Brij V. Lal Prize
Brij V. Lal Prize
Indian Indentureship, Girmit and Gimitiya, and its Legacies
About the Prize
In memory of late Professor Brij V. Lal (1952–2021), the Lal family has established an annual Brij V. Lal Prize of £1000GBP for the best published article in any academic journal covering the broad subject of Indian indentureship, Girmit and Girmitya, and its legacies.
Reflecting Brij’s academic interests and extensive body of publications on this broad subject, this Prize will underscore Brij’s emphasis on originality, academic rigour and in research and writing, as well as a depth of understanding and passion about historical or contemporary lived experience of Girmitiyas living in Indo-African-Caribbean-Pacific countries, and their global diasporic communities.
Call for Submissions and criteria
The 2027 Prize will be awarded for the best article published in a journal the previous year. Submissions comparing Indian indenture with other forms of unfree labour or with other racial categories of indentured labourers will be accepted so long as Indian indenture is integral to the discussion.
There are three categories of awards (there are no shared prizes)
The outright winner (who receives £1000GBP).
Runner-up.
Discretionary provision for a commendation for a historiographic article or a survey article of exceptional quality. This is not expected to be an annual feature; the award will only be made if circumstances warrant.
‘Legacies’ is taken to mean the experiences of the diasporic descendants of the original indentured migrants – in other words, broader diasporic issues of relevance to the general readership of the indenture legacy. Submissions on the ‘twice banished’ or the ‘twice migrants’ (e.g. Fiji and Uganda) are welcome.
The same requirement applies that Indian indenture must be integral to the discussion. In other words, the emphasis has to be on the specific legacies of indenture, not simply something that happened or is happening in a post-indenture Indian community.
Fiction and creative writing are not eligible for submission and neither are book chapters and interviews.
Submissions must be in the English-language.
The judges will privilege conceptually sophisticated submissions as well as empirically-based submissions drawn from rigorous analysis of archival records and/or field observations, and which demonstrate a fine literary sensibility. We strongly encourage submissions that prioritize clarity of expression.
The judging panel places a high premium on readability and intelligibility; articles that are difficult to follow or overly opaque will be at a distinct competitive disadvantage during the evaluation process.
Only articles with a 2026 publication date (i.e. assigned to a specific volume and issue of a journal) are eligible for the 2027 Prize. We cannot accept ‘early view’, ‘first view’, ‘latest article’, ‘OnlineFirst’ or ‘advance access’ essays that remain unassigned to a volume, regardless of their online availability. These can be entered for the 2027 Prize.
Entries can be submitted by the author, or by a third party with the author’s agreement, to bvlprize@gmail.com.
Co-authored articles are welcome. A maximum of two essays published in 2026 may be submitted by the same author.
A PDF of the entry should be provided.
The prize will not be awarded in the (unlikely) event that no entry reaches the required standard.
Closing date of submissions is 31st May 2027. The winning essay and the runner(s) up will be announced on the AGI website (https://ameenagafoorinstitute.org/) on 21st August 2027 to coincide with Brij’s date of birth.
About Professor Brij V. Lal
Brij Vilash Lal was Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University and Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. He taught History at the ANU, the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, the University of the South Pacific and the University of Papua New Guinea. He was a Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, and author of fifteen books and some thirty (co)edited collections on Indo-Fijian indenture, the history and culture of the Indian diaspora and on the history and politics of Fiji. These publications include: Girmitiyas: the origins of the Fiji Indians (1983); Plantation Workers: resistance and accommodation (1993); Chalo Jahaji: on a journey through indenture in Fiji (2000); The Encyclopaedia of the Indian Diaspora (2007); and Girmitiyas: the making of their memory-Keepers from the Indian indentured diaspora (2021). Brij died on 25th December 2021.
The 2026 Results
Winning essay: Ben Jacob, ‘Planting in the Ruins: climate, indentureship and the cultivation of freedom in British Guiana and Mauritius’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 26:2 (2025). https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/968702/pdf
Runner-up: Vandana Saxena and Nithiya Guna Saiaran, ‘Memory and Tradition of the Bhojpuri Diaspora: the socio-cultural aesthetics of Phagwa celebration’, South Asian Diaspora, 17:1 (2025): 135–58.
Commendation for best historiography article: Goolam Vahed, ‘Indentured Labour in South Africa: the evolution in historical writing since the 1970s’, Interventions: international journal of postcolonial studies, 27:2 (2025): 332–50.
The judging panel comprised Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie (University of the Western Cape), Farzana Gounder (University of Fiji) and Doug Munro (University of Queensland / Stout Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington). This is Uma’s final year on the panel. We extend our grateful thanks for her sound judgment and collaborative spirit.
2025 results:
Winning essay: Jamie Banks, ‘“Sterile Citizens” & “Excellent Disbursers”: opium and the representations of indentured migrant consumption in British Guiana and Trinidad’, Slavery & Abolition, 45:2 (2024): 325–41. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/0144039X.2023.2275631?needAccess=true
Highly commended: Sandrine Soukaï, ‘Embodied Performances of (Post-) Indenture: creolization of Indian dance, music and nadrons in Guadeloupe’, Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies, 4:2 (2024): 130–57. https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/jofstudindentleg.4.2.0130
Further honours in Brij’s memory
Another Brij V. Lal Prize, also sponsored by the Lal family, is for the best essay published the previous year in the Hawai`i-based outlet Contemporary Pacific: an interdisciplinary journal. Brij was the foundation editor of Contemporary Pacific. The winners are:
Monica C. LaBriola, ‘Marshallese Women and Oral Traditions: navigating a future for Pacific history’, Contemporary Pacific, 35:1-2 (2023): 32–59.
Matteo Gallo, ‘“Kaneka Is Our Reggae”: the soundtrack of the Kanak political claim’, Contemporary Pacific, 36:1 (2024): 1–33.
Donna Jella Tagaro and Naohiro Nakamura, 'Seeking Peace in Religious Teachings: women's responses to domestic violence in rural Vanuatu', Contemporary Pacific, 37:1 (2025), 1-24.
The Brij V. Lal Memorial Lecture is presented at the Pacific History Association’s biennial conference. The inaugural lecture has been published:
Jacqueline Leckie, ‘Inaugural Brij Lal Memorial Lecture: belonging, and banishment from and in the sea of islands’, Journal of Pacific History, 59:2 (2024): 255–68, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223344.2024.2326270.
‘From Broken Waves to Levelling Wind: Brij V. Lal and the contemporary politics of Fiji’, special issue of Journal of Pacific History, 59:2 (2024): 115–254 (guest editors Jon Fraenkel and Doug Munro).