Indian slaves (indentured labourers) -FOR BRITISH PROFIT


Trinidad and Tobago experienced an influx of tens of thousands of Indians during the nineteenth century. Some Indians came directly from India but many are the descendants of indentured labourers from other Caribbean islands. These originally worked on the sugar plantations and then on the newer plantations which produced cacao, the basis for cocoa and chocolate. The Indians of Trinidad and Tobago are mainly from the Hindi belt in the central north of the country and are ethnically Hindustanis.

‘A Virtual Round the World Voyage’

Many here might recall the Natalee Holloway case of a few years back involving a young US student who disappeared while on a class trip to the island of Aruba, and remember as well the primary suspects,  a Dutch national and two brothers of Indian origin.  Some of you at the time may also have wondered exactly how a population of Indian ancestry wound up living in this region of the Caribbean, where Aruba is located, on the other side of the world from India. Wonder no more.
It is of course much the same story for many other peoples, whether they are called ‘coolies or ‘immigrants’, whether they be non-European or European.  As a general rule they are peoples in a national state of weakness being preyed upon, ‘imported’ by diktat to live amongst other peoples, and having their labor systematically stolen from them, the essence of slavery, in what is euphamistically referred to as ‘cheap labor’.
For almost sixty years, the Nourse Line would primarily engage its oceanic fleet in the transport of cheap labor.   
“The service operated by Nourse Line was a virtual round the world voyage, initially sailing from London for European ports where a general cargo was loaded before heading for Calcutta. After discharging its cargo, a cargo of rice would be back loaded, and her passengers of coolies would embark for the voyage out to the West Indies, Mauritius or Fiji.”

Indian “Coolie” Families
‘Having observed the carriage and possible profits to be gained from the carriage of “Coolies” James Nourse entered into negotiations with the Crown Agents for the Colonies, his proposed service was to be between India and Mauritius, the West Indies and Fiji. Once the contracts were secured James Nourse bought India, an iron barque of 912 tons from Cowie & Company of Liverpool and chartered from T.O. Harrison of London, the Adamant in 1865. By way of explanation, a Coolie was of Indian or Chinese nationality, indentured labourers, who were hired for work in foreign lands, the word Coolie is traceable to a tribe from the West of India known as the Koli. Sadly the term became synonymous with cheap labour and they did in fact replace the African slaves whose use was outlawed in British possessions in 1834. In the main James Nourse’s passengers came from north central and northeastern India though some came from the Tamil and Telugu speaking regions of the south. The terms of contract were that they agreed to work for a defined number of years, five, in one of the colonies and in return they earned return passage but were paid extremely low wages, but, perhaps more importantly, were fed and housed. The Chinese Coolies were employed under exactly the same terms and it should come as no surprise to anyone that this form of indentured labour explains why the Indians and Chinese populate virtually every country in the world.”

Indus

Built: 1866 by Denny and David Rankin, Dumbarton.
Launched 13th of July and completed a week later.
“Between 1866 to 1869 the company built four ships, all to James Nourse’s specifications and all with the carriage of Coolies taken into account, Indus by Denny & Rankin, Jumna & Syria by William Pile and Neva by J.G. Lawrie The carriage of Coolies dictated that for each one and a half registered tons equalled the carriage of one Coolie, later it was measured in covered deck space. The medical requirements of those travelling was monitored by a Surgeon Superintendent, they all had food and water allowances overseen by the ships Purser and both Officers were paid by a capitation grant for those successfully completing the voyage. Two further ships were acquired in 1872/3, Stockbridge, which was bought outright, and Jorawur that remained owned by J. Fleming, 42/64’s and D.K Mair 22/64’s.”
Forth

Built: 1894 by Charles Connell & Co, Glasgow.
Tonnage: 1829 grt, 1713 nt.
Yard No 212.
“The service operated by Nourse Line was a virtual round the world voyage initially sailing from London for European ports where a general cargo was loaded before heading for Calcutta. After discharging its cargo, a cargo of rice would be back loaded, and her passengers of coolies would embark for the voyage out to the West Indies, Mauritius or Fiji. The ships that voyaged to either Mauritius or Fiji would normally then travel to Australia to load coal. Those on the West Indian route after discharging their coolies and cargo would proceed up to the east coast of the United States to load grain or case oil for Europe. Prior to the carriage of case oil Kerosene had been transported aboard sailing ships in wooden casks, this proved not only wasteful of space but also dangerous because of leakage. Various American exporters improved the transport of their oil by packing their product into cases, each case contained two five-gallon tins making it infinitely easier for the recipients to handle and store. The next progressive stage was to fit the sailing ships with large storage tanks placed in their holds leading of course to the eventual building of ships for the sole transportation of oil.
Nourse Line in the eighteen eighties increased the size of its fleet by some fifteen vessels, Allanshaw, The Bruce, Hereford, British Peer and Rhone all of which were second hand, the remainder, new, and all but two being built at the Glasgow yard of Russell & Co.”
GANGES

Courtesy Alex Duncan
Built: 1906 by Charles Connell & Co., Ltd., of Glasgow.[center]Tonnage: 3,475 grt, 2,151 nt, 5,200 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, Triple expansion, 426 NHP, 11.5 knots by D. Rowan & Co. of Glasgow.Launched on the 9th of March 1906, completed in the May 1906, Yard No 303.
“By the early twenties the importance of the carriage of Coolies diminished to be replaced by that of cargoes such as rice and gunnies, gunny is a fabric made from strong course jute fibre more commonly known as sacking, however the company still maintained a return voyage facility for those, by now indentured labour, to return home on leave. The company’s Managing Director, Mr C. A. Hampton died in the November of 1922 and was succeeded by Mr C. Hampton. As with all shipping companies the twenties proved to be something of a retrenching period and it wasn’t until 1928 that Nourse Line commenced to replace its somewhat aging fleet. Three ships were completed between 1928/30, Saugor, Jumna and yet another Ganges”

 

The Burdens of Cooliedom


People always assume because I’m from India that my interest in the Caribbean must lie exclusively in the Indian components of the Caribbean. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’ve been so little interested in matters pertaining to the Indian diaspora that it wasn’t until last month (after 25 years of being here), when I had to write a review essay of Gaiutra Bahadur’s superb Coolie Woman: An Odyssey of Indenture that I really started delving into the history of Indian indentured labour in the Caribbean.
And having done so I’m finding it difficult to avert my gaze. Like myself not many Indians seem familiar with this classic example of subaltern history that is slowly coming to light once again with books like Bahadur’s. Scholars have studied and written on the subject for many years but it takes a book like Coolie Woman to bring the troublesome subject of indenture to the forefront of what I think of as the popular sphere.


Between 1838 and 1917 around half a million Indians were brought to the Caribbean to serve as indentured laborers on three to five year contracts, replacing the loss of free labor after plantation slavery was abolished in the 19th century. Around 238,000 of these laborers were brought to British Guiana to perform the back-breaking work of cultivating sugarcane. For a description of the kind of people who made the journey let’s turn to Rahul Bhattacharya, the writer I mentioned in my last post, from his novel The Sly Company of People Who Care:
MEANWHILE ship upon ship of coolies from India kept coming – and kept coming steadily for almost another eighty years, by which time they outnumbered the Africans in Guyana. It is a forgotten journey; few, even in India, are now aware of it. The history was too minor compared to slavery and the Middle Passage, its damage not so epic. The ships sailed from Calcutta, and a few from Madras. The immigrants were drawn mainly from the peasant population in the Gangetic plains of the United Provinces–modern-day Uttar Pradesh and Bihar–and a minority from the presidencies of Bengal and Madras. They were mostly young and middle-aged, mostly male (which led to the sensation of ‘wife murders’ arising from jealousy), mostly Hindu, and mostly taken from the agricultural castes, lower castes and outcastes. The largest caste groups were the chamars, the lowly leather workers, and the ahirs, the cowherds. What was common to them was the fate they were escaping: the famines and revolts, the poverty and destitution of British India. Making their way, that is, from the mess of one end of empire to another.
Lured by local recruiting agents and their tales about the land of gold, they set out to cross the seas. Crossing the sea: kalapani: this was the great Hindu taboo. It came with a loss of caste, of one’s place in the social order – but also, for the wretched, a liberation. When victuals among the castes spilled and mixed on the stormy waters, when each person was treated by the white man with equal indignity, the curse of being judged by birth was lifted. From here on they could be anything.
In her book Mobilizing India Tejaswini Niranjana  (citing Hugh Tinker) points out that the anti-indenture movement in the early part of the 20th century was Mahatma Gandhi’s first major political intervention in India during which he gave anti-indenture speeches all over the country. Anita Desai records how, ‘It was a shock to Gandhi to find that in South Africa he was considered a “coolie”—in India the word is reserved for a manual laborer, specifically one who carries loads on his head or back. In South Africa the majority of Indians was composed of Tamil, Telugu, and Bihari laborers who had come to Natal on an agreement to serve for five years on the railways, plantations, and coal mines. They were known collectively as “coolies,” and Gandhi was known as a “coolie barrister.”’ It was also the first such campaign fought entirely in India rather than metropolitan Britain. By 1915 it had become a central issue in Indian politics. As Bahadur notes:
The policy made indenture a cause for the nationalists, who saw it as an insult to their dignity and self-respect, an attempt to make Indians permanent coolies in the eyes of the world..indenture offended the pride of Indians by “brand[ing] their whole race in the eyes of the British colonial empire with the stigma of helotry. But this shame over reputations as slaves paled in comparison to their anger over the sullied reputations of their women.
In the review essay I mentioned at the top of this post I dive in-depth into the politics of the struggle over the status and conduct of indentured Indian women, about how Indian nationalists were incensed by the “harlots of empire” even more than the danger of being branded the helots of empire. I had to look up what helot meant actually–an interesting word meaning serfs or slaves–with a history dating back to Spartan times and referring to a subjugated population group from Laconia and Messenia who became state-owned serfs whose job it was to cultivate land to feed and clothe the Spartans. Their status was in-between that of freed people and slaves.

For purposes of this post I want to stick to the other problem that worried Indian nationalists–that of being regarded as “permanent coolies” in the eyes of the world. It was one I found rearing its ugly head unexpectedly and perhaps by mistake when I first posted the link to Bahadur’s Coolie Woman on Facebook. “‘Indian woman’ not ‘Coolie woman’” a well-meaning African-Jamaican friend responded, a bald declaration that crept under my skin and niggled at it. After an inconclusive back and forth during which she firmly maintained that the word “Coolie” was too disrespectful a term to use while I rankled at her presumption in blithely determining the vocabulary a young descendant of indenture was permitted to employ, I snapped something to the effect that the word ‘coolie’ is a living word in India today and is by no means a synonym for its 2 billion strong population.

I’m convinced my Facebook friend didn’t mean to conflate the terms ‘Indian’ and ‘coolie’–and surely if we don’t want to be branded by the word we should demolish the conditions that continue to give it currency in the 21st century, not abroad now but at home–but I realise that the C-word as Bahadur calls it in her book, has a Caribbean history reflected in the discomfort my friend showed when she tried to erase it. In places like Jamaica there were arguments in the local press about what ‘Coolie’ meant and to whom it could be applied  which you can see reflected in the letters to the editor of the Jamaica Gleaner appended above and below.


Laxmi and Ajai Mansingh, colleagues from India who worked at the University of the West Indies, produced a book on the 150th anniversary of the arrival of indentured Indians in Jamaica in which they note:
In Jamaica, the term ‘coolie’ was legally banned in the 1950s because it was used in a derogatory sense for an ethnic minority. This process began when the founder-President of the East India Progressive Society (EJPS), Dr. J. L. Varma, was popularly (but not abusively) referred to as ‘coolie doctor’. The EJPS then moved the government to ban the use of the term.
Now my Facebook friend’s squeamishness at the use of the term ‘Coolie’ becomes clearer. But although laudable I wonder whether banning words or proscribing them ever achieves the desired outcome. Should we be trying to sanitize history or recording it in all its ugliness for the benefit of future generations? Can we ever liberate the word ‘Coolie’ from the unbearable weight of its history if its contemporary namesakes continue to work under the backbreaking conditions they do? These are hard questions for hard times.
This article was first posted on my EPW blog (Economic and Political Weekly, India)



