SHAS­TRI BOODAN

T&T can do well to em­u­late the val­ues em­bod­ied by the In­den­tured In­di­an labour­ers, says Sen­a­tor Ran­dall Mitchell, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

At the time, Min­is­ter Mitchell was speak­ing at In­di­an Ar­rival Day Cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) on Mon­day 30 May 2022, ti­tled “Gir­mitya Ki Ya­tra”.  The cel­e­bra­tions were held at the NCIC’s Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas. 

“Let us con­tin­ue to fol­low the ex­am­ple of our East In­di­an an­ces­tors by work­ing to­geth­er on the jour­ney to cre­at­ing a bet­ter life for all,” the tourism min­is­ter said.

He con­grat­u­lat­ed the NCIC for show­ing great per­se­ver­ance and re­silience, which he said was demon­strat­ed by the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s host­ing of var­i­ous vir­tu­al events dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

Sen­a­tor Mitchell al­so praised the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty for its con­tri­bu­tion to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Mean­while, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ch­agua­nas West, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly MP, said pa­tri­o­tism for T&T was born from the womb of ad­ver­si­ty lead­ing out of in­den­ture­ship. MP Ram­bal­ly said it was out of the hard­ship in In­dia 177 years ago that peo­ple came to this coun­try seek­ing a bet­ter life.

“Our iden­ti­ty as Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans was not co­in­ci­den­tal,” he said.  “Let’s make no mis­take about that. Rather our iden­ti­ty, like Jalebi and da­hee would have tak­en some time to come in­to be­ing.”

The Ch­agua­nas West MP said hav­ing ar­rived in Trinidad, these im­mi­grants faced a colos­sal puz­zle ques­tion of iden­ti­ty and sup­port for their cul­ture.  He said as time passed, re­turn­ing to In­dia be­came a dis­tant re­al­i­ty.

“And as more time passed, this im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty, be­set by many so­cial and eco­nom­ic prob­lems, made a de­ci­sion to cre­ate a small nu­cle­us in which all their cul­tur­al tra­di­tions could be kept alive,” he stat­ed. “Against the back­drop of colo­nial op­pres­sion, they chant­ed Mantras, played their in­stru­ments, sang bha­jans, and kept up all the cul­tur­al tra­di­tions per­tain­ing to child­birth, nam­ing cer­e­monies, first shav­ing of the child’s head, mar­riage and even death.”

“In the in­ter­ven­ing years, as the gen­er­a­tions changed, the rigid iden­ti­ty as ‘In­di­an’ be­gan to yield to an­oth­er iden­ti­ty, that of Trinida­di­an, or more prop­er­ly, In­do-Trinida­di­an,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to MP Ram­bal­ly:

“The soil of this coun­try be­came the new moth­er that gave them food and gave them the foun­da­tion for shel­ter.  It pro­vid­ed the source of eco­nom­ic well-be­ing as these im­mi­grants worked in the sug­ar in­dus­try. By this time In­dia be­came an even more dis­tant mem­o­ry and un­der­stand­ing. And as the soil yield­ed to them, they al­so yield­ed to it, as a child yields to its moth­er. And so, our an­ces­tors be­gan their life­long wor­ship of this land, the soil of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

MP Ram­bal­ly said the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty has con­tributed to every sphere of life in Trinidad and To­ba­go. 

“But as a peo­ple, our iden­ti­ty is greater than all of these,” he said.  “Our iden­ti­ty must be based on our abid­ing pa­tri­o­tism to our coun­try, our land, our Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Al­so bring­ing greet­ings at Mon­day’s cel­e­bra­tions were Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed and NCIC Pres­i­dent, De­ok­ien­anan Shar­ma.