The affection was not sentimental. Andrews turned his energies on the ugliest machinery of empire, the indenture system, a form of debt bondage that had carried some 3.5 million Indians to plantations across the colonies. Sent to Fiji in 1915 to investigate, he walked the estates, questioned the labourers and their overseers, and came home to campaign relentlessly against what he called a vile system. He pressed ministers, wrote, argued and would not let the matter rest until indenture was ended. Gandhi and his students at St Stephen’s gave him the name that stuck, Deenabandhu, friend of the poor. He also joined the Vaikom Satyagraha against untouchability, and in 1933 helped B.R. Ambedkar frame the demands of the Dalits.