Sunday January 18, 2015

Images of Indentureship

The NCIC wishes to thank Mr. Angelo Bissessarsingh and The Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago for providing us with the photographs and research for this page.
Below you will find some of the most captivating images of Indentureship and East Indian Ancestry in Trinidad and Tobago.
Child Brides, Trinidad 1915
Bal Vivaha, child marriages and betrothals originated in the pre-Mughal era of Indian history as a means of creating a tangible bond between two families. It was practiced in both high and low castes as a means of social interaction. When Indian indentured immigrants began arriving in Trinidad in 1845, this ancient and odd (to Western Eyes) marriage custom was brought wholesale to the island. Children as young as five were often engaged, but in Trinidad, the average range of ages appears to have been 11-15 with a girl of 18 being a veritable old maid. My own great-grandmother, Sookhia Mahabir was married at 14. Since there was a dearth of Indian women in Trinidad, dowries (tilak) were rare. This would be a payment in compensation to the family of the dulaha (groom) by the dulahin's (bride) family. Instead, a bride-price (dahej) was often paid by the dulaha's people in a complete role reversal. Sometimes the dahej and tilak were nominal and comprised a set of lothar and tharia (brassware) or could be quite lavish and include cattle, land, cash and even jewelry. In this monumental photo, two prospective child-brides seem to wait with trepidation, their fate as married women. In some cases, where the families of the girls were poor and needed money, the dulaha could be many years older, sometimes in his 30s, although this occurrence is rare. Normally, daughters younger than 13 stayed with their parents a year or two after marraige before moving in with their husband's family. This foto also shows a complete set of lothar and tharia which could have been part of the dowry. The dearth of extensive jewelry on the young brides seems to suggest that they are of modest means, although their clean and substantial muslin and calico saris do not imply dire poverty. FOOTNOTE: Child brides were often extant among some pretty important Euro-Trini families too. Two of those I know are: 1) Yldefonso De Lima (1864-1927) who founded the Y. De Lima chain of stores in 1888, married his 13 year old sister-in-law after his first wife's death around 1914 or so. He was nearly 50 at the time. 2) Sir Ralph Woodford (Governor of Trinidad 1813-28) was over 40 when he wooed and engaged Soledad, the 15 year old daughter of his solicitor general, Antonio Gomez. He presented her with an expensive silver cruet as a betrothal gift, and planned to marry her the following year (1829) but unfortunately, he took ill and died. I would imagine Soledad was relieved since it was widely rumored in the colony that Woodford was an avid homosexual and his predilection for the company of stalwart young men and nubile lads was well known. His marriage to Soledad was supposed to have been engineered to dispel this notion. As a matter of course, Soledad married a handsome, glib and spendthrift French aristocrat, Roget de Bellouget, who soon squandered his fortune and his wife's inheritance from her wealthy father, died insolvent, and left his poor widow to struggle in genteel poverty until her own death in 1907 at a very great age.
 Wealthy Indian Couple 1899
Although the majority of Indentured coolies were poor, downtrodden masses trying to wrestle a living from the soil, some individuals acquired considerable wealth, either through large scale agriculture or commerce. In San Fernando especially, the Indian merchant was an economic powerhouse as early as the 1880s, when people like Albert Sammy and Janaki Maharaj were considered powerbrokers. This photo shows a typical wealthy couple of the era. The man is taking a pull at a clay hookah which most likely contains a mixture of local tobacco and ganja, which was legally sold through licensed dealers much like a liquor permit. The woman is bedecked with much heavy jewelry particularly a nakphul (nose ring) heavy silver bracelets and a gold-coin haikal, which was a necklace made by soldering gold sovereign coins together. The haikals were primarily made by Y. De Lima and Co. and were manufactured well into the 1930s. Three were known to exist, one being stolen from the National Museum.
Water Buffalo, Central Trinidad 1924
The Asian Water Buffalo was imported into the island in the 1870s as a beast of burden for the vast acreages of sugar cane covering the plains from Caroni to the Naparimas. The animal was also called the bison and hog cattle locally. These docile cattle were immensely strong and unusually adapted to working in swampy conditions where zebu bulls and even hardy mules would founder. Well into the 1970s and 1980s, the occasional bison cart could still be seen lining up at the scales during croptime, drawing a cart loaded with cut canes, cutting a strange and primitive figure among the tractors and trucks. Even today, bison carts still may be seen in places like Barrackpore where a few of these animals survive. The water buffalo provided the genetic stock for the buffalypso, which was a unique hybrid sub-species, engineered by pioneering veterinarian, Dr. Steve Bennett.
Coolie Children
In 1879, an Englishman visiting an estate in Central Trinidad (Felicity) wrote of the children of indentured immigrants resident in the barracks; "The coolie is generally a creature with little or no sense of personal hygiene, but his children are positively filthy little urchins. They reek of excrement and urine, and their oil-soaked locks are teeming with lice and ticks. Few bathe daily, and they are left uneducated although there is a coolie school in the town." While this description sounds harsh, it is not altogether biased. While cleanliness is a big issue for higher castes, many of the Indians who came to Trinidad (1845-1917) were of low, agrarian and sudra (untouchable) castes, a fact which was hidden with name changes when they registered at the immigrant depot on Nelson Island. The barrack-rooms in which they were housed lacked even the most basic sanitary facilities with the canepiece being a toilet and a barrel of water being a bathroom for male and female alike. Children in particular were neglected. Until the coming of the Canadian Mission to the Indians in 1868 under Rev. John Morton, most did not go to school. Male children were expected to begin work as early as five years old, earning 20 cents a day during the rainy season as part of 'grass gangs', assigned tasks in weeding the cane. Girls were expected to stay at home, launder, prepare meals and look after younger siblings. Left to their own devices, the children ignored cleanliness. Lice were a major problem, as most did not bathe with soap, and heads were doused in coconut oil to prevent them 'cactham sick' This photo clearly shows elder children looking after babies. At least two are wearing clothes cut down from the garments of their elders.
Lunchtime 1920
This iconic foto shows a scene that was played out countless times under merciless sun in the canefields of Trinidad during the period of indentureship. Here, the labourers squat on a railway line to take a meal. The looming clouds overhead obscure the light, but this break may have been mid-morning, since cane-cutting often began at 4:00 a.m and earlier to avoid the brunt of the sun. They eat from tin carriers which may have held a bit of roti and aloo, talkaree or maybe dal-bhat (dhal and rice) or khora bhat (pumpkin and rice) there is no shade in the stubbled canefield so the meal must be taken in the open sun. There is a drainage canal in front of the lunching group, and it is possible that after consuming the meal, they would have bathed their brows and hands in the muddy trench and then returned to work.
East Indian Wrestlers circa 1915
Most WWF, WWE, NWA, and WCW fans would know that Indian wrestlers have made significant contributions, namely Tiger Jeet Singh, Tiger Ali Singh, and most recently, The Great Khali. Well in Trinidad, wrestling was a popular entertainment, and was specially marked by the number of Indians who competed. A popular arena was in St. James (then known as Coolie Town) behind a rumshop on the corner of the Western Main Road and Patna St. The matches were often quite intense and sometimes appeared in reports in the POS Gazette. This rare photo shows some rather sorry-looking specimens of gladiators and spectators about to enter into a match. It is interesting to note that two Indian wrestlers later became famous men. The first was Chandericker 'Chanka' Maharaj, who moved in the 1930s from being a well-known grappler to a seat on the City Council of POS. The other luminary was none other than the formidable Bhadase Sagan Maharaj, who sucessfuly pinned the then American Champion, John Gooch in the 1940s. Bhadase's height and good physique put him at an advantage over the 5'9" Gooch.
Cooking the evening meal 1940
This Indian couple is preparing a simple meal. It is a bit of an un-traditional photo since tey are using rather un-traditional utensils, particularly the cast-iron coalpots in place of earthen chulhas. The woman is preparing the ubiquitous sada roti while the man is frying something...perhaps baigan , aloo or plantain. Shortly after the influx of Indian Indentured Coolies as a source of cheap, reliable labour, Trinidad’s Colonial Government under Lord Harris (1846-53) realized that the new arrivals had by necessity, to be fed on foods that they were accustomed to in India otherwise they would suffer malnourishment . Thus, large quantities of Indian food began arriving in the colony. Paddy rice ( Trinidad was already familiar with creole hill rice or red rice thanks to the industry of the ex-American black soldiers of the 1816 Company Villages) , split peas (dhall) , ghee, curry spices, all originally imported exclusively for the Indians, began to find their way into shops and soon formed a foundational part of the national cuisine. For newly arrived indentureds, the estate commissariat was supposed to supply them with food rations and clothing for the first year of their five-year contract. This edict was often ignored, and some unscrupulous planters even deducted the cost of the rations from the pittance paid to the Indians. Strictly speaking, the ration allowance was as followed: For every male over 18 years of age per month: 45lbs. of rice, 9lbs. dhall, ¼ gallon ghee or coconut oil, 1 ½ lbs. salt, 6 lbs saltfish, 2lbs onions and chillies. Annual endowments: 1 small iron cooking pot, 2 cotton shirts, 2 dock trousers, 1 woolen cap, 1 felt hat, 1 woolen cloth jacket, 2 woolen blankets. Women and children received half the rations of men. A woman’s clothing allowance was also allotted, comprising cotton slips, woolen skirts, handkerchiefs, and blankets. Most estates allowed the Indians provision grounds to supplement the rations, but the mighty Woodford Lodge did not as they squeezed every stalk of cane from its lands. At the depot for incoming Indians (up to 1917) at Nelson Island, provisions for the transients ( who were detained several days for medical inspection before assignment to estates) consisted of rice, pumpkin, live mutton and chapattis.
Croptime 1899
In this photo from 1899, in an unnamed Trinidad canefield, a timeless scene is depicted.....the white overseer astride his horse, while the servile indentured Indian labourers stand sheepishly off to one side…cut canes are being loaded on carts for transit to the usine where they will be processed into sugar. In the canefields of 19th century Trinidad, especially in the Naparimas, the vast majority of overseers were Scottish with a smaller number of Irishmen. They were largely young men of little or no formal education who would normally have few prospects in the UK, and so were sent out to the colonies to act as the intermediary between the labourers and the owners of these estates who were largely absentee British landlords. The overseers, particularly the Scots, were Protestant to a man. Many died soon after arrival, the combination of tropical diseases and cheap booze being too much for them. The English administrative elite and the native French Creoles looked down on these hardy Highlanders as boorish and crude. Indeed, the Indians felt the brunt of their tempers, for even though corporal punishment of a labourer was punishable by law, many overseers took delight in a few well placed bootings and clandestine horsewhippings to keep the coolies in line.Many Scots overseers kept mistresses, particulalry among the Indian women under their supervision. In fact, an entire sub-ethnicity of fair-skinned, grey eyed Indians was created from these unions which were the norm rather than the exception. These bastard offspring stood out in the short, dark throngs of their mothers' countrymen. One way for a cuckolded Indian husband to explain how his wife had given birth to a white child was to say that one had ancestry in Kashmir where the Indians are tall and light skinned, and that the colour was just passing down having skipped several generations. Indeed, Rev. Harvey Morton, son of pioneering CMI missionary John Morton, was well known to have fathered many children with the Indian women of his congregations. Some of these children are still alive today, with one family in particular having three of the seven children being fathered by Morton, who rewarded the tolerant Indian 'father' with a high postion . St. Clement's Anglican Church Cemetery and Paradise Cemetery in San Fernando are an invalauble record of the Scottish presence in the island as there are many graves for those who expired early. Indeed, there were many kind and charitable overseers whose goodness was remembered long after their demise. One in particluar was so fondly remembered by the Indians, that his grave near Debe was (and still is) a site of pilgrimage, being known as Dumfries Baba tomb. People go there to do obeah and to ask the spirit of Dumfries Baba for help. Sometimes, overseers ran afoul of their Indians if they dared be to brutal, as was the case of 1881 on Cedar Hill Estate near Princes Town where the Indians rioted, burned canes, and nearly killed the overseer.
Cremation at Mosquito Creek circa 1958
Even though Hinduism requires the cremation of the dead, there was no such thing for Indo-Trinidadians until cremations were legalized in 1953. Hitherto, each estate provided a patch of wasteland where the bodies were hastily interred. On older estates such as Canaan near San Fernando, these Indian cemeteries were those used by slaves pre 1834. In 1892 there is the record of a clandestine cremation being undertaken on the banks of the Caroni by some indentured labourers for a colleague who died, an act of devotion for which they were duly arrested and jailed. Mosquito Creek, at the mouth of the Godineau River, along the South Trunk Road in La Romaine, was one of the first cremation sites to be legalized. Intially, the site was not up on the hill where it is now located. When this foto was taken (for those familiar with the area) it was on the eastern bank of the river. A small promontory jutted out into the sea. Today all that remains of it is a pile of rocks which are only visible at low tide, the rest having been eroded. Aside from erosion, one of the reasons the site was moved across the river and up to the hill in the 1960s, was that sometimes, during a cremation, the tide would come in, and mourners would have to beat a hasty retreat. Sometimes the body would not have been entirely consumed. Several persons who remember the area tell me of times when charred flesh and fat would be seen floating on the water. One chap even told me about the time he saw a skeleton among glowing embers, which had been left to the tide. Today, the cremations are regulated by a public health officer who ensures all remains are reduced to ash before being thrown into the sea. Nevertheless, I was once fishing near the cliff (which is white with human ash, and I saw a jawbone lying on the shore....I now fish elsewhere. The cremation in this foto is a bit different from those of today, where the corpse is placed inside a framework of wood, instead of on top the pyre. One of the morbid incidents that would have occured in a cremation of this sort, would be that if the tendons were not cut while the body was being prepared for the funeral (a distinct possibility since even in this era, most Hindus preferred to bathe and dress their dead at home rather than have them sent to a funeral home) , the drying out of bodily fluids would cause the tendons to contract, causing the body to sit up suddenly in the fire without warning....which naturally would have scared the hell outta everybody.....if you stand close enough to a pyre, you can hear a loud POP which is when the cranium explodes.
Indian Vagrant in POS circa 1903
People erroneously assume that upon expiration of their 5 year indentureship contracts, coolie labour from India (1845-1917) was automatically handed five acres of land in lieu of a return passage to India as an incentive to stay in the colony. This is not true. The incentive only existed from 1860 and applied only to those who served a full term of the contract. The Indian who saved from his pittance and bought out his contract received nothing. He and those before 1860, were left to survive on what little they had saved from their wages ($2.50/month for an adult male, $1.75/month for a female, $0.75 for children up to 12). . Neither did the incentive consist of land. It was simply five pounds in cash with which the majority purchased crown lands, which after 1870 were available for one pound per acre. Naturally, there were those who for reasons of profligacy or ill-luck ended up as vagrants on the streets of POS. In 1904, it was estimated that as many 140 Indian vagrants slept in POS, most near Columbus Square. From 1849, an official known as the Protector of the Immigrants was appointed to oversee the general welfare of the immigrants, ensuring that they were treated fairly. Often enough, these bureaucrats were corrupt slackers, who took massive bribes from estate owners to not 'rock the boat'. The only one who seems to have been a man of energy and conscience, was Major P.W.D Comins (1895-1910) , an honest soldier and owner of Glenside Estate in Tunapuna. Major Comins travelled extensively across the estates, inspecting barracks, and the dreadful living conditions of the Indians on the plantations. His scathing report published in 1902, and revised in 1908 is an indictment on a labour system that was little better than slavery. He was particularly aggrieved over what he saw at Woodford Lodge Estate where Indians were worked longer than stipulated hours, kept on the estate by armed guards, left untreated at a filthy estate hospital. and fed on scanty provisions . The last Protector of the Immigrants was Arnauld De Boissiere in 1927...a playboy and dandy who only held the office for the 400 pounds a year it paid. POS Indian vagrants were a lost people....they could not return to India, and even if they could, they would not have been better off. In Trinidad, they were alien, many spoke little or no English, and were considered less than human, both by the middle and upper class of society, the barrackyard dwellers, and the colonial authorities. Most Indian vagrants survived as porters at sixpence a load. The main employers were marchandes (female vendors of edibles), and laundresses who would engage porters to carry the bundles of soiled clothing collected from the better homes in Woodbrook and St. Clair , returning the freshly ironed and starched pieces , neatly folded on a wooden tray, carried by an itinerant porter. Some fortunate displaced Indians found accomodation at the Ariapita Asylum (known as the Poor House) until that facility was closed in the 1940s. Largely, most begged charity on the streets until death claimed them, their bodies being consigned to the earth of the Pauper's cemetery in St. James, opened in 1900.
Indian Porter in POS circa 1903
People erroneously assume that upon expiration of their 5 year indentureship contracts, coolie labour from India (1845-1917) was automatically handed five acres of land in lieu of a return passage to India as an incentive to stay in the colony. This is not true. The incentive only existed from 1860 and applied only to those who served a full term of the contract. The Indian who saved from his pittance and bought out his contract received nothing. He and those before 1860, were left to survive on what little they had saved from their wages ($2.50/month for an adult male, $1.75/month for a female, $0.75 for children up to 12). . Neither did the incentive consist of land. It was simply five pounds in cash with which the majority purchased crown lands, which after 1870 were available for one pound per acre. Naturally, there were those who for reasons of profligacy or ill-luck ended up as vagrants on the streets of POS. In 1904, it was estimated that as many 140 Indian vagrants slept in POS, most near Columbus Square. From 1849, an official known as the Protector of the Immigrants was appointed to oversee the general welfare of the immigrants, ensuring that they were treated fairly. Often enough, these bureaucrats were corrupt slackers , who took massive bribes from estate owners to not 'rock the boat'. The only one who seems to have been a man of energy and conscience, was Major P.W.D Comins (1895-1910), an honest soldier and owner of Glenside Estate in Tunapuna. Major Comins travelled extensively across the estates, inspecting barracks, and the dreadful living conditions of the Indians on the plantations. His scathing report published in 1902, and revised in 1908 is an indictment on a labour system that was little better than slavery. He was particularly aggrieved over what he saw at Woodford Lodge Estate where Indians were worked longer than stipulated hours, kept on the estate by armed guards, left untreated at a filthy estate hospital and fed on scanty provisions. The last Protector of the Immigrants was Arnauld De Boissiere in 1927...a playboy and dandy who only held the office for the 400 pounds a year it paid. POS Indian vagrants were a lost people...they could not return to India, and even if they could, they would not have been better off. In Trinidad, they were alien; many spoke little or no English, and were considered less than human, both by the middle and upper class of society, the barrackyard dwellers, and the colonial authorities. Most Indian vagrants survived as porters at sixpence a load. The main employers were marchandes (female vendors of edibles), and laundresses who would engage porters to carry the bundles of soiled clothing collected from the better homes in Woodbrook and St. Clair , returning the freshly ironed and starched pieces , neatly folded on a wooden tray, carried by an itinerant porter. Some fortunate displaced Indians found accomodation at the Ariapita Asylum (known as the Poor House) until that facility was closed in the 1940s. Largely, most begged charity on the streets until death claimed them, their bodies being consigned to the earth of the Pauper's cemetery in St. James, opened in 1900.
Anise Pillai nee Matrizan (1885-1968) (photo dated circa 1900)
Of the hundreds of period photos of Indian girls, this is the only one to which an identity has been ascribed. Anise was born in Martinique in 1885. A large number of Tamils from Madras came to work on the sugar estates of the Island. In typical Madrassi fashion, they integrated speedily into the French society, adopting the language, customs and dress. Anise's mother, Valiama, married into a French Creole family named Matrizan. This was not an acceptable social condition and the family made arrangements with the rich and influential De Boissiere family in Trinidad to take in Valiama, Anise, Alice (Valiama's sister) and Peroumal (Valiama's mother) in 1888. The family settled in what is now Boissiere Village No. 1 as tenants of Madame Poleska De Boissiere, the awesome grande dame who took over the running of the Champs Elysees estate (the Trinidad Country Club is the old estate house) in 1870 after the death of her benign husband, Dr. John Valleton De Boissiere. Valiama made a decent living by keeping milch cows (grazed in the Queen's Park Savannah), catering for parties (she had skill in French culinary arts), and as a masseuse, being versed in therapeutic treatment. Anise, while inheriting her mother's skill for French cooking, did not become a masseuse, but made money on the side as a model for photographers. From the late 19th century up to WWII, more than 3,000 images of Indo-Trinidadians were produced, since they were considered mysterious and exotic. Anise was unlike the other Madrassis in Maraval, since she had delicate features and light skin because of her mixed heritage. This shot was taken when she was about 18 years old, showing her bedecked as a rich Indian wife , with the heavy silver yoke, gold nakphul (nose ring) and silver bracelets. Another tenant of Madame De Boissiere was Shiva Subromaniam Pillai, a sort of drainage expert who was retained of Champs Elysees at the fantastic rate of $1 per day to dig drains for the cocoa trees. He had come to Trinidad in 1873, and his son, Tamby wished to make Anise his wife. Negotiations were settled and a barber sent out to deliver invitations. Some elders may remember how this was done. The barber would carry a brass tray on which there was a piece of camphor, saffron rice and flowers. Upon being received, he would speak a poetic invitation, light the camphor, and give the guest a flower and some rice, for which the guest had then to pay sixpence. Anise and Tamby had eight children and lived in Boissiere No. 1. Tamby drank himself into an early grave around 1921, but Anise and her mother managed to raise all the children. Sylvan, a son, became a successful businessman and later built a holding company worth many millions. Anise died in 1968, her mother in 1954. It is ironic that the crown jewel of the Pillai empire, Royal Palm Plaza , sits atop the site of the magnificent Bagshot House which Madame De Boissiere's son had built in the 1880s. It is meet that the De Boissiere's are now a memory while their former tenants flourish.
