Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says while some un­prin­ci­pled peo­ple have over the years found it in their own self-serv­ing in­ter­est to cre­ate and pro­mote racial di­vide, the coun­try's his­to­ry il­lus­trates, for the most part, a lev­el of racial to­geth­er­ness of which we can be proud.

Row­ley said so in his In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage to the na­tion. He said since their ar­rival, in­den­tured labour­ers and their de­scen­dants have done much more than labour on sug­ar es­tates. He said they have helped to build our young na­tion. He said: "In every area of our so­ci­ety the East In­di­an in­flu­ence can be seen. Cul­tur­al­ly, East In­di­an flavours have in­fused our mu­sic, dance, fes­ti­vals and cui­sine.

"Every year we join our Hin­du broth­ers and sis­ters in cel­e­brat­ing Di­vali and the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in cel­e­brat­ing Eid ul-Fitr and oth­er fes­ti­vals of re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance. "In var­i­ous fields in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion, law, med­i­cine and pol­i­tics, East In­di­ans have made laud­able con­tri­bu­tions to our na­tion's de­vel­op­ment."

Row­ley said this was un­doubt­ed­ly to the "cred­it of all of us whose fore­fa­thers came here from dif­fer­ent lands, made this our home and to this day we con­tin­ue to work side by side to de­vel­op our na­tion. "As such, I en­cour­age all cit­i­zens to con­tin­ue to build a rich lega­cy of which our chil­dren, grand­chil­dren and great grand­chil­dren could be proud."