the word COOLY

The words "cooly" and "native" acquired derogatory connotations as the winds of change swept across the world after the second world war but they were not used in a pejorative sense in the last century. Hobson-Jobson has a lengthy description of "cooly". it begins its definition with "A hired labourer or burden carrier and in modern days especially a lobourer induced to emigrate from india or from china to lobour in the plantation of Mauritius,Reunion,or the west indies, sometimes under circumstances, especially in french colonies, very near to slavery...". the long description ends with "The familiar use of cooly has extended to the straits settlements, Java and China, as well as to all tropical and sub-tropical colonies, Whether English or foreign." Among the coffee planters and officials of the last century "cooly" was simply the word for a worker , or lobourer, and there are even affectionate references to coolies in the proceedings of the planters Association which wasthe parliament of the coffee planter and later the tea planters."The coolies (god bless them..., " said Alexander Brown in a speech in which he referred to the pre-railway days when the coolies were not only engaged in the growing, harvesting and processing of coffee but were also beasts of burden in carrying bags of coffee to roads several miles away. It was around the period of the second world war that there was sensitivity over the use of the word "cooly". In 1942 when Mr.justice (later sir Frances) soertsz, a Ceylonese supreme court judge, was presiding at a trial in which six estate workers were charged with the murder of a tea planter, C.A.G.pope, he used the word "cooly" in his address to the jury but immediately apologised for its use and asked them to consider the use of the word as withdrawn. He thereafter referred to the six accunsed as estate labourers. The use of such words however dies hard. As recently as in the late 1970s when the India international centre organized a seminar on overses Indians and their relationship with india, some of thespeakers referred to their fellow countrymen abroad as COOLY