Weighing Cane 1912
This is a timeless scene which played itself out countless times in the canefields of Central and South Trinidad well into the 1950s. When contracted Indians were sent to estates, they were paid according to task work. In croptime, the driver (usually an Indian bully or Sirdar who could force work from his peers) would come out to the fields and assign a portion of canes to be harvested for the day , for which a fixed rate would be paid (in 1910, it was about 20 cents per task) . The Driver was beneath the white overseer and was the tangible link between the owner/manager and the labour. In the rainy season, the Driver would carry a long bamboo rod with which he measured out swathes of cane which had to be weeded or manured. Sometimes, like in this photo, tasks were paid for according to the weight of canes cut. It was not a popular system with the coolies, since the Drivers were usually thugs and thieves, appointed by the managers since they had the ability to form mafias on the estates to keep the labourers in line. Drivers would rape women, and receive bribes of eggs, fowls, rum and money. During croptime on those estates which paid for task work according to weight (Eg. Forres Park, Bronte, Woodford Lodge) a portable scale would be placed in the field to be harvested (as seen here) and labourers would bring canes to place on it by turns (also shown). The weight would be graded by the ton and noted next to the labourer's name. The cut canes would be loaded onto mule carts and taken to the estate railhead (most of the larger conglomerate-owned estates had railways like Usine Ste. Madeline, Woodford Lodge, Forres Park, Orange Grove and Reform) . At the railhead, the canes would be loaded onto rail carts for transport to the refinery. The Drivers were most often corrupt, and would steal from labourers, in that they would assign the tons cut by one to another whom they favoured (most often because they were sleeping with the lucky man's wife). On Saturday, when labourers lined up at the pay office for their wages, some persons would be in shock and some jubliant when they learned about what their sweat during the week had earned. In times when the price of sugar was high on the world market, bonuses were awarded for high productivity. This system of weighing in the field ended in the 1940s and 1950s when diesel powered Jones cranes, outfitted with built-in scales were imported by the major factories so that the canes could be weighed AND loaded at the railheads, thus eliminating the corrupt drivers.
Cutting the grass in the Queen's Park Savannah 1904
The POS of yesteryear was a town where one could stroll northwards for a few minutes and leave behind the traffic of horse and buggy and encounter a very rural existence. Many people in suburbs like Belmont and Woodbrook kept cattle to ensure a domestic milk supply. In Maraval, Tamil Madrassi Indians who had settled in what is now Boissiere Village, kept large herds and supplied fresh bottled milk to the urban residents of POS. Even the colonial administration was in on the act, maintaining a large stock farm on St. Clair lands from the late 1870s. When St. Clair began to be broken into lots as prime residential property around 1915, the stock farm was removed to Mt. Hope where it is now known as the UWI Field Station, an experimental farm. The Queen's Park Savannah, that great playground purchased in 1817 by Sir Ralph Woodford, never needed grooming since dozens of cattle from the government stock farm and the Indians of Boissiere Village were grazed on the turf. In an 1850s painting done by the great artist Michel Jean Cazabon (1813-88) cattle are seen placidly grazing in the savannah. Opposite Whitehall in Queen's Park West, there used to be a well and drinking trough for the livestock. Indian herders and milk sellers from Coolie Town (St. James) also grazed their livestock here. From the 1890s, the government charged a fee of $1 per person per month for grazing rights in the savannah. Cattle were a problem for the Savannah Tram (1895-1950) as they sometimes wandered onto the track in front of the speeding tramcar.....the conductor frantically clanging his bell. During WWII supplies of imported staples (rice, flour, salt meat etc.) dwindled because the ships bringing them were often torpedoed by German U-boats. In order to counteract a serious food security crisis, the government embarked on a "Grow More Food" campaign and offered free lots in the savannah for all those who would undertake to establish 'war gardens'. It is not known if anyone took up the offer. One of the more disconcerting experiences of the QPS of yesteryear was being chased by a maddened bull. This was the sad lot of many a courting couple who had to cut their amours short and scamper in the wake of a charging 1,200 lb. bull. By the 1950s, cattle on the savannah were a thing of the past NB: THIS SAME LAWNMOWER IS STILL IN EXISTENCE AND IS RUSTING UNDER A TREE AT THE UWI FIELD STATION IN MOUNT HOPE WHICH WAS FORMERLY THE GOVERNMENT STOCK FARM IN VALSAYN.
Baba and Jhata 1910
This photo shows a Hindu pundit grinding rice into a coarse flour. The mill is an ancient piece of the heritage of the Indian Diaspora since its design has remained unchanged for over 5,000 years. The jhata is made of two round pieces of rough granite. They are pierced with a piece of wood which acts as a pivot. The upper wheel is also equipped with a wooden crank handle which turns independently. Grain (mostly rice, but corn was also ground) is placed between the two stones and the upper portion is turned, grinding the grain into meal. This is one of the most primitive forms of milling and dates back to very early eras of human history. The jhata was one of the many implements brought to Trinidad by East Indian indentured immigrants who were imported as cheap labour for the sugar industry between 1845 and 1917. Jhatas were fairly difficult to make and were passed down like heirlooms from generation to generation. Some of the few which still exist in Trinidad are well over 200 years old, being relics of family lines in India. This particular one still exists. I saw it in a family home in Scotts Road in Penal about 4 years ago. I recognized it instantly from the chip in the lower portion, although the current owners are not the original family who would have brought it to Trinidad.
Mechanical Cane Harvesting 1965
Mechanization of the propagation and harvesting phases of the suagr manufacturing process in Trinidad was slow to develop technologically. Even so, as early as 1888, Spring estate in Couva was employing a steam traction engine in tilling the fields. Aside from requiring a great deal of specialized maintainance, labour costs on the plantations were exceedingly low (approx. 5 cents/man hour) so that for the price of a steam traction engine, one could employ the equivalent of 120 indentured coolies for a period of 5-10 years. Thus, it was not until the 1950s, that tractors began to replace mules and cattle as motive power for sugar haulage, and mechanical harvesting was experimented with by Woodford Lodge and Caroni Ltd. In the early 1960s, Caroni imported some mechanical harvesters. These (like the one shown here) were large stand-alone machines which clipped off the sugarcane stalk, stripped the leaves and dumped it into a hopper drawn by another tractor. Since the harvesters did not have a transmission or driver controls, they had to be hitched to a wheel or crawler tractor, like the 1950s Massey Ferguson TE20 on the left of the foto. The mechanical harvesters were a flop since they soon became troublesome from a lack or routine servicing. They were also allegedly sabotaged by employees who viewed mechanization as a threat to their security. Although they worked well in the large, flat canefields, the harvesters were basically scrap metal by the end of the 1960s. This foto shows one working near Woodford Lodge. The tractor on the right is a 1946 Internationall Farmall. Canes are being dumped into the hopper by the feeder chute from the harvester. The International is sporting a tandem axle layout with four rear tires to give it more traction for drawing the loaded hopper in muddy fields. In 1995 Caroni again invested in three new state-of-the-art Massey Ferguson combine harvesters which foundered for similar reasons as their predecessors.
Ma Mayute's Mansion, Siparia , 1890- WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER 24x18" BY RUDOLPH BISSESSARSINGH (2004) Mary Bartlett (Ma Mayute) was born circa 1850.
She was a woman of Afro-Venezuelan descent who had emigrated to Siparia in her teens, marrying a local chap of mulatto blood. She became the de-facto manager of the Catholic church in the village, which was built on the site of the old Capuchin mission founded in 1758. Since at least 1808, the chapel (a rude structure of mud and thatch) had been home to a small wooden statue known far and wide as La Divina Pastora, the Divine Shepherdess. In those early days, the annual feast of La Divina was attended by local Catholics, and Waro (Guarahoon) Indians from the Orinoco Delta. After around 1870, East Indian indentured immigrants began to make up the largest percentage of devotees. They saw in the dark wooden image, a kindred deity which they called Siparee Mai. Before the feast day, thousands of devotees would flock to the little village of less than 150 persons, and pitch camp on the savannah where the present public cemetery is sited. Naturally, the worshippers made offerings of gold jewelry and money which Ma Mayute managed for the church. The offerings were enough for an elaborate, twin-spired presbytery to be erected opposite the church in 1872 and even the chapel itself was neatly rebuilt of wood in 1890. Ma Mayute also prospered. In 1885 she built the largest, most elegant residence in Siparia, to the south of the church. It was two stories high, with a spacious dwelling space on the upper floor. The lower story was divided into four apartments which were let during the week of Siparia Fete, to visitors. For a number of years, the most regular tenants of Ma Mayute were itinerant Chinese traders who gambled and smoked opium in the apartments. Many tenants, including one named Kong stayed in Siparia and opened shops, Kong being the most successful. Ma Mayute had no children. Her life was indelibly linked to the church. She was predeceased by her husband in 1920. She herself lived to a great age, dying in 1965 at 115 years of age. After her death, the mansion fell into dereliction, and finally was demolished in 2001. A Jehovah's Witnesses church now stands on the site. Of interest in this saga, is an ancient burial vault which was only seen for the first time in decades when the house was demolished. It apparently predated the construction of the house in 1885, and was composed of large blocks of limestone, with a small entrance door. The house had been built over it. When the site was cleared, the tomb's door was sealed to prevent trespassing. It has been preserved in the yard of the Jehovah's Witness church and may be seen today. This painting depicts Ma Mayute astride a horse (she was an excellent rider) in front of her place as it would have appeared in its heyday.
Caroni Estate Saturday Market 1950s
In a time-honoured tradition which played itself out for well over a century, the Saturday pay-yard market was a facet of life on sugar estates across the country . Labour was paid by the task. The majority were East Indian indentured immigrants, with a minority of Afro-Trinidadians. These labourers were cutters, grass gangs (children) and carters. Tasks for the week would be measured out by the overseer with his long bamboo rod and noted. The tasks were for cutting or weeding the cane according to the season, and ranged from 10 cents to 25 cents from 1865-1928. On Saturday, labourers formed a line in the pay-yard to collect their wages. This was a sort of ritual which is vividly described by Sir V.S Naipaul in “A House For Mr. Biswas”: Every Saturday he lined up with the other labourers to collect his pay. The overseer sat at a little table on which his khaki cork hat rested, wasteful of space, but a symbol of wealth. On his left sat the Indian clerk, stern, precise, with small neat hands that wrote small neat figures in black ink and red ink in the tall ledger. As the clerk entered figures and called out names and amounts in his high, precise voice, the overseer selected coins from the columns of silver and the heaps of copper in front of him and with greater deliberation, extracted notes from the blue one dollar stacks, the smaller red two dollar stacks, and the very shallow green five dollar stack. Few labourers earned five dollars a week. The notes were there to pay those who were collecting their wives’ or husbands’ wages as well as their own. Around the overseer’s hat, and seeming to guard it, there were stiff blue paper bags, neatly serrated at the top printed with large figures and standing upright from the weight of coin inside them. “ After being paid, the labourers had money to supply their needs for the next two weeks. Naturally, there was a rumshop near the estate which would consume part of the cash, and also a further claim for debts for staple goods, taken on credit since the last payday. Near the pay-yard, a market would spring up which would be the social equinox for estate life on a weekend. Vendors would erect rude stalls or sometimes be allocated a shed as in this photo from Caroni. A priceless description of the Saturday market is given in the period novel, Tikasingh’s Wedding by Wilfred D. Best. “Tika found the arrangement of the stalls (crudely built trays on legs for easy movement) very orderly. There were sections for ground provisions such as yams, dasheen, eddoes and Irish potatoes; another for vegetables such as bhaji, patchoi, baigan and dasheen bush. There was a section for soft drinks, mostly red kola and cream soda in heavy bottles sealed with a marble which was kept in place by the force of the gas. To open the bottles there was a wooden opener with a rounded portion which fitted into the space between the top of the bottle and the marble. The bottle was opened by a tap on the wooden opener strong enough to dislodge the marble which fell on a ledge on the bottle about 3 inches from the top. If the contents of a soft drink bottle were agitated by shaking, the liquid would squirt into the air through the pressure of the gas, and many were the occasions when a bottle burst , sending bits of razor-like glass in all directions. Sometimes the person opening the bottle and those standing nearby would receive nasty cuts from the missiles, and the only ones who welcomed these breakages were the little boys darting in search of the marble to add to their collection for the next game of marbles. …they paused near a stall where the vendor was selling ready-made khaki trousers and shirts…..the group moved to another stall where two ladies , both Indians, were selling metai and pastries. On one table was kurmah while on the other were sponge cakes topped with pink, yellow and white icing, coconut and jam tarts and heavy loaves. “ Also present in the market would be the itinerant Syrian peddler with his box of piece goods (dress and pants lengths, ribbons, bows and other haberdashery) either conducting cash sales or collecting installments of a few shillings on cloth taken on terms by the labourers, who could not at once afford this luxury. This foto from the 1950s shows the Caroni market, with the chimneys of the Usine in the background, and two small brick buildings which would have been quarters for the overseers.
Perseverance Estate Pay Yard, Cedros, circa 1912
East Indian immigrants are in the majority, having been settled in Cedros as early as 1850 on the sugar estates of the district. Here is a timeless scene of indentureship, with the manager (J.O Urich) sitting on the right in his topee (cork hat) and with what looks like a watch chain looped across his shirt. On the left sits a person who appears to be a constable from his pith helmet. On the table is a bag, possibly containing the meagre wages of the labourers which were doled out according to tasks. Perseverance estate was founded as a sugar estate circa 1800 by Charles Rousseau, a Martiniquan immigrant in conjunction with other French cedulants including Gardie, DeMontbrun, Lequin and Bonasse. It originally extended over 800 or so acres, and unlike other estates in the area, included a minimum of swampland and extensive rolling hills as can be seen from this photo. Coconuts, introduced by Francois Agostini of Constance Estate in 1860 gradually replaced sugar, although as late as 1890, Perseverance was still a sugar producer. The factory, seen here, was erected in 1885 and produced crystal sugar, and rum. The estate also boasted a fine jetty with iron piles for the loading of sugar ships. At this juncture, the estate was owned by an Englishman, John Kemp Welch. By 1917 the equipment for the sugar refinery was being sold off as the estate had gone over completely to coconuts. The manager of many years, J.R Urich, incidentally died the following year. Most of the machinery would have cost a fortune when they were installed around 1875-80. The sugar works were converted for the processing of coconut oil and copra. The factory and chimney can still be seen today. The estate is now partially owned by the Bhola family and was unsuccessfully diversified into peanuts and other crops. Lots have now been developed for sale to homeowners. In a time-honoured tradition which played itself out for well over a century, the Saturday pay-yard market was a facet of life on sugar estates across the country. Labour was paid by the task. The majority were East Indian indentured immigrants, with a minority of Afro-Trinidadians. These labourers were cutters, grass gangs (children) and carters. Tasks for the week would be measured out by the overseer with his long bamboo rod and noted. The tasks were for cutting or weeding the cane according to the season, and ranged from 10 cents to 25 cents from 1865-1928. On Saturday, labourers formed a line in the pay-yard to collect their wages. This was a sort of ritual which is vividly described by Sir V.S Naipaul in “A House For Mr. Biswas”: Every Saturday he lined up with the other labourers to collect his pay. The overseer sat at a little table on which his khaki cork hat rested, wasteful of space, but a symbol of wealth. On his left sat the Indian clerk, stern, precise, with small neat hands that wrote small neat figures in black ink and red ink in the tall ledger. As the clerk entered figures and called out names and amounts in his high, precise voice, the overseer selected coins from the columns of silver and the heaps of copper in front of him and with greater deliberation, extracted notes from the blue one dollar stacks, the smaller red two dollar stacks, and the very shallow green five dollar stack. Few labourers earned five dollars a week. The notes were there to pay those who were collecting their wives’ or husbands’ wages as well as their own. Around the overseer’s hat, and seeming to guard it, there were stiff blue paper bags, neatly serrated at the top printed with large figures and standing upright from the weight of coin inside them.
Indian Mud Hut circa 1920
Coolies who were indentured in Trinidad post 1860 were offered five pounds in lieu of a return passage to India as an incentive to settle. The myth that they were given five acres was simply that...a myth. Many Indians purchased five or more crown acres at a pound per diem, often in swampy or forested areas. This mud hut with a thatched roof is typical of the domiciles constructed on these homesteads. These buildings had tapia walls , plastered by the process of leepay (cow dung and clay) and were roofed with the leaves of timite palms (carat) they were eco friendly, cheap to construct, cool and renewable. Some examples may still be seen in St. Helena village, Piarco, albeit with galvanized roofs.
Musicians 1893
This photo shows a chowtal group of olden days in Trinidad. Music was one of the many social adhesives which bound the immigrants together. Its evolution, chutney, is truly a tribute to integration and hybridization of an exotic culture.
Roadside Vendors 1934
Trinidad is well and able to feed itself save for the sad fact that we have shunned the land and now depend on imports for sustenance whereas out forefathers made do with what their own sweat could coax from the soil. This foto shows an impromptu roadside market along the EMR in San Juan. Vendors, mostly Indo and Afro Trinidadian women, would erect rude stalls or simply spread their produce on the ground and wait for trade. This pic shows the rich variety of food that they produced.
Cattle grazing in the Queen's Park Savannah near the Peschier Cemetery 1925
The POS of yesteryear was a town where one could stroll northwards for a few minutes and leave behind the traffic of horse and buggy and encounter a very rural existence. Many people in suburbs like Belmont and Woodbrook kept cattle to ensure a domestic milk supply. In Maraval, Tamil Madrassi Indians who had settled in what is now Boissiere Village, kept large herds and supplied fresh bottled milk to the urban residents of POS. Even the colonial administration was in on the act, maintaining a large stock farm on St. Clair lands from the late 1870s. When St. Clair began to be broken into lots as prime residential property, the stock farm was removed to Mt. Hope where it is now known as the UWI Field Station, an experimental farm. The Queen's Park Savannah, that great playground purchased in 1817 by Sir Ralph Woodford, never needed grooming since dozens of cattle from the government stock farm and the Indians of Boissiere Village were grazed on the turf. In a 1850s painting done by the great artist Michel Jean Cazabon (1813-88) cattle are seen placidly grazing in the savannah. Opposite Whitehall in Queen's Park West, there used to be a well and drinking trough for the livestock. Indian herders and milk sellers from Coolie Town (St. James) also grazed their livestock here. From the 1890s, the government charged a fee of $1 per person per month for grazing rights in the savannah. Cattle were a problem for the Savannah Tram (1895-1950) as they sometimes wandered onto the track in front of the speeding tramcar.....the conductor frantically clanging his bell. During WWII supplies of imported staples (rice, flour, salt meat etc.) dwindled because the ships bringing them were often torpedoed by German U-boats. In order to counteract a serious food security crisis, the government embarked on a "Grow More Food" campaign and offered free lots in the savannah for all those who would undertake to establish 'war gardens'. It is not known if anyone took up the offer. One of the more disconcerting experiences of the QPS of yesteryear was being chased by a maddened bull. This was the sad lot of many a courting couple who had to cut their amours short and scamper in the wake of a charging 1,200 lb. bull. By the 1950s, cattle on the savannah were a thing of the past. NOTE: The QPS was originally part of St. Ann's sugar estate owned by the Peschier family. When the estate was acquired in 1817 by Governor Sir Ralph Woodford, the Peschiers retained the ancestral burial ground in the center of the land. The oldest graves therein date back to the 1780s, but the oldest legible plaque is dedicated to the memory of Celeste Rose Peschier, daughter of the Marquise de Beltegens who died in 1817.
Bath Time 1930
This is a timeless scene in which two children are being given a bath in an old wooden washtub. The children are light-skinned and fair-haired while the woman appears to be Indo Trinidadian. This is possibly a nanny who has been engaged by a wealthy family to take care of their offspring.
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23/08/2006



