When eighty-seven passengers and crew died in the shipwreck of the Royal Mail ship Egypt in
1922 the accident gave rise to a racist international press campaign against the employment of
Indian seafarers such as those who made up most of the ship’s crew. This was not unusual at a
time when a fifth of the British mercantile marine’s workforce was recruited from the
subcontinent. Ravi Ahuja explains the business logic behind a labour regime steeped in racist
irrationalism and examines the scope for solidarity among a divided workforce in an age of
imperialism – an issue that is no less relevant in our own time.
