Coolitude

Coolitude is a term coined by Mauritian poet Khal Torabully to describe the cultural interaction of the Indian or Chinese "coolie" diaspora, and by extension also similar migrations. It refers to a transcultural process, articulating imaginaries and cultures in non-essentialist ways. The intellectual exploration of indenture started in 1989 when Torabully became aware that his personal history was in limbo, as independent Mauritius was still caught in a colonial system of education. The island, a former British colony, taught little of its own history. Indenture or coolie trade was out of focus. He decided to address the "silence of the archives".

Reclaiming History

When Torabully wrote the foundational work of indenture, from a poetological and semiological perspective, he devised a visionary paradigm for coolie trade. Branching out from a sometimes offensive term, "coolie", also used in some spaces as a colonial slur, Torabully coined the word "coolitude" to encompass the "silence of the archives" regarding indenture, elaborating a new vision for this paradigm.

Therefore, the richness of the reclaimed term, which is polysemic, envisages the various meanings and definitions of the term "coolie", so as to go beyond the deviant use of the word by the dominant.

It was thus re-invested with the capacity of imagining beyond mental, cultural, religious or linguistic boundaries or set definitions condemning the coolie to err endlessly in the margins. No one had to be put to shame when the word was used. By doing so, semiologist Torabully was in a way replicating the technique of word coinage of Aimé Césaire, who invented the term "négritude" as the result of an analysis of the situation of the subaltern. It was a means of distorting the one who used the term to suit malignant and derogatory objectives.

Thence, the semiologist, basing his invention on the oceanic centrality of the coolie voyage - the Indian Ocean is thought as a space with the capacity of re-inventing one's identities and as a full character in itself, able to engage in a dialogue with the Atlantic - devised a humanism of diversity in the process, deepening the "jahaji bhai and behen" memory during the crossing on coolie ships. Here, this brotherhood and sisterhood of the voyage is thought as a matrix enabling the migrant to articulate diversities, both inside and outside India. Coolitude goes beyond a poor, restrictive vision of the term coolie.

Using this inclusive insight, coolitude soon developed another definition of the kala pani, the dark seas the coolie crossed, challenging the traditional narrative of a sombre ocean peopled by houglis or monsters. The kala pani aesthetics emerged out of this redefinition. It meant that the sea was no longer to be viewed as a frightening space of the dissolution of one's soul or the end of the cycle of reincarnation for the Hindus. It offered beauties, opportunities, possibilities to conjoin a plural India (the Indias) with various host countries, making one's identity more fluid.

The imaginary of coolitude is clearly archipelic, sea-based, a thalassography, a breakthrough in the history of Indian migrations and Literature. It puts the Indian Ocean in the forefront, relating the mainland and the islands through a revisited version of indenture.

This fluidity inspired a coral poetics to the writer, which he developed as a capacity of articulating bio and cultural diversities. Clearly, while being in the process of laying the foundation of indenture studies though his inclusive vision of indenture, Torabully filled a gap in the academic field as there was no theory prior to his work of deconstruction in the intellectual field. In the process, Torabully made it clear that indenture was not only a page of Indian History, but also of Chinese, Malagasy, African, American, Caribbean and European histories. This forms the praxis of the humanism of diversity of coolitude and the basis of a theory of complexity that relates post colonial, post and transmodern constructions, with a strong element of intercultural negotiations and transculturalism. In 2002, with historian Dr Marina Carter, Torabully co-authored "Coolitude", a reference in indenture studies worldwide. In 2018, the first International Coolitude Festival was held in Guadeloupe. This very first festival of indenture showcased the dialogue between indenture and dialogue which Torabully has developed for more than two decades.

Coolitude and site policies

As early as 1996, the intellectual construction of coolitude interested UNESCO, namely though his former Director, Federico Mayor. The director informed Torabully that his work enriched UNESCO's dialogue of cultures and efforts to promote understanding not only between cultures but also memories and histories. When the Aapravasi Ghat was inscribed in 2006 as a World Heritage site, Torabully was invited to give guidelines to the steering committee. He developed his vision of articulating this very first and only world site dedicated to coolie trade with slavery. The former Director of the Slave Route of UNESCO, Dr Ali Moussa Iye, also called on Torabully to develop his vision so as to prevent concurrence of memories and histories when the Morne Brabant, a UNESCO site dedicated to the symbolism of slavery, was also enlisted as World Heritage Site in 2008. Coolitude had already developed an intellectual and discursive framework so as to relate those two paradigms, contributing to an appeased relationship between two pages of History hitherto separated. It inspired the official stance of the Mauritian government which decided to adopt coolitude's inclusive stance between those two paradims of servile History. Torabully's work continued when in 2015 the Aapravasi Ghat officially contacted him to initiate the International Indenture Labour Route (IIRL). Mahen Utchanah, ex-Energy Minister of Mauritius and Chairman of the Ghat and Raju Mohit, director, entrusted Torabully with this historic mission. Dr Doudou Diene, former Director of UNESCO's routes of dialogue accompanied Torabully though UNESCO's administration with a view of making the IIRL an inclusive route, based on the existing work of coolitude relating slavery and indenture. The premises of the IIRL, inscribed on the agenda of UNESCO in 2016, integrated this vision: the IIRL is an intercultural and intermemorial lane where diversities converge and are not meant to oppose themselves, much in keeping with the humanism of diversity it encourages. The IIRL is still in elaboration.

An innovative field in humanities, the Arts and Literature

Being an innovative exploration of indenture, articulating complexities and diversities, coolitude continues to enable the encoding and decoding of mosaic approaches in diverse intellectual and artistic entreprises.

The trilogy of Amitav Ghosh, for instance, contains the complex codes of Torabully's constructions. The semiologist has also written about the work of V.S. Naipaul, Amal Sewtohul, Nathacha Mouriquand, Shenaz Patel, Barlen Pyamootoo, JMG Leclézio, Marcel Cabon, Malcolm de Chazal, Gandhi, among others, in relation to coolitude. A work by Véronique Bragard also developed a coolitude approach between women writers of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. Shivani Gurunathan also used this conceptual tool to relate indenture worldwide and in Malaysia.

Indeed, as a paradigm born of a history of migrations with a contract (the coolie trade) enriched with transcultural codes, coolitude is a categorization or methodology that is used to analyze or produce narratives in the fields of cultural, historic and memorial negotiations.

It is also a construction which has developed into a dialogue between theories of hybridity, creoleness, indianness and creolization.

Torabully's discourse has articulated poststructuralism, Foucauld, Lacan, Eco, Spivak, Bhabha, Barthes, Deleuze and Guattari, among others, in the intellectual and artistic construction of his pioneering discourse of indenture. It is an angle one often explores in diaspora studies or current identity, globalization or migrational issues.

The academic French Larousse dictionary included coolitude in his 2020-2021 nomenclatura.

See also

References

    Further reading
    • Khal Torabully, Cale d'étoiles-Coolitude (Azalées Editions, La Réunion, 1992)
    • Carter, Marina; Torabully, Khal (2002). Coolitude : an anthology of the Indian labour diaspora. London: Anthem. ISBN 1843310031.
    • Torabully, Khal, Voices from the Aapravasi Ghat - Indentured imaginaries, poetry collection on the coolie route and the fakir's aesthetics, Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund, AGTF, Mauritius,November 2, 2013.
    • Cargohold of Stars, translated by Nancy Carlson, Seagull, Chicago-Calcutta, USA, India, 2021
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