ndian Arrival Day & Indentureship


A Ship used to transport indentures to Caribbean
Friday 30th May 1845Ship: Fatel RozackCargo: 225 Indentured labourers on a journey
of one hundred days from Calcutta, British India
3 fatalities -222 Arrived
Indenturers arrival on an island port near Trinidad
It was the lucrative Slave Trade to the British Caribbean islands, (not Chattel Slavery) which was abolished in 1834 by the English Parliament. Though the plantocracy was compensated, Afrikan captives considered property were required to serve five more years of service to their "OWNERS" under an assumed "Apprenticeship" scheme. This period was designed to enable them through a transition to CIVILDOM.
The British East India Company imported Indentured Labourers from Portugal,Syria, Lebanon, India, China, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Indonesia to replace the Afrikan captives.
This anniversary is celebrated with a Public Holiday in the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago.



Questions answered here
Suriname timeline

1400s - 1600s
  • (1498) Christopher Columbus sighted coast of Suriname
  • (1593) Spanish explorers visited area, named it Suriname
  • (1602) Dutch established settlements
  • (1651) First permanent European settlement, established by British at Paramaribo by Lord Francis Willoughby
  • (1667) British ceded their part of Suriname to The Netherlands in exchange for New Amsterdam (later called New York City)
  • (1682) Coffee and sugar plantations established . worked by African slaves
1700s - 1800s
  • (1799-1802, 1804-1816) British rule re-imposed
  • (1863) Slavery abolished; indentured labourers brought in from India, Java, China to worked on plantations
1900s
  • (1916) Aluminum Company of America (Aloca) began mining bauxite- the principal ore of aluminum- which gradually became Suriname's main export
  • (1954) Suriname given full autonomy, The Netherlands retained control over defense, foreign affairs
  • (1975) Suriname became independent with Johan Ferrier as president, Henck Arron of the Surinam National Party (NPS) as prime minister; more than a third of population emigrated to The Netherlands
  • (1980) Arron's government ousted in military coup, President Ferrier refused to recognize military regime, appointed Henk Chin-A-Sen of Nationalist Republic Party (PNR) to lead civilian administration; army replaced Ferrier with Chin-A-Sen
  • (1982) Armed forces seized power in coup led by Lietenant-Colonel Desire (Desi) Bouterse, set up Revolutionary People's Front; 15 opposition leaders charged with plotting coup aexecuted; The Netherlands, US cut off economic aid
  • (1985) Ban on political parties lifted
  • (1986) Surinamese Liberation Army (SLA), composed mostly of escaped African slaves, began guerrilla war with aim of restoring constitutional order; principal bauxite mines. refineries forced to shut down
  • (1987) 97% of electorate approved new civilian constitution
  • (1988) Rameswak Shankar, former agriculture minister, elected president
  • (1989) Bouterse rejected accord reached by President Shankar with SLA, pledged to continue fighting
  • (1990) Shankar ousted in military coup masterminded by Bouterse
  • (1991) Johan Kraag (NPS) became interim president; alliance of opposition parties- the New Front for Democracy and Development- won majority of seats in parliamentary elections; Ronald Venetiaan elected president
  • (1992) Peace accord reached with SLA
paramaribo plantation sugar plantation indian immigrants johan ferrier banana worker


1900s
  • (1996) Jules Wijdenbosch, an ally of Bouterse, elected president
  • (1997) Dutch government issued international arrest warrant for Bouterse, claimed he h smuggled more than two tons of cocaine into The Netherlands during 1989-97; Suriname refused to extradite him
  • (1999) Dutch court convicted Bouterse in absentia for for drug smuggling
2000s
  • (2000) Ronald Venetiaan became president, replaced Wijdenbosch, after winning early elections following protests against former government's handling of economy
  • (2002) State owned banana company closed, financial woes compounded by low market prices; restructured smaller company opened in 2004
  • (2004) Suriname dollar replaced guilder; government said move aimed to restore confidence in economy; UN set up tribunal to try to resolve long running maritime border between Suriname and Guyana
  • (2005) President Venetiaan re-elected after months of deadlock
  • (2006) Flooding, caused by torrential rain, left more than 20,000 people homeless
  • (2007) UN tribunal ruled in Guyana-Suriname dispute over maritime territory, gave both a share of potentially oil-rich offshore basin
  • (2008) Trial began of former dictator Desi Bouterse, 24 others accused of involvement in 1982 killings of opponents of military regime; dispute with government over development of new bauxite mine in the west; mining giant BHP Billiton announced cease of operations in Suriname by 2010
  • (2009) Troops called in to suppress anti-Brazilian, anti-Chinese riots in gold-mining area in northeastern city of Albina




Typical Indian Peoples’ house

Typical Indian Peoples house
Description:
Picture called Typical East Indian Coolies house, Essequibo , from On Land and Sea – on Green and River, by Henry W Case, 1910. Indian people were used as indentured servants, who sold their labour for a set period of time on plantations such as this one in Essequibo (now called Guyana)in South America.



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Sense of Identity PDF Print E-mail
Written by Administrator   
Tuesday, 25 July 2006
1. Commemorating Indian Arrival in Guadeloupe 1854-2004
2. Osley Baptiste Vincentian of Indian descent 
3 Jamaica: Indian Heritage Day is May 10
4  Jamaica celebrates 160th anniversary of Indian Arrival Day
4. Indian Arrival Day in Florida 
5. Dougla: The double/triple heritage 
6.. Race retention and culture loss: South Asians/East Indians in St Vincent
 

02/02/2005

GUADELOUPE'S INDIAN ARRIVAL MONUMENT

INAUGURATED IN GUADELOUPE, FRENCH WEST INDIES
In Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, 2004 brought a whole year of commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first indentured Indian workers in 1854 to a close with the inauguration of a First Day monument in the business capital, Pointe-Pitre, near the sea-side spot where the indentured Indians alighted between 1854 and 1889. The plaque on the monument carries an eloquent and very pedagogical text, which is  necessary  considering that almost no mention of the history of the Indians and their contributions have been made so far in the French school text books.

The plaque reads:

"On December 24, 1854, the sailing ship "Aurelie", after a dreadful three-month passage, disembarked on this spot 314 East Indians, requested by the Colony to cope with the loss of labour resulting from the abolition of slavery in 1848.

Thus began a long period of transplantation that brought 42,326  East Indians to Guadeloupe,  of which 24,891 were to perish, particularly because of the ill-treatment they received, and 9,460 returned to India.

In memory and homage to the contribution of those from India who founded the multicultural Guadeloupe of yesterday and today, the Regional Council, the General Council, the City of Pointe-a-Pitre, in accord with the Bharat-Gua Federation, have erected this First Day monument, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Indians in Guadeloupe." The more than 600-kilogram bronze monument by Indrajeet Sahadev, an Indian-born sculptor residing in France, is a combination of symbolic representations of the long Kalapani journey, a boat with  Lord Ganesha's figure at the prow, masts with Lord Siva's trident and damaru engraved in gold obliquely sectioned at the top to form a golden OM.

The art piece stands on a circular lotus mandala base, the whole monument resting on a marble yantra. On the four sides of the rectangular base block are figures of a conch, a golden sun with the date 1854 in the middle, and sugar cane shoots - the bitter reason that brought the Indians to the island. The auspicious Indian symbol for water also turns out to be the letter G, representing the Universal Master, the initial of Lord Ganesha, and that of Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe was called  Kalaoukera, meaning "island of beautiful waters" by the original, now decimated, Amerindian inhabitants.

As Dr.  Henry Bangou, Mayor of Pointe-Pitre and a renowned historian, and all the official speakers said, the contributions of the Indians to the evolution of Guadeloupe and its population is incalculable. Today Indians in Guadeloupe are to be found in all sectors of society, from agriculture to politics. Their painful integration, in spite of all the hardships and persecutions, is considered today a success. This is due to their non-violent attitudes and determination in the work place, since the time of the sugarcane fields. Their integration was achieved at great expense - the almost total loss of their original languages from South and North India, replaced by French and Creole, the forced abandonment of their religion to Catholicism, and the transformation of their customs and culture to becoming Europeanized.  However, in the crucible of change, they have managed to do much more than just influence the local cuisine, costume and folklore.

Many cultural associations, under the federative banner of Bharat--Gua ("From India to Guadeloupe") are reawakening the Indian awareness. Rituals clandestinely kept across time are being revived, scholars are researching and documenting the past. Interestingly enough, people of all cultural heritage, Indian or mixed ethnic backgrounds, are attracted and are participating  in these activities. People of all origins also took part in the year long commemoration events.
Originally scheduled for December 23rd, 2004, the inauguration of the monument took place on January 23rd, 2005, due to an earthquake in Guadeloupe in December 2004. After the official discourses and the unveiling of the monument at the sound of the "tapu" (a flat Indian tambourine drum), flower petals were thrown by Guadeloupeans of mixed ancestral heritage, onto the nearby sea.

This homage was accompanied by moving prayers that the offering may reach ancient ancestors, across the sea of time.

