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  • Shoe-wallahs, Agra, India
    india-portfolio-3767-merchant.jpg
  • New Delhi, India: Workers dismantle the seating and scaffolding arrangements made for the crowds celebrating India's Republic Day and a visit from US President Barack Obama.
    delhi-3574-merchant.tif
  • Kawakawa, near Labasa, Fiji: Descendants of indentured laborers who came from India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Roop Narayan and Basant Kumar cut sugarcane as members of Gang 12. Colonial-era laws prevent Indo-Fijians from owning land, so they must lease their holdings from native Fijian landlords and work as tenant farmers.
    indiaworld-3693-merchant.jpg
  • Woolgoolga, Australia: Banana grower John Arkan is an elected member of the Coffs Harbor City Council. His grandfather came to this region on the mid-north coast of New South Wales in 1895. Sikhs took up banana farming in the 1940s when mechanization came to the sugarcane industry in Queensland, where many of them had worked as laborers. Today, the Sikh community in Woolgoolga is prosperous, having diversified into blueberries, hydroponic vegetables, and other business ventures.
    indiaworld-2020-merchant.jpg
  • Kawakawa, near Labasa, Fiji: Descendants of indentured laborers who came from India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Roop Narayan and Basant Kumar cut sugarcane as members of Gang 12. Colonial-era laws prevent Indo-Fijians from owning land, so they must lease their holdings from native Fijian landlords and work as tenant farmers.
    indiaworld-fiji-3693-merchant.jpg
  • Kawakawa, near Labasa, Fiji | 2011<br />
Descendants of indentured laborers who came from India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Roop Narayan and Basant Kumar cut sugar cane as members of Gang 12 of the Labasa Mill. Colonial-era laws prevent Indo-Fijians from owning land, so they must lease their holdings from native Fijian landlords and work as tenant farmers.
    indiaworld-3693-merchant.jpg
  • Chennai, India: Preparing the nets at Valmiki Beach.
    india-portfolio-2000-merchant.tif
  • Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Sailors reposition their dhows along the corniche
    indiaworld-0005-merchant.jpg
  • Sharjah, UAE: The MSV Shree Mahalaxmi, a Indian-flagged dhow, with a crew from Gujarat
    indiaworld-23-merchant.jpg
  • Wembley, United Kingdom: The construction of the Shree Sanatan Mandir, a Hindu temple in northwest London, was completed after fourteen years and £16 million, utilizing artisans and laborers from India
    indiaworld-9980-merchant.jpg
  • Durban, South Africa | 2005<br />
A row of houses rises in the township of Phoenix on a former sugar estate near the site of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s Phoenix Settlement, a center of activism and spirituality first developed in 1904. The young London-trained lawyer fought for the rights of Indian laborers in the British colony and articulated his philosophies of non-violent resistance. It was in South Africa that he was first given the title Mahatma (“great soul”). In 1915 Gandhi returned to India to join and eventually lead its independence movement.
    indiaworld-5-merchant-2.jpg
  • Sacramento, California | 2014<br />
Sukhdeep Singh, a member of bhangra troupe Ankhiley Gabroo, performs during halftime for Sikh Appreciation Night at the Sacramento Kings basketball game. Greater Sacramento is home to a large Sikh community that traces its roots to laborers who worked on farms in the Central Valley in the 1920s.
    indiaworld-7041-merchant.jpg
  • Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: The 43-meter statue of Lord Murugan, built in 2006, sits at the base of Batu Caves, a mountaintop complex that houses a collection of temples and shrines first built by Indian laborers in the 1890s
    indiaworld-7088-merchant.jpg
  • Yuba City, California | 2104<br />
Karm Bains is a fourth-generation California farmer, who grows peaches, prunes, walnuts, and almonds. His father, Didar Singh Bains, worked on California farms as a day laborer, saving most of his meager wages and buying land on his way to becoming one of the biggest peach growers in the nation. Sikhs from Punjab first arrived in the early 20th century to work on railroads, sawmills, and in agriculture in Canada. Many settled farther south in California, working first as laborers and then buying and developing land. Today the northern Central Valley is home to a Sikh community that has expanded beyond agriculture and into other forms of business, politics, philanthropy, and the arts.
    indiaworld-4091-merchant.jpg
  • Woolgoolga, Australia | 2011<br />
Sikhs gather for a wedding at the Guru Nanak Temple. Woolgoolga is home to the largest Sikh community in Australia, many of whom are banana growers. Sikhs took up banana farming in Australia in the 1940s when mechanization came to the sugar cane industry in Queensland, where many of them had worked as laborers. Today, the Sikh community in Woolgoolga is prosperous, having diversified into blueberries, hydroponic vegetables, and other business ventures.
    indiaworld-2406-merchant.jpg
  • Mentakab, Malaysia: A British-educated labor lawyer in private practice, A. Sivanesan speaks in temples throughout peninsular Malaysia to raise money for the families of five Hindu activists who were jailed under the Internal Security Act and to encourage Indians and other minorities to stand up for their rights. He later won a seat in parliament as a member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), Malaysia’s largest secular minority party.
    indiaworld-7886-merchant.jpg
  • Abbotsford, Canada | 2012<br />
Sikh women form the core of the blueberry-picking labor force in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver. Often elderly and living in the isolation of suburbia, many look forward to the picking season as an opportunity to spend time with their peers and earn money for their families.
    indiaworld-4877-merchant.jpg
  • Abbotsford, Canada: Sikh women form the core of the blueberry-picking and production labor force in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver.
    indiaworld-4239-merchant.jpg