New Delhi, Oct. 9 -- Nobel Peace Prize winner Navanethem "Navi" Pillay has a connection to India, but it is not the kind one might expect.

The South African human rights lawyer's Indian roots go back generations, to a time when thousands of people were taken from the subcontinent to work on sugar plantations under British colonial rule.

Her grandparents were among those who made the journey, linking her family history to a labour system that shaped the lives of Indians overseas.

Known as girmit, a term derived from the English word "agreement", the Indian indentured labour system was a form of contracted overseas employment that expanded during British colonial rule.

After slavery was abolished across most of the British Empire in 183...