(ARTICLE IN FRENCH) 

MONUMENT AUX PREMIERS INDIENS DE GUADELOUPE: 1854-2004.

MÉMOIRE & HOMMAGE
AUX PREMIERS INDIENS DE GUADELOUPE
1854-1889 —> 2004.


DIMANCHE 23 JANVIER 2005 - DARSE DE POINTE-A-PITRE
Cérémonies de clôture de l'année de commémoration de la première arrivée indienne.
.(cliquer sur les images pour agrandir).
Après l'abolition de l'esclavage de 1848, les colons eurent recours à des travailleurs indiens, principalement du Tamil-Nadou (Sud) et du Bihar (Nord), à qui on faisait miroiter l'Eldorado, pour sauver les plantations de canne à sucre abandonnées par les nouveaux libres.
Traités en apatrides, coupés de la vie sociale, leurs descendants devront attendre 1923 pour devenir citoyens français, à la fin d'une âpre bataille juridique d'Henri Sidambarom avec le gouvernement français.
En effet, ce dernier leur refusait, ainsi qu'à leurs descendants, nés en Guadeloupe et Martinique, le droit de voter. Ce procès politique dura 9 ans (1904-1923).
 
L'intégration réussie des indiens, grâce à leur volonté d'honorer leur terre d'accueil malgré les persécutions, à leur ardeur au travail, et les riches apports de leur Inde d'origine à la vie aux Antilles françaises, sont aujourd'hui unanimement reconnus comme hautement bénéfiques au pays de Guadeloupe tout entier.
Annickbangou_1
Solennelle ouverture en présence des personnalités du pays.
Drbangou
 
Péripéties et avanies de l'histoire de nos indiens sont relatées par le Dr Henry Bangou, Maire de Pointe-à-Pitre et historien renommé.











Il loue leur contribution à l'évolution de la Guadeloupe dans tous les domaines - de l'agriculture à la politique

 


"C'était le bas peuple de Calcutta et de Pondichéry qui nous était envoyé, fuyant leur misère et la famine.  Ils étaient de race fine et parmi eux il y en avait beaucoup d'un joli type. 
Chaque convoi était, il me semble, de 700 à 800 Indiens embarqués sur un grand navire à voiles qui mettait plusieurs mois à faire le trajet.  A leur arrivée à Pointe-à-Pitre ils étaient débarqués à Fouyol à peu de distance de la ville, dans une sorte d'immenses hangars où ils étaient parqués comme des animaux se couchant pêle mêle par terre sur des couvertures.  On en faisait des lots de 10 que l'on répartissait entre tous les “habitants“ (c'est ainsi que depuis le début de la colonisation étaient appelés les colons...).
Les propriétaires de toutes les habitations de l'île venaient choisir chacun son lot selon     ses besoins et son goût.  Il fallait parfois tirer au sort.  Les enfants étaient donnés par dessus le marché.  Chaque Indien était payé 1.900 F à l'Inde (peut-être pour contribuer aux frais du voyage, je ne me souviens pas) et contractait un engagement de 5 ans.  Il appartenait à l'"habitant" comme un esclave mais sous la garde d'un syndic chargé de voir si de part et d'autre les engagements étaient bien tenus.
Je me souviens d'être allée une fois avec mon père à Fouyol pour choisir un lot et avoir insisté pour l'un deux qui comprenait 2 fort jolis adolescents dont ma mère fit de gentils domestiques (...).
- Ecrit par Renée Dormoy, fille de blancs-pays, cousine du futur poète Saint-John Perse, à la fin du 19è siècle.

La tradition indienne, porteuse de patience, de paix, de non-violence, tiendra désormais sa place pour tous dans notre ensemble socio-culturel, éducatif et spirituel. Pour M. Jean-Boniface HIRA, président de la Fédération d'associations culturelles Bharat-à-Gua, la clôture des manifestations du cent-cinquantenaire de la première arrivée indienne n'est la fin que du commencement. 

Hira_6 Jeunesse multi-culturelle qui prend conscience, réveille un héritage malmené et occulté, l'offre au monde entier.
Fillessalut_1
Monument_salut

Inauguration du monument du Premier Jour, riche en symboles,
Å“uvre de
Inderjeet Sahdev, sculpteur indien installé en France.

Monument_1

.
Monument





Géométrie, rigueur et imagerie abstraite
, dialogue avec les éléments et les idées, équilibre architectural des formes, des relations logiques entre formes et espace, des codes et symboles, entre le désir de solitude contemplative, la nature, et l'architecture, tels sont les critères de M. Inderjeet Sahdev.

Avec une émotion communicative, l'artiste explique combien il a été frappé de voir une communauté multi-ethnique célébrer avec tant de conviction une intégration si étonnante pour lui, et pour l'Inde.





 
Il découvre qu'il a travaillé non pas pour une communauté isolée,
mais pour refléter le riche destin de la Guadeloupe, peuple uni et divers à la fois.


Indrajeet

La plaque commémorative (cliquer pour l'agrandir). 

Monplaque_5

La volonté
d'éradiquer tout un pan de notre réel créole nous a conduit à de tragiques malentendus et à des souffrances inutiles. Mais au temps du mépris, les travailleurs tamouls, héritiers de l'antique sagesse du monde indien, adopteront la voie du silence et de la non-violence.

Koldmanread_1Sur leur terre d'accueil, ils scelleront dans leur cœur cette pensée que chantaient déjà leurs ancêtres il y a 2000 ans:
        Ma maison est partout dans le monde,
        et tout homme est mon frère.

Aussi est-ce dans cet esprit de fraternité que nous avons célébré avec faste 150 ans de métissage avec l'Inde jusqu'ici non avoué et non-avouable.

En  nous ouvrant les portes de la fascinante civilisation indienne, la commémoration nous a révélé une image séduisante et mystique de nous-même, car l'Inde a participé à la genèse de notre société créole alors que nous étions si peu disposé à son égard.


N'avons-nous pas, par cet oubli, amputé notre société de la dimension spirituelle nécessaire à son épanouissement ?
Cette reconnaissance de l'indianité nous rappelle que la sagesse hindoue vise avant tout la réalisation, la transcendance de l'être, et que c'est dans la culture que l'homme manifeste sa souveraineté.

Mais le 150ème anniversaire de l'arrivée des indiens a été aussi davantage pour nous une découverte historique, symbolique, unitaire, et emblématique. - Francis G. Ponaman, doctorant en culture et civilisation indienne, Paris.

Pétales sur mer d'oubli
. A ceux et celles qui franchirent les océans jusqu'aux îles,
dont combien aussi périrent en mer, de maladies, ou de sévices - et puis qu'on oublia.


Darseptales
OFFRANDE : sixième génération d'enfants, porteuse de tous les sangs, issue de tous les
continents, accompagne anciens et plus anciens devant l'eau pour y répandre, à la mémoire
de nos ancêtres disparus, ces offrandes universelles.
 

Fleursdarse1_4
.

 «Pour obsèques reçois mes larmes et mes pleurs,
  Ce vase plein de lait, ce panier plein de fleurs...»
 
  Pierre de Ronsard, Amours, 1560.


Petalesenmer

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lisez aussi :
QU'EN DARSE AMIS! Fêtons 150 ans d'indianité guadeloupéenne


KamattribalwoMISE EN QUESTION
L'outre-mer hexagonal a-t-il compris les indiens des Antilles ?

Dans les milieux ultra-marins hexagonaux, qui comptent nombre de personnes d'origine indienne ou dite batarindienne, la commémoration du cent-cinquantenaire de l'arrivée des premiers indiens en Martinique (2003) et Guadeloupe (2004) est passée inaperçue.
Cependant, le regard des indiens antillais sur eux-mêmes, la reconnaissance de leur immense contribution, la qualité de leur image dans nos sociétés ont fait un grand bond en avant en 2003-2004.
Il sera avantageux que cette élévation de la conscience aux îles ait son prolongement dans la mentalité métro-marine. Pour ce faire, il conviendrait en 2005 que cet anniversaire, tout comme 1802 pour la part africaribe, soit marqué dans l'hexagone par une geste de commémoration historique, culturelle, artistique, musicale, spirituelle... gastronomique... de la geste indo-antillaise.
Souhaitons que ce soit aussi un tremplin de fraternité avec les milieux apparentés, originaires de l'Inde, de Sri Lanka, de l'île Maurice... vivant en France.
Cela aiderait à évacuer les schémas désuets et frustrés, à pallier l'ignorance des antillais sur l'histoire indienne des Antilles, histoire hélas absente de nos manuels, et remplacée par de tristes préjugés.
Cette partie intégrante et active du peuple antillais recevrait, enfin, un respect et une reconnaissance plus que mérités...

Martinique_groupe_indiennes_1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



Crédit images :
Jean-Luc Goubin
Fred Négrit
Jude E. Sahaï
DZ imedi@images
K.L.Kamat
Lameca.

Yantra_1

© Jean-S. Sahaï, 2005.
 
 
Osley Baptiste Proud to Share Knowledge
Osley Baptiste, great grandson of Rambulock Singh, an Indian Hindi Pundit
Osley Baptiste, great grandson of Rambulock Singh, an Indian Hindi Pundit
Rich in the knowledge of his ancestry, Osley Baptiste, a Vincentian of East Indian descent, is proud to share some of that information.

The Villa resident, tracing his ancestry, said he is the great grandson of Rambulock Singh, an Indian Hindi Pundit who was brought to St.Vincent and the Grenadines as an indentured labourer from India.

Baptiste recalled meeting his great grandfather or (Arjah meaning grandfather) on the then Argyle Estate for the first time at age four when he was brought down from the Orange Hill Estate to live at Argyle. He remains adamant that his great grandfather was not an Indian king (Rajah) as some people have claimed. “He was an Arjah.

“He was praying to the sun,” Baptiste recounted, speaking of a ritual his great grandfather performed that struck him. Baptiste said the ceremonies that were practised were called the Katha and Surajhpuran.

“After Rambulock died there was a gentleman by the name of Little John who used to carry on the Hindu prayers. He lived at Calder, but when the Hindu religion went out, the people became Christians,” said Baptiste, who explained that the indentured labourers prayed to a God called Bhagawan.

Rambulock said Baptiste died at the age of 112.

Baptiste noted that his foreparents told him Indian Bay was one of the landing points for indentured labourers.

“They were consigned to different estates and while living on the estates they were christened and given Christian names. They were given the names of the overseers,” said Baptiste, who mentioned that some of the names given were: Baptiste, Sutherland, Moore, Phils, Bacchus, Bullock, Woods, Joseph, King, Thomas, Bowman, Gunsam and Deane.

Giving an account of his family tree starting with his mother’s line, Baptiste said he is the grandson of Sinanan Singh who was renamed Ridley Bacchus, the son of Eugina Bacchus (mother) and Simeon Baptiste (father), who was the son of Jhan Archoo, who also originated from India like Rambulock Singh. Archoo was christened and given the name John Baptiste.

“I should have been Archoo instead of Baptiste,” Baptiste proudly stated.

He said his grandfather Archoo’s brothers were taken to other estates and given surnames like Sutherland, Moore and Phils. This is one of the reasons given for some of the intermarriages that took place between the descendants of the East Indians.

Baptiste believes that the descendants of East Indians in St.Vincent and the Grenadines are fast losing their culture.

“I tried to organize an Indian Association but was told by legal people if we do that it would be counted as being racial,” said Baptiste who welcomes the idea of establishing an East Indian Heritage Foundation.

Highlighting some of the areas of St.Vincent and the Grenadines where the East Indians live, Baptiste referred to Calder, Akers, Richland Park


JAMAICA : INDIAN HERITAGE DAY IS MAY 10.

Jamaica, in recognition of the history of the Indians who came
has declared May 10 as ‘Indian Heritage Day’.

 
Migration of Indians to Jamaica –  Integration and Contribution to Development
People from the Indian sub-continent were first introduced to Jamaica as ‘indentured labourers’ on a contractual basis to work on sugar and banana estates and livestock holdings, following the abolition of slavery. The first group arrived on May 10,1845, on the S.S. Blundell with a total of over 36,000 arriving between then and sometime around 1917.     ( A plaque in commemoration of the first landing was mounted in Old Harbour in 1983.)

These persons were allocated to estates in Clarendon, St. Mary, Portland, St. Thomas, St. Catherine and Westmoreland, initially.   The terms of indentureship provided for their return to India on completion of five years’ service.   Overall just over one-third returned to India, a small number of whom rejoined the programme.   Some of the benefits promised were not delivered hence some of the migrants were unable to pay for return passages.  Some remained as they saw the opportunity for a better life, while others had formed alliances and remained for that reason. 
       
When the indentureship programme came to an end roundabout the 1930’s, many then left the estates and sought employment in other parishes.  Some journeyed to neighbouring countries, Cuba in particular, where they worked mainly on sugar estates, with some returning to Jamaica, while others remained.

The Indians brought with them their cultural patterns, customs, and practices – language, cuisine, religion, music, dance, craftsmanship (many were jewellers), family systems, dress, discipline and reputation for hard work.

They faced many difficulties due to the cultural differences and no doubt this led to their ‘holding on’ to aspects of their cultural heritage.

One major challenge was the legality of marriages performed under Hindu and or Moslem rites – this meant the children were ‘bastards’ and could not inherit the property of parents readily, among other things.     At the representations of the then active East Indian Progressive Society the relevant Law was passed by the Government in the early1960’s.

The Indians engaged themselves mainly in agricultural pursuits, e.g. rice growing, vegetable farming and floriculture.  Significant contribution was made in the growing of rice in the parishes of St. Catherine and Westmoreland during World War II, thereby alleviating some of the difficulties for the Island brought about by the restrictions on overseas importation of food.

Some of the ex-indentured labourers displayed greater initiative than others and eventually became landowners and businessmen which not only improved their standard of living, but enabled them to provide better educational opportunities for their children thereby accessing greater social mobility.

Although many continued to struggle in the generally lower socio-economic environment, Indians gradually became fully integrated in the unique Jamaican diaspora of ethnic co-existence.

Descendants of the ex-indentured labourers have over the years equipped themselves academically and their contribution to the development of our country can be readily identified in all areas of national life- Agriculture, the Arts, Aviation, Banking, the Civil Service, Communications, Construction, Engineering, Finance, Information Technology, Law, Merchandising, Management, Medicine, Politics, Religion, Sports, Teaching, Transportation.

From sometime in the 1920’s other Indians came to seek a livelihood in Jamaica – firstly there were the merchants who in time made Jamaica home.   Many are today involved with the In-bond trade.   They and their off-springs continue to contribute to the country’s economic activity whether in business or the professions.

Later there were professionals who came on their own or under special recruitment by the Government for specified periods, some of whom have remained and have become naturalised Jamaicans.

The community of persons of Indian origin over the past three-quarters of a century has been served by a number of organisations aimed at –

-       preserving and promoting indian culture;


-       fostering programes for the upliftment of the well-being of the 

less privileged in our Society, e.g. assisting children for educational purposes, food packages for indigent and senior
citizens; free medical clinic and catering to the spiritual needs.

Cultural activities include stage presentation of songs and          dance, lectures on a range of topics by visiting experts from India and elsewhere, observance of Indian festivals, e.g. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, and auspicious days on the religious calendar, participation in national events,e.g. Float parade for Independence celebrations.


There are several musical groups and Indian dance instruction is available privately.  More recently a Dance school has been established.   For over thirty years a weekly programme has been aired on radio which showcases music, songs and other related matters.

There is much local talent which is being developed and there are connections with external organisations and groups which permit the interchange of cultural activities and transfer of knowledge.

People of Indian origin who were born in Jamaica are citizens by birth;  later arrivals have become citizens by naturalization, while there are others who are working here on contractual basis.

Having regard to their known capacity for discipline and hard work, they continue to strive for the best and make meaningful contribution to the development of our nation.

