Dr Kalathmika Natarajan, a Lecturer in Modern South Asian History at the University of Exeter, recently sat down for a Forum interview to discuss her exciting new book, Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy: Caste, Class, and Indenture Abroad, 1914-67 (London: Hurst, 2025 and New York: Oxford University Press, 2026). Dr Natarajan’s CIGH book launch is Wed. Jan. 28 from 3:30-5pm. Click here for further details of the book launch.
- Why did you write this book?
This book began as a PhD thesis at the University of Copenhagen in 2015 – it started off as a doctoral thesis focused on postcolonial ties between Britain and India but thankfully evolved into a larger project that explored the ways in which migration shaped Indian diplomatic history. I wanted to go beyond the overwhelming focus on high politics in this field by drawing on the critical, postcolonial turn in new diplomatic history. This took me to a whole host of archives that made it abundantly clear how Indian diplomacy was irrevocably shaped by the histories and legacies of indenture and labour migration – most evident in the anxieties of caste elites over the figure of the ‘coolie’ migrant. Such a framework helped centre caste as an essential category that shaped Indian imaginations of the international realm and those best suited to traverse it. This also enabled me to write a bottom-up history about how labour migrants shaped diplomacy, rather than simply being recipients and ‘problems’ of diplomacy.
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Imperial & Global Forum 
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