Anthony Ayah’s Passport, Money Laundering & Domestic Servitude

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This photograph shows the Ayahs’ Home in the primary stages of being run by the Foreigner’s Branch Committee of the London City Mission. It demonstrates how the ayahs passed their time while waiting for re-employment, taking up pastimes such as embroidery, reading and participation in organised activities. Image: Public domain. British Library
In the 21st-century, wealthy Indians are the globalised brown sahibs. Their domestic 'servants' represent modern slavery.

On the 16th June 1934, Mr V R Vishwanatha Rao, Secretary to the Government of Madras, Law department, signed a passport bearing the number 11452, issued by the Empire of India. Given at Ootacomand, by order of the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, it read:

These are to request and require in the name of the Viceroy and Governor-General of India all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford her every assistance and protection of which she may stand in need.

The passport holder, a five feet four-inch woman with long black hair and deep black eyes, went on to undertake fifty-four trips between India and England. Her name, as mentioned in her legal document – her passport – is ‘Anthony Ayah.’ But her actual name is Anthony Pereira.

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An image of the passport of ‘Anthony Ayah,’ a woman who is credited with travelling fifty-four times between India and England in the 1930s. Image: British Library



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