The Government of Jamaica, in recognition of the history of the Indians who came has declared May 10 as ‘Indian Heritage Day’.


Contributed:   Beryl Williams-Singh, C.D.
                       Chairman,
                       National Council for Indian Culture in Jamaica.

, Georgetown, Park Hill, Orange Hill and Rose Bank.
Indian presence in Jamaica celebrated
published: Tuesday | May 24, 2005
Michael Reckord, Contributor
WITH SONG, dance, food, drink and speeches, the 160-year presence of East Indians in Jamaica was celebrated on Friday at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston.
The glittering affair, which took the form of an awards banquet and cultural presentation, was attended by hundreds of Indians and their friends from around Jamaica, as well as Miami, Tampa, New York and Trinidad and Tobago.
The celebration was hosted by the National Council for Indian Culture in Jamaica (NCICJ), an umbrella for the numerous Indian ogranisations and groups in the island, including Prema Satsangh of Jamaica, Indo-Jamaican Cultural Society, Club India, Indian Cultural Society, Sanatan Dharma Society, Friends of the Indian Community, Ananda Marga Society and the Brahma Kumari Raj Yoga Centre.
ATTENDEES
Among the many dignitaries in the audience were Governor-General Sir Howard Cooke and Shri Kailash Lall Agrawal, High Commissioner for India.
The first ceremonial item, the lighting of the Deeya (a semi-circle of candles), in which Lady Cooke assisted, was followed by a welcome address by Beryl Williams-Singh, chairperson of the NCICJ.
Shanti Badaloo then performed an 'invocation dance', a classical Indian dance in the Odyssey style. Dressed in a yellow and brown sari, bangles and a forehead jewel, she danced to taped music. She kept her upper body erect most of the time, while rippling her arms and hands up, down and around, her fingers making many intricate gestures.
SINGING
The Naya Zamana Band, with Dr. Winston Tolan as lead vocalist and members playing drums, flute, tambourine and harmonium, performed a number of well-received items, including a number of songs from movies. A second group, the Shiv Sangeet orchestra from Trinidad and Tobago, included saxophonist Narendra. Indian movies seemed to be very influential with the night's performers generally, for a number of the dances also originated with motion pictures.
There were three dance groups. The Ratnavali troupe comprised teen girls Shavi, Janielle, Alicia, Shakira, Sharda and Shakhti.Wearing silver tops, long, red skirts and long red scarves, they executed a dance involving much hip swaying, arm extensions and many sideways hops ­ all very pleasing and much appreciated by the audience.
The Gallow Girls and Friends, two teen couples, delivered a bouncier piece with a slight flavour of Western pop music. The Prema Youth dancers, Rani and Nallini (one in light blue, the other in burgundy), presented the final dance, a charming piece with much hip swaying, delicate arm movements and coy hiding behind scarves.
Two female solo singers, members of the Shiv Sangeet orchestra, rounded out the entertainment aspect of the evening. Trisha Ramdhan, a nurse, wore a blue sari for her sad-sounding song. Amina Ramsaran, in a pink outfit, dedicated her song to the audience.
The second major component of the function, the awards ceremony, saw the presentation of NCICJ awards to honour those who have served the Indian community over the years.
 
 

INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY IN FLORIDA 

 
Remarks by Ambassador Odeen Ishmael at the Indian Arrival Day      Commemoration Organised by the Florida Hindu Cultural and      Religious Association at Lantana, Florida on June 8, 1997*



I am indeed very happy to be with all of you today to participate in
your programme by which you commemorate "Indian Arrival Day" for the
first time in South Florida. Let me from the onset congratulate the
executive and members of the Florida Hindu Cultural and Religious
Association for having the vision to organise such an activity which
highlights the history, culture and achievements of people of Indian
origin in the region of the Caribbean.

Of course, when we talk about "Indian Arrival Day" we refer to the
commemoration of the arrival of the first Indians in the Caribbean, and
not in the United States. I want to get that part very clear since as we
all know, there has also been a large migration of people from the
Indian subcontinent to the United States, particularly after 1960.

The migration of Indians to the Caribbean has a greater meaning to us
since that process established new roots in a new land and chartered a
new chapter in the history of people of Indian origin. It also posed new
and difficult challenges to the early migrants and succeeding
generations to maintain cultural traditions which have been buffeted by
other existing and invading cultures. In the process, Indians in the
Caribbean have, as a result of various factors, lost the gift of the
languages of their ancestors, but have managed to cling to their
religions and family traditions, and have made positive advances in
solving caste differences while blending their culture forms with a
variety of other culture patterns found in their respective countries
into a generally solid unit.

Unfortunately, I can only speak of the historical experiences of Guyana.
For us, Indian Arrival Day is celebrated on May 5, for it was on that
day in 1838 -- 159 years ago -- the first batch of Indian indentured
immigrants landed in Guyana.

You will recall that in 1838, in the Caribbean region, most of the
people were Africans who had been brought as slaves by the European
plantation owners. By that year, slavery had lost its usefulness, and
the British Government, which ruled many of the Caribbean territories,
abolished slavery on August 1, 1834. But the slave owners were not
willing to let their African slaves go, so their friends in the British
Parliament allowed them to continue extracting more labour from them for
four more years.

Since the slave owners now knew that they would no longer have free
African slave labour, they began to look around for new sources of cheap
workers on their plantations. In 1834 they managed to recruit small
groups of Portuguese from the islands of Madeira and the Azores and they
were put to work as indentured labour on the sugar plantations of
Guyana. But these people were by no means agricultural workers so their
productivity level was very low. A payment of about 10 cents a day was
also not very encouraging to them as well. So, as soon as their
indenture was completed, they moved to the towns to find other better
paying jobs or went into the interior region to look for gold.

The sugar planters and the British Government then began a new task of
looking elsewhere for further inexpensive replacements. They initially
thought about China, but because of the distance, their minds turned to
India. The economic situation in some Indian states at that time was
very depressed. This was particularly so in Bihar, near to Calcutta,
which continued to be ravaged by flooding, cyclones and the occasional
famine. It was therefore easy to recruit indentured migrants from this
state especially when lucrative promises of easy working conditions and
good wages were made to them.

There is no doubt that most of the recruits were fooled by the
recruiting officers, many of whom were Indians themselves. Since most of
the migrants were illiterate and had probably never ever travelled more
than a few miles from their own home villages, they were also misled to
believe that the new place where they were being taken to was not very
far away. They did not have the concept of distance, and maybe they felt
that they would have the opportunity to see their relatives and their
friends and their home villages on a fairly regular basis.

They marked their indenture contracts -- most could not sign their names
-- and these were duly witnessed by the Indian recruiters. In most
cases, the indentured Indian was bonded for five years during which he
or she would be housed and given a daily wage, which ranged from about 8
to 24 cents. At the end of the indenture, return passages would be
guaranteed and a small lump-sum of money would be given. Later, those
who opted to remain in the new land were each given small plots of land
instead of the lump-sum of cash.

When the first batch of returnees went back to India and reported the
harsh conditions under which they lived and worked, the recruiters had a
more difficult time to convince people to migrate to Guyana. The result
was that some people were kidnapped, and there were even stories of
arrangements being made for convicts to be sent. People who ran the
jails made some money on the side in furnishing recruits for indenture.

Those who recruited the migrants then moved to other states to carry out
their operations. The result was that indentured labourers were
collected from other states such as Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Mysore
and Kerala and parts of what is now Pakistan.

There are stories, too, that some Indian soldiers who participated in
the Indian Mutiny of 1857 were indentured to Guyana as part of their
punishment.

What were the realities the immigrants encountered when they arrived in
Guyana? They were herded in logies (or barrack ranges) with very little
sanitation facilities. Significantly, some of these logies were the very
ones in which the African slaves used to live. Further, they were
prevented from leaving the plantation to which they were bounded under
penalty of the law. These penalties included fines and imprisonment. The
amount of days lost from work due to this imprisonment was added to the
indenture period. Permission had to be sought from the plantation owner
in order to visit places outside of the plantation.

The indentured labourer had the so-called right to complain about his
treatment to the Immigration Department in Georgetown, but for him to do
so he had to obtain permission to leave the plantation. If he decided to
go without permission, he was punished for breaking the law.

The arrival of the Indians in Guyana brought about a new set of social
relations in the country. First of all, it brought about distrust
between the Indians and the Africans. When the Africans were freed from
slavery, most of them left the plantations, but they felt that they now
had some bargaining power to demand reasonable wages for paid employment
there. However, the arrival of the Indians on the plantations undercut
this bargaining power since the Indians were working in the same jobs
for very meagre wages.

Second, when Africans were freed, they were given no compensation -- no
money or land. On the other hand, when Indians finished their indenture,
they were given return passages to India or plots of land if they
preferred to remain. Obviously, this bred some form of ill feeling since
the Africans felt that they were given a raw deal while the Indians
benefitted from the bargain.

Third, rudimentary primary education was offered to Africans in schools
run by Christian denominations. There were no such facilities offered to
Indians who also were suspicious of the Christian churches whose aim was
also to convert Indians to Christianity. As a result, Indian children
were not educated and the Africans saw themselves as socially superior
since they were given jobs in the Government service because they were
educated according to British standards.

Some Indians who had completed their indenture became successful in
business and sent their children to these schools. To climb the social
ladder, some of these educated Indians converted to Christianity and
managed to obtain jobs in the civil service where they were nurtured as
favourites of the British rulers. The sad aspect of this development was
that some of these educated Indians from the late nineteenth century
adopted the British class attitudes and looked down on their Hindu and
Muslim working class uneducated counterparts. This class of Indians
proved to be allies of the British colonialists in promoting the
continuation of Indian indentured immigration from India to Guyana.

Fourth, the police recruited by the British were Africans and they were
the ones who arrested Indians and locked them up when they breached the
regulations. Further, when the Indians took protest actions on the
estates against poor working conditions, African policemen were let
loose on them

These actions were obviously the beginnings of strained relationships
between Indians and Africans. They were perpetrated by the British
colonialists who use these tactics to divide and rule.

But Africans and Indians also displayed strong bonds of unity on the
sugar estates when in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century they supported each other to struggle for better wages and
improved working conditions. So despite differences, the seeds of unity
were already planted and they now need to be properly cultivated to
continue the improvement of relationships.

Hundreds of thousands of Indians were transported to Guyana and
Trinidad, and smaller numbers were taken to Jamaica and Grenada, and
also to the non-British territories of Suriname, Martinique and
Guadeloupe. Where larger numbers lived the better were the chances to
maintain their culture. Unfortunately, with succeeding generations, the
ability to speak the main Indian languages of Hindi and Urdu have become
lost talents.

Finally, indentured immigration ended in 1917 after strong demands by
the Indian Congress Party and Mohandas Gandhi in particular. A
delegation of rich Guyanese Indians was sent by the British authorities
to lobby Gandhi to allow it to continue.

Without a doubt, the descendants of Indian indentured immigrants have
left, and are continuing to make, positive marks on the intellectual,
cultural, economic, social and political landscape of the Caribbean
region. Some who have continued the migration movement from the
Caribbean to North America are also registering their mark. I do not
need to give you a listing of those who have made their mark in these
various fields. But one name stands out like a flashing beacon. Cheddi
Jagan strode onto the stage of world history from the beginning of the
1950s and challenged the might of the British Empire which allied with
the CIA to force him in 1964 from continuing the work of improving the
social and economic welfare of all the Guyanese people. He bore the
burden of his people in the struggle against dictatorship and tyranny,
and led his people back to the victory seat in 1992, after nearly three
decades during which many Caribbean leaders patted the dictators on
their head and tried to dismiss the legendary Guyanese leader as
irrelevant. But the masses of the people are the movers of history, and
in Guyana they followed Cheddi Jagan as he propelled history and the
Guyanese nation forward and onward to better times. His death on March 6
was a dagger blow to all Guyanese of all ethnic groups, but his spirit
and his principles and his struggle for national unity remain a guiding
force for generations to come.

This guiding force gives the Guyana Government the determination to
carry out its task of rebuilding the country and treating all citizens
equally without any discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity or
anything else for that matter. This the Government of Guyana will
continue to do without any apologies.

On May 5, 1838, the first group of indentured Indian immigrants
disembarked from the British ship, the /Whitby/, in Georgetown. On May 5
of this year, an Indian Immigration Monument was declared open in
Georgetown, Guyana, and it depicts the/ Whitby/ in full sail. While this
monument causes us to reflect on more than 150 years of the history of
the Indians in our country, the ship in full sail is also symbolic for
the future, since it indicates to all of us that the descendants of the
Indian immigrants to Guyana, to Trinidad, to Suriname and elsewhere in
the Caribbean region are decisively moving forward to conquer more
horizons and win greater achievements in various fields of endeavour.
These will be positive factors which will certainly determine the
destiny of our region in the years to come.




DOUGLA: THE DOUBLE/TRIPLE HERITAGE 
On the small Caribbean islands (St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada, Jamaica...), the "dougla"are viewed in the same light as Indians, due to the minoritiy of Indians.
They are treated the same way, and sometimes still called coolies.
But they in turn are viewed as black if they reside in Canada or the United States.
When they are on their island of origin they assume and share their role and condition as Indo-West Indian.

3sludouglas_2  
Saint-Lucia's rainbow people enjoy racial harmony :
Tony M., Gentle St. P., Brandon G.

The small island Indian in society is considered Indian by society, mostly without prejudice.

Some Dougla consider themselves just Black just because they haven't been taught their history and the indian culture of their ancestors was washed away by the imperialist.
Says Ram : Initially, I did not consider myself Indian because I had a feeliing I had no right to claim my part of indianness part, since I do no speak Hindi, I am not a Hindu, and I was not born in India.
I do not know much about the larger island i.e. Trinidad & Tobago or Guyana Dougla people, but I assume they are sort of a people in limbo that are not accepted by either side, which puts them in the position of choosing side.
In the small islands the mixture of Indian can make a difference in terms of classification. However, if you are a quarter Indian you are not considered Indian, but you are known 'to come from an Indian family'.
I have noticed that many dougla come to regard themselves by depending on if they retain more indian or more black features.
Most Dougla consider themselves Black because they are shun by indians from India or on the bigger Caribbean islands, and, to a great extent, ignorant about that portion of their heritage.
Some Dougla also believe that reclaiming their indianness part would be a denial of being black. They feel as though they would be viewed with disdain as pro-indian, and their features are more african, and so keep it inside themselves.

This limited conception needs to be overcome by all our people.
What good does it do to the psychic balance of part of the population is a question one may ask. This can all change if one can cast light on the veil of ignorance regarding indianness...
Some dougla are reconnecting with the Indian part of their identity and claim the Indian part of their history and heritage that used to be a shameful feature.
They feel their Indian ancestors and their contributions to their country need to be acknowledged, and thus they are re discovering the wealth of resources that India and her culture brought to the Caribbean and the world.

Considering the threat of globalization, this re-discovery can be an asset.

All West Indian people should be allowed to investigate the heritage, culture, history and wisdom of their ancestors so as to share it as part of the common modern Caribbean lifestyle.
India too is becoming aware of her contribution through the indentured servants and trying to come to terms with this mixed facet of the once indian diaspora.

In turn, India, Europe, Africa, and the world can also benefit from the Caribbean culture that is definitely not just African.

Photo and info contributed by Ram, a Saint-Lucian living in the USA.
First posting 26 March 2005.

