This book examines the role played by institutions, employers, politics and the inventiveness of Tamil migrants themselves in shaping the labour markets instead of theorization the production relations that determined migration. It explores the patterns of migration, occupation, adaptation, causes, correlates, consequences and trends. The volume explains the indentured labour, the mobility of workers and return, poverty and labour migration, colonial policy, the demand for labour work overseas, culture of labourers, status in society and the relationship with the evolving colonial state.