at controlled wages — conditions critics at the time compared directly to the institution they had replaced.