 
Race retention and culture loss: South Asians/East Indians in St. Vincent
By Kumar Mahabir

Abstract - The West Indian/Caribbean island of St. Vincent is home to a small percentage of South Asians/East Indians, all of whom came to work as labourers in the sugarcane fields after slavery under a system of indentureship (1862-1885). On the island there are distinct areas where Indo-St. Vincentians live, namely Richland Park, Calder and Rosebank.
This paper takes the form of an interview done in 1982 with a 93-year old Indian, Mr. James Woods. Through this key informant, readers get an insight of the living conditions of Indian indentured immigrants, their relationships with one other, and with the larger ethnic African population. Woods also reveals the traditions and customs that have been retained mainly through song, dance, religion and marriage. He also attempts to explain why so many Indians converted from Hinduism to Christianity.
The following interview was done with Mr. James Woods, born 1889, at his home in Richard Park, St. Vincent, on March 15, 1982 when Woods was 93 years old.

MAHABIR: Mr. Woods, did your parents come from India?
WOODS: My father and grand-father come in a boat from India. My father come two years old, li'l child. He come here in St. Vincent in 1852.They come on a boat, "Light in London." The boat wreck in Barbados.

MAHABIR: How did they reach St. Vincent?
WOODS: They swim to shore. They take a next boat for come in St. Vincent.

MAHABIR: Why did your grand-father leave India?
WOODS: My grand-father (by my mother-side) name is Kowlessar. They did immigrating people to come to St. Vincent to work. They come under immigration. They come to work. They come here under immigration to work. My father name is Seetaram. My mother come from India too. My mother name is Rajani.

MAHABIR: What work did your father do in India?
WOODS: I believe he was a sheep-a-man, seeing about cattle. He was seeing about cattle. He told me that. He and some fellar minding cattle for other people, and he take a stick and he knock the fellar. So he try to get-way in the immigration before they do anything with he.

MAHABIR: Were you told anything about crossing the kala pani [black waters]?
WOODS: No.

MAHABIR: In which estate was your father bound?
WOODS: Argyle. My father did all kind of work in the estate, but his last work was overseeing. All the work they got in Argyle, he head all the work. To dig bank, he beat all hand; to cut cane, he beat all man. He was the head work-man. You understand? So they raise him and raise him until hecame over- seer. He was a sealer-man in Argyle too. Sealing rum . my father.

MAHABIR: Did he have problems, as an overseer, with workers on the estate?
WOODS: All the Indian people, if they have any case, they go bring it to him. He go set the case. If he say you wrong, you wrong. If he give a judgement, you don't have to go through magistrate. The Indians used to set they own case. They call all the people . estate people. He take evidence from them. They no used to go to no court at all. He used to be the ... am ... judge. He left Argyle in 1905 when he bound done.

MAHABIR: Did he live in the estate barracks?
WOODS: He been have a separate house because he was an over­-seer. 5 And if anybody dead and you have a child - nine days, it used to have big dance and all kind of thing. You have a daughter who go married, some buy a gallon of rum, some buy half gallon, according. And two pound a rice, three pound of rice, according.7 They invite all the Indian; the woman them, the man them. The woman from Richland Park went to singin the house. They knock drum and sing and dance and thing.

MAHABIR: Did people marry at an early age?
WOODS: Just as they five year old. Little children - they getting married. You are the father and you are the father. Well, he say you have a daughter. He say you have a son. When the time come, they make a gowna [ceremonial acceptance of bride]. They make a big feast. Their parents choosing for them.

MAHABIR: Did this happen in St. Vincent?
WOODS: Yes. But the gyul go stop at the mother house until she come to a certain age. When they feel they can go, they make a big feast and they bring the boy and gyul. They put them in a rule, the Indian rule. None of the gyul couldn't commit adultery with any other man. So you done married before you know anything about the world.

MAHABIR: Was the wedding big?
WOODS: Oh yes. They build big shed cover with trash mostly. Cane trash. Bamboo post. They had big broad bush call chaila bush. They spread it all about and we go sit down right round. They share food in the bush.That was the rule, the Indian rule.

MAHABIR: Was there a priest?
WOODS: The Indian minister there. They call him pundit. He come and married them.

MAHABIR: What sort of clothes did Indians wear?
WOODS: When they come from India, they used to wear dhoti [loin cloth] and thing. All ah them been ah wear dhoti. All the woman and them beenah wear orhini [veil] till they get the English wear. One time when I send my hand under the stone in Argyle River, the bera [bracelet] jam. My father bring cruba [picket] and turn the stone from my hand. I used to have , three bera 'pon me hand and my mother used to have nose-ring,jewel all over her hand. They call it julana [nose-ring].

MAHABIR: How did Negroes see the Indians' wedding, clothes, etc.?
WOODS: The Negro dem used to be slave. In 1834 the slavery come off ah them. They release them from they slavery. Indian people was under bound.

MAHABIR: Was there any trouble between Indians and Negroes?
WOODS: The Negro and dem live separate from the Indian and them. We did living separate from the Black. The Black and them did living in a place call Bottom Barrick. It did have one Indian man living there. They call that man William Laban . he English name, but he did name Takoor.

MAHABIR: How did your father convert to Christianity?
WOODS: My father didn't come to Christianity. At the time of his death, he did still living the Indian way. But in 1931, I was baptized by Seventh Day Adventist. I was 41 years of age. I didn't stop long with the Adventist because their teaching not right. I change to the Church of God.

MAHABIR: What made you change from Hindu?
WOODS: There were two boys, Manoram and Ramrattan. They come Trinidad. When they come, one ah them used to stop at any house because he find Ididn't used to eat anything unclean. Ramrattan used to stop at a fellar named Harry Gonzales. One used to stop at me down there. But whenthey ready, the two ah them go back to Trinidad. Them come as a colporteur [bookseller] for the Seventh Day Adventist. They selling book andthing. I buy a book called The Great Controversy between Christ and Satan and The Revelation and Christian Sabbath. I buy those booksfrom them. Those boys.

MAHABIR: What did you find wrong about the Hindu religion?
WOODS: My father dead. See? After old Indian people dead off, we take up the English way. Before, Indian, when they have a child born nine days, theyhave big dance and singing and thing. When it come to a man dead, forty days, they have big party; sit down and eat and drink. All them ahIndian rule.

MAHABIR: Tell me more about Hindu funerals in St. Vincent?
WOODS: When they bury the dead, everybody have to go and bathe. The woman and them na go for burial you know. When we done, you have to go to the river and bathe. They mean to say you unclean. When you done bathe, you come back home.

MAHABIR: Did they ever burn anybody in St. Vincent?
WOODS: No. They never burn anybody in St. Vincent. They never burn none. All them ah used to bury them the same. They used to have the Indianminister, the Indian sadhu [ascetic] they call them.

MAHABIR: Did your father stay separate?
WOODS: All the Indian whe' come Argyle; they come in one like. They join up with one another. They have Dowlat and them, they have Sieunarine them. All ah them ah different nation [caste] you know. Some ah Chamar, some ah Garedhia, some ah Ahir.

MAHABIR: Did Muslims stay apart from Hindus?
WOODS: Well, Muslims did there too with them. All the nation there. If you is a Hindu, you is a Hindu; if you is a Chamar, you is a Chamar; if you isa Muslim, you is a Muslim. But all ah them go mix up because they nuh have you' family.

MAHABIR: Do you remember any katha [Hindu ceremonial worship] being done in St. Vincent?
WOODS: Yes man. We used to have katha. We put up a white flag on bamboo in the yard. We sing and so. They no eat no meat - milk. Up to now medon't eat no beef you know.

MAHABIR: Did they blow horns during the ceremony?
WOODS: Yes. Blow you' shell man. Ring ah bell. pundit [priest] have their book.21 Them ah read.

MAHABIR: Can you read Hindi?
WOODS: No. Me can't read man. Me humbug meself man. My father could ah read and write in Indian.

MAHABIR: Did Indian marry Blacks in those times?
WOODS: No, no, no. Black can't come near them. They wouldn't accept them at all. No. That time no Indian at all ever married a black. Negro find their rank; Indian find their own rank. Now Indian ah go with Black; Black ah go with Indian. All before that time, when we there in the estate, Indian people have nothing to do with Black, and Black people have nothing to do with Indian. You ah Indian, you keep by yourself; you ah Black you keep by yourself. No other people eh mix up with one another.

MAHABIR: Do you know about Muslim functions?
WOODS: No.

MAHABIR: Do you know any Indian songs?
WOODS: Oh yes man. Wha' you talk? Me and a fellar named Seecharan sing whole night till day clean. Indian song.

MAHABIR: Well, sing a piece for me.
WOODS: All right . Rama kena bhajo mana mariobow lagai kay Put your mind on Rama and praise him until deathRama kena bhajo mana mariobow lagai kayPut your mind on Rama and praise him until deathKoi kaie phiira jilebi baraphi mangai kay Some people send for phira jilebi and baraphi [sweetmeats] to eat Koi kaie phira jilebi baraphi mangai kay Some people send for phira jilebi and baraphi [sweetmeats] to eat Sadhu kaie ruka suka hari gun ah lagai kay Sadhus [ascetics] eat dry and plain food and sing praises to God

MAHABIR: Did non-Indians ever abuse you by saying "coolie"?
WOODS: Them ah say "coolie," but I say I no "coolie," me ah "Indian." I say, "Me nuh come as slave; I bound." We used to call them African, "Negro."

MAHABIR: When did the Indian way of life change?
WOODS: I used to follow the Indian way right up to the time when the old Indian dead out. After, the young people take up the English way; so we throwdown the Indian rule. Everybody begin to christen they pickni [children] and baptize they pickni in different, different religion. Some ah Pentecostal, some ah Salvationist, some ah Church of God, some ah Seventh Day Adventist, all different religion.

MAHABIR: What do you have to say about the young Indians in St. Vincent?
WOODS: Them young people today cyan even give their own account. They have to work out their own salvation.

MAHABIR: Mr. Woods, thank you very much for speaking with me.


When indentured labour began entering Trinidad from India in 1845, the overwhelming majority of these people were Hindus with a small number of Muslims. Christmas was an unknown concept to them of course and here in the Caribbean, they would have their first contact with this festive season.
The labourers were bound in five and ten-year contracts to sugar estates (cocoa plantations to a lesser extent), and from 1866-1880, were offered an incentive to remain in the island and form a peasantry which would provide a seasonal workforce for the plantations.
Whilst bound to the estates, a few owners and managers of a more benign disposition would have introduced Christmas to the lives of the workers.

A Woman Alone: The Story of India's Forgotten 'Coolie' Women

A Woman Alone: The Story of India's Forgotten 'Coolie' Women

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Image courtesy of South Asian Literature Festival

Listen to the audio version of this story on KALW

When Gaiutra Bahadur came to India from the United States, the anxiety about women’s safety was at fever pitch. “Everyone freaked me out about Delhi,” recalls Bahadur. “They said Delhi is a particularly unsafe city for women. Don’t go out by yourself after 6 o’clock or after sunset.”

The advice was well-intentioned but ironic. When it comes to women going out by themselves, Bahadur comes from a family where the bar has been set quite high.

In 1903 Sujaria, her great-grandmother, a 27-year-old Brahmin woman boarded a ship from Calcutta bound for the sugar plantations of British Guiana. She was traveling alone. She was not headed to meet any family on the other end. And she was four months pregnant.

Bahadur never met her great-grandmother. All she had was the story her father told about his father being born on a ship. And her great-grandmother’s immigration pass which said how old she was and that she had a burn mark on her left leg and written above it in pencil the fact that she was pregnant.

But working backwards from that story, Bahadur uncovered an astonishing piece of history. “It started out as a story of identity but it didn’t take long for gender to become much more important,” says Bahadur. Her great-grandmother was not alone in making that journey. About a quarter of a million women did that as well – the first large scale migration of India women overseas. “About 75 percent of the women who migrated were traveling without a husband and that’s when I realised I had a book to write that wasn’t just about my great grandmother but about generations of women,” says Bahadur. That book is Coolie Woman – The Odyssey of Indenture.

The stereotypical image, positive or negative, of the migration story has usually been male – the Mexican man picking California strawberries, the Indian or Taiwanese engineer in Silicon Valley, the Bangladeshi immigrant coming across the border illegally who became a hot button issue in India’s recent election. Or it has been about family migration like the motel owners in a small town in the American South.

But women too are on the move around the world on their own. A 2007 World Bank report says women comprise almost half the world’s immigrants and that number is on the rise. “The share of women migrating for employment rather than family reasons has increased over time,” says Maurice Schiff, lead economist at the Development Research Group.

Women like Bahadur’s great-grandmother are the unacknowledged foremothers of that trend.

The reason why so many women went on their own from India to the sugar plantations of Guiana are complex. The plantations needed labour to replace the African slaves they had once used.

So they turned to the colonies. There was a huge gender imbalance on the plantations and there was a great demand for coolie women. No ship could sail unless there were at least forty women for every 100 men among the coolies it carried. But the 1883 Indian Emigration Act would not allow married women to emigrate without the permission of their husbands. And as Bahadur notes the 1891 census of the United Provinces reported that 90 percent of girls between ten and fourteen were already married. That meant recruiters were on the lookout for all kinds of women who were alone – for example widows, pilgrims, sex workers, women cast out by their families because of some scandal.

“It was an unsettling question to ask myself was my great-grandmother possibly a sex worker,” muses Bahadur. But she says from the little that is known about her history and the fact that she was picked up in Ayodhya, she has her own hypothesis. “I think she was probably a widow who was on the Vaishnavite pilgrims circuit and she might have ended up in a relationship or being exploited by a temple priest. My father, for instance was told his father’s father was a gosain (sadhu).” Her research shows many women were picked up from Mainpuri most likely, she reasons “siphoned from the pilgrims on their way to Vrindaban in search of food, shelter and god.”

The exact truth will never be known. Bahadur found a village in Bihar that was possibly the one her great-grandmother came from. She even found a family that claimed her as their own. But these stories can never be watertight.

What is clear however is that even life as a coolie woman in a sugar plantation was a sort of liberation for many of these women.

Or if not liberation, at least a new beginning. “There were so few of them they actually had a limited amount of leverage in choosing partners,” says Bahadur. Her great-grandmother got into a relationship with a man on the ship. Later she married a cow herder and set up a business selling milk, a business in which she was a partner. Some women married their white overseers who bought them out of indenture. Many shocked the missionaries trying to “civilize” them in Guiana. Bahadur quotes Sarah Morton hired to teach Indian girls to become proper wives asking a Brahmin widow if she had family in Guiana.

“No, Madame,” she replied. “Only myself and two children; when the last immigrant ship came I took a ‘papa’. I will keep him as long as he treats me well. If he does not treat me well, I shall send him off at once, that’s the right way, is it not?"

Of course, calling the plantations of Guiana a haven for women’s liberation would be sugarcoating reality. Women were exploited as well, many murdered or disfigured with the same cutlass used to chop down the sugarcane.

The story of the indentured workers of the Indo-Caribbean is something that’s little discussed in India. In Kolkata, Bahadur found that few knew where the old British Guiana immigration headquarters in Garden Reach were. But she says Calcutta holds a huge place in the imagination of the Indo-Caribbean because that was their ancestral point of departure from India. In India most people don’t know anything about this history which “is unfortunate because this was the first significant movement of Indians abroad,” says Bahadur. “It was a third the size of the British slave trade – more than a million people.”

Some of the amnesia is because the “brain drain” of doctors and engineers has always been the migration story India wanted to highlight rather than the “coolie” migration. That holds true even today. The Indians building stadiums in the Middle East were not the ones feted in the first Pravasi Indian Divas-es organised with such fanfare by the government.

Indenture became a burning issue in British India. Gandhi demanded the viceroy abolish indenture. Sarojini Naidu talked about the “the misery and shame of our sisters in the colonies.”

The missionary C F Andrews called indenture little more “than a legalised form of prostitution”. It was the first time women petitioned the viceroy about their rights. Bahadur writes India’s freedom fighters squared off against the British “in moral combat, over the bodies and honour of indentured women” and coolie contracts were cancelled in 1919. But when the indentured did come back, the returnees, especially women, were not welcomed back home after crossing the kala pani. Coolies deserted their wives from Guiana, often from a different caste because they had other wives in the home village. Many just camped out in the slums of Metiabruz in the docklands of Calcutta. When a ship with returnees docked in Calcutta, Nehru, with his hands already full with refugees from Pakistan, complained “Thetar log agaye (the stubborn people have come).”

Bahadur however bears that stubbornness as a sort of badge of pride. She says that looking back what she sees is just “how brave and exceptional these women were in leaving by themselves.” That history deserves to be remembered, especially in these times.

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Indian Arrival Day Celebrations at the V&A
By Nicole-Rachelle Moore
United Kingdom
Wednesday 22 May 2013 : 1:00 GMT
0
This Friday, 24th May, the Victoria and Albert Museum is hosting a multilayered celebration of historic 19th century Indian migration to the Caribbean, east and southern Africa and the Pacific, and of the subsequent descendent Indian diaspora found all over the world today.

Whilst Guyana is not geographically within the Caribbean, its brutal colonial history is so closely paralleled to those of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago that it is often referred to as such, despite being a South American nation. Of the three, Guyana was the first colonial territory to receive indentured labourers on 5th May 1838, when the Whitby docked in Georgetown with 244 Indians on board. The Blundell Hunter sailed into Morant Bay, Jamaica, with its cargo of approximately 261 labourers in May 1845, while the Muslim-owned Fatel Razack, with a workforce of about 220, dropped its anchors in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in that same month and year. With the arrival of the Indians in Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad, a new culture had also arrived in each colony.

The Indian labour force was needed to fill the gap left by emancipated Africans who, understandably, wanted to break their traumatic ties with sugar plantations. While Indian indentured workers were paid, albeit a pittance, they lived and worked under harsh conditions. For many, ‘Mother India’ took on a fantastical and mythical identity which, together with rich cultural retentions, must have helped Indians to endure the challenges of indentureship.

Narratives from the Indian diaspora continue to be constructed and shared globally as ‘Indian culture’ continues to travel, influence and be influenced by other cultures and experiences. Join the celebration at the V & A on May 24th from 18:30 to 21:45 to explore some of the myriad stories of the Indian arrival experience.
The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) is located on Cromwell Road, South Kensington, SW7 2RL. Nearest tube station is South Kensington, which is on the Circle, District & Piccadilly Lines and it's serviced by buses C1, 14, 74 and 414.

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Ravi Ji




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Indian Arrival Day takes a turn
Indian Arrival Day celebrations on May 28. File photo: Tony Howell
Festival Days are important to a people. A close study often reveals not only social and anthropological evidence but also the history of the people in the context of the festival.
Often the multilayeredness of a festival, sometimes embracing irreconcilable features, reveals its dynamic nature. In reading the text of the festival, one can even see the footprint of conscious and unconscious political interference in the life of a people. The festival can also reveal much of the pride and prejudice of a particular period and the people’s struggle to be.
Embedded within our society is a rich and awesome harvest of civilisation. Within its womb, unseen, is multisourced energy, a virtual theatre of conflicts and reconciliation—a virtual gestation of T&T society taking place. The contest of these energies to surface is facilitated or deterred by the manner in which this society of immigrants has been shaped by colonialism and the resultant idea of nationalism.
Indian Arrival Day is a special reference point in this study, obviously because of the contest of race and politics in which culture is subsumed in T&T, where Emancipation is seen as African and Indian Arrival Day as Indian.
There is an ongoing criticism of Indian Arrival Day being too Hindu. This should encourage investigation into social behaviour. But all this is further tied up with the problem of a western society, which is nurtured in a lineal and mono-vision of reality without accounting for the eastern societies which are influenced by the circular and the diverse.
I see Indian Arrival Day taking an new turn this year which may give the student of social anthropology a ringside seat in the shaping of a social phenomenon. It is important, therefore, to landmark this turn of events for students of social and cultural history. I will attempt a profile of the history of Indian Arrival Day.
Hindu influence in commemorating Indian Arrival Day is obvious. Some see this as a negative and are critical.
Indian Arrival Day celebrations started 60 years ago (May 1945) with a centenary celebration at Skinner Park, San Fernando. There were few activities for the next 25 years.
Swami Satchidananda, on his return to Trinidad from India, revived activities. I participated in at least two sankirtan processions on May 30, from Chaguanas to the Divine Life Society, Enterprise, before I left for India in 1972. When I returned from India in the 80s, at his request, I co-ordinated a procession for him which concluded at Carlsen Field. Swami Ji later lead a large procession, organised by Hindu Seva Sangh, from Tunapuna to Aranguez.
It may be interesting to evaluate why Swami Ji organised May 30 activities. Was it to communicate his Indianness? Was it a Hindu programme?
Swami was not trying to shape May 30 activities as a Hindu event. It was just natural for him to express his selfhood as an Indian in a Hindu form. There is an interesting clue left unconsciously by Swami Ji: he published a popular bhajan book in which he included the Indian national anthem. The convergence of Hindu and Indian, for Hindus, is seamless.
A group of youths published, in the 80s, a list of the jahajis who arrived on the first Fatel Razack, for mass distribution. Two of the youths, Danny Jang and Khalik, were Muslims; the rest were Hindus who later became Hindu workers. The Hindu Seva Sangh, Maha Sabha, the Hindu Prachar Kendra and mandirs across Trinidad, and even in Tobago, were organising May 30 events.
Surujrattan Rambachan, a prominent Ramayan scholar, bhajan singer, academic and politician, brought Indian Arrival Day into sharp focus as he spoke in Cedros after a landing ceremony and a sankirtan procession. TTT’s hostile report and the resultant controversy took the idea of Indian Arrival Day to the nation.
Most of the Indian Arrival Day activities, not only have had to depend mainly on Hindu groups but expressed themselves as sankirtan processions. This sankirtan procession was already part of the ground-work developing in Central. Hindu Seva Sangh inherited the thread of Indian Arrival activities when Ramdat Jagessar, one of the founding Indian Arrival Day activists, joined as its general secretary. Indian Arrival Day activities now became a popular event through sankirtan.
By this time, Trevor Sudama, MP, had tabled in Parliament the motion for Indian Arrival Day. It is a mystery why it did not get the expected support from any parliamentarian and was deferred. The Manning administration later went on to declare May 30 as Arrival Day. (Ten years later, in 2005, he would formally celebrate Arrival Day “of all peoples” at PM’s residence to commemorate Indian Arrival Day.)
Then came 1995, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indians to T&T. The National Council of Indian Culture invited as chief of guests to T&T the vice-president of India. The Council gave me the responsibility to organise a procession of many organisations (including Christians and Muslims) for the occasion. When the head of the procession entered Divali Nagar’s gate, the tail was still at Mid Centre Mall. Another high-profile procession was organised by the Maha Sabha in the East-West Corridor. Panday’s UNC performed the poorna ahooti by simply including the term “Indian” when it came into Government later in 1995.
Kashika Patra lists Indian Arrival Day as a holiday pointing out the Hindu calendrical tithi. From last year, during the term of High Commissioner to India Pundit Manideo Persad, Indian Arrival (of Indians in T&T) has become an event in India. This year, he organised a trip of 160 visitors from India to T&T.
ASJA has formerly joined in organising the event this year but, according to reports made a decision to omit the word “Indian.”
Principal of UWI Dr Tewarie, speaking at the event, gave a philosophical ground for a new turn in Indian Arrival Day activities—“How to acknowledge uniqueness as an asset without taking an exclusivist view”—and called for a “culture of acceptance that will enable all peoples to realise their potential.”


 
Indian Labour in British Guiana | History Today

www.historytoday.com
British Guiana, 1908

Indian Labour in British Guiana

Emancipation in British Guiana brought an influx of indentured labourers from India, whose working and living conditions were destructive of caste and culture, and often as harsh as those of the slaves they replaced.
British Guiana, 1908British Guiana, 1908On May 5th 1838, the very year of final slave emancipation in the British West Indies, a small batch of 396 Indian immigrants popularly known as the 'Gladstone Coolies' landed in British Guiana (Guyana) from Calcutta. This was the beginning of the indenture system which was to continue for over three-quarters of a century and whose essential features were very reminiscent of slavery. Within a decade Indian immigration was largely responsible for changing the fortunes of the sugar industry, the mainstay of the economy, from the predicted 'ruin' to prosperity.
The importation of labour from the Indian sub-continent was part of a continuing search by Guianese planters for a labour force that was docile, reliable and amenable to discipline under harsh, tropical conditions. Emancipation had conferred on the Guianese labourers both physical and occupational mobility. They could withhold their labour temporarily or permanently and vacate the estates if living and working conditions did not satisfy them. In fact, a gradual exodus from the plantations began soon after emancipation. What the planters desired was an alternative and competitive labour force which would give them the same type of labour control they were accustomed to under slavery.

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Only memory of the oppressed can defeat colonial ideology

Gopal Krishna is an activist and associated with ToxicsWatch Alliance, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), IMOWatch, MediaVigil & WaterWatch Alliance. He is also researching the corporate crimes in India after Independence. He can be contacted at krishna2777[at]gmail.com.
Gopal Krishna
Gopal Krishna
“The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing.” Eduardo Galeano‘s book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent sounds like it is the story of the Indian sub-continent. The story of the indentured labourers and coolies is the story India’s open veins and arteries.
As Girmit Remembrance Day (14 May) is commemorated recollecting the departure of Indian indentured labourers and coolies at least since 1879, 22 years after 1857, can it be hoped that our ‘decolonized’ state will conserve, restore and manage its natural resources and desist from imitating a cannibalistic model of development that forces people to migrate and become wage slaves? The illiterate workers transliterated the word ‘agreement’ in contract as ‘Girmit’ and ‘Girmitya’
.Girmitiya
The famines of 1873 and 1896-7 took its toll because of excessive land-revenue demands and export of foodgrains. They have been referred to as ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’. The money needed to combat famine was diverted towards British military effort in Afghanistan. After that the East India Company of British royalty laid the foundation of its rule by defeating the Indians by deceit and treachery at Plassey and Buxer as lands came under company control, the “violent” land tax was raised fivefold — from 10 per cent to up to 50 per cent of the value of the agricultural produce. The hoarding of food grains was banned. The food crops made way for opium poppy cultivation for export to countries like China. The farmers were made to grow indigo instead of rice. This reduced food availability. The company facilitated establishment of monopolies in grain trading. This led to a catastrophic famine.
The control of Indian affairs was complete by 1857, “India became a dependency” of British King Emperor and “she passed under British guardianship” as per British records. But India had become ‘dependent’ long before the formal declaration. As a consequence British government’s market policies had a field day resulting in famines. Advocating Macaulayism, British India Viceroy Lord Chelmsford revealed the plot in his speech while inaugurating the new Indian legislature, consisting of the council of state and the legislative assembly at Delhi on February 9, 1921 after ‘the glorious imperial half century’.  It was in these glorious years that after the abolition of slavery by Britain that Indians left their homeland as in answer to the need of many former slave-plantation colonies for labour that was cheap and plentiful. From 1830 until 1920 the recruitment of Indians in India to work on the various plantations was organised through what became known as the indenture system.  It was engineered through a licensed recruiter or “Kangani” who used lure people away from their homes with promises of a bright future in the colonies. The journeys were long, for example, that from Patna or Benares to Calcutta took thirty to forty days. They were forced to march till the Indian emigration depots under supervision of the licensed recruiter.
In pre census era estimates about the number of migrants from India remains uncertain. A total of about 3,42,575 were sent from Calcutta during the period 1830-70 with emigrants drawn from Bihar and other north Indian states. These migrants went to Fiji, the West Indies, Mauritius, British Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago and other places.  Before 1870 about 17 to 20 per cent of the labourers died before they reached their destination. The whole indentured labour system and the Indian Diaspora were indeed the consequences of British exploitation. Our ‘decolonized’ state is yet to realize that it cannot comprehend its identity without situating itself in the historical context of indenture system at least since early 18th century. The state needs a blueprint to ensure that situations of famine, displacement, migration and humiliation do not arise in future.
When Bihar likes Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar, who visited Bhelupur in the Buxar district of Bihar in January 2012, it cannot forget that her great grandfather Ram Lakhan Mishra was compelled to migrate as a Girmitiya labourer to Trinidad and Tobago, then a British colony in the Caribbean islands in 1889. It cannot feign ignorance or remain callous about the economic policies that lead to such migrations. There has been internal migration as well and their records in census data.
As “we the people”, there is no alternative to learning from at least last 300 years of impoverishment and subjugation of Indians.  The central and state legislatures and governments ought to make a concerted effort to reach out to those who left and are leaving for other countries in unfortunate circumstances. The lessons they learnt on their voyage away from their roots since then must be recorded for posterity.
It is quite visible that in the last few centuries the plight of migrant workers from places like Raxaul, Narkatiaganj, Betia, Sugauli, Motihari, Chakia, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Jaynagar, Nirmali, Farbisganj, Munger, Purnea, Saharsa, Begusarai, Araria, Sitamarhi, Vaishali, Chhapara, Gopalganj , Ara and Buxar in Bihar and Ballia, Ghazipur, Azamgarh, Basti, Banda, Gorakhpur, Sultanpur, Gonda, and Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh remains wedded to history of misery and exploitation. In colonial times they took long ships and now they take long distance trains to work as workers on contract “agreement” or even as casual labourer sans any social security.
Within the country the kind of racist assault migrant workers face in states like Maharashtra and in other non-Hindi speaking parts of the country merits sensitive engagement with political imagination. There appears to be a political consensus in adoption of development fundamentalism as an ideology which is creating an ideal situation for forced displacement and migration in its myopia and after doing that indulges in victim blaming with colonial cruelty.
“Get this into your head: if violence were only a thing of the future, if exploitation and oppression never existed on earth, perhaps displays of nonviolence might relieve the conflict. But if the entire regime, even your nonviolent thoughts, is governed by a thousand-year old oppression, your passiveness serves no other purpose but to put you on the side of the oppressors” observed  Jean-Paul Sartre in  The Wretched of the Earth.  It must be realized that those attempt to naturalize the existing colonial system are on the side of the oppressors.  
 
Indeed all history is contemporary history.  It cannot be forgotten that indentured labour from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh are still being sent to far off places both within the country and outside the country. How can it be forgotten that words, gestures and looks we use and we have inherited us so that they can express themselves through us.  It is deeply tragic commentary on sensitivity that those in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in particular who seem to have forgotten all about the Girmityas. But those who were forced to adopt and live in foreign lands carry the emotional pangs of separation.  The memories of history of one’s own community and family have been overwhelmed by manufactured history of the dynasties of all ilk. This needs to retrieved for waging the continued struggle of memory against forgetfulness before it is too late.
There is nothing to celebrate about indenture; it is an occasion to resolve to reconstruct the untold history by back tracing the roots and struggling to claim it and own it.  The phenomena of Girmit system is a product of colonization both by internal and external forces.  Therefore, Girmit Remembrance Day must not get reduced to a routine affair, it must face those economic forces and ideologies that will have us believe that colonial language, education, dress and culture that has been adopted is a natural phenomena.  This naturalization of cognitive and physical exploitation can only be resisted if in the words of Howard Zinn the author of A People’s History of the United States, historical memory is seen as a weapon.     
It cannot be forgotten that decolonization struggle is not over as yet. It has to continue till the time the existing imperial architecture of dialogues with fellow beings across historical times is made rootless to ensure that the disadvantaged and the aggrieved are not compelled to leave their homeland ever again. The defeat of the oppressed is not final as long as their memory is intact.

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