The abridged ver­sion of the sto­ry from the Ra­mayana tells us that Lord Ra­ma was ex­iled from Ay­o­d­hya and lived in the for­est for 14 years with his wife See­ta and his broth­er Lak­sh­man. Dur­ing their ex­ile, Ra­vana ab­duct­ed See­ta, lead­ing to a bat­tle in which Ra­ma de­feat­ed him. The sto­ry cul­mi­nat­ed in their re­turn to Ay­o­d­hya, where the peo­ple lit deeyas to wel­come them home. Thus, Di­vali be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with the tri­umph of light over dark­ness and good over evil.

This sto­ry of ex­ile and home­com­ing held spe­cial mean­ing for the In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers who ar­rived in T&T. Their rea­sons for leav­ing In­dia and the cir­cum­stances of their re­cruit­ment var­ied. Some had been fooled in­to reg­is­ter­ing for the in­den­ture­ship sys­tem; oth­ers had been ab­duct­ed. Even among those who had made the ra­tio­nal de­ci­sion to leave their vil­lages in search of a bet­ter life, many felt ex­iled from their homes. Sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies and vil­lages, they iden­ti­fied with Lord Ra­ma. Di­vali, there­fore, had even deep­er sig­nif­i­cance in the Trin­bag­on­ian con­text. In re­mem­ber­ing Ra­ma’s ex­ile and even­tu­al home­com­ing, the labour­ers could draw strength from a sto­ry in which hard­ship and sep­a­ra­tion even­tu­al­ly gave way to joy. Cel­e­brat­ing Di­vali main­tained a con­nec­tion with the homes they had left be­hind and brought them to­geth­er in the un­fa­mil­iar so­ci­ety in which they now lived.

Ho­mi Bhab­ha has not­ed that “for vic­tims of colo­nial­ism, cul­ture means strate­gies of sur­vival as much as her­itage”. This idea seems most ap­pro­pri­ate in the case of the In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers in Trinidad, as the re-cre­ation of cul­tur­al tra­di­tions be­came a means of sur­vival in the host so­ci­ety as well as an at­tempt to main­tain a con­scious­ness of be­long­ing. This was es­pe­cial­ly so giv­en the hos­til­i­ty they faced in the host so­ci­ety. Thus, their re­li­gious be­liefs and cul­tur­al prac­tices gave them strength and helped them to make sense of their cir­cum­stances.

There are bare­ly any writ­ten records of Di­vali as it was cel­e­brat­ed dur­ing the in­den­ture­ship pe­ri­od. Oral ac­counts tell of singing, danc­ing, light­ing home­made deeyas with ghee that the labour­ers made them­selves, and com­ing to­geth­er to cook af­ter a hard day’s work in the fields. They cleaned their bar­racks, made prasad to share on their es­tate, read from the Ra­mayana and told sto­ries of Lord Ra­ma’s re­turn to Ay­o­d­hya. They sur­vived and thrived through the com­mu­ni­ties they built and the sup­port they gave each oth­er, adapt­ing their tra­di­tions to their cir­cum­stances and pass­ing them on to their chil­dren.

The end of in­den­ture­ship in 1920, did not bring an im­me­di­ate trans­for­ma­tion in their lives. Many re­mained en­gaged in agri­cul­ture and cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ued to be cen­tred on homes and vil­lages. Over gen­er­a­tions, as in­den­tured labour­ers and their de­scen­dants made T&T their home, their tra­di­tions be­came an in­te­gral part of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty life.

In an in­ter­view for a Di­vali ar­ti­cle I wrote in 2014, Pun­dit Gan­pat Ma­haraj re­called cel­e­brat­ing Di­vali as a child in Clax­ton Bay in the 1940s. He said that fam­i­lies col­lect­ed mud from the riv­er to make deeyas, picked cot­ton to make the wicks and made their own co­conut oil or ghee. As he ex­plained, “Every­thing was made from scratch and the en­tire fam­i­ly would come out to help.” His rec­ol­lec­tions take us to a pe­ri­od when Di­vali was a lo­cal event, cen­tred in homes and cel­e­brat­ed amongst fam­i­ly.

Over time, those cel­e­bra­tions ex­tend­ed fur­ther in­to the vil­lage. Pun­dit Gan­pat re­mem­bered peo­ple bend­ing bam­boo to make arch­es and dif­fer­ent de­signs, in­clud­ing the Om. The avail­abil­i­ty of com­mer­cial­ly made deeyas al­so made it eas­i­er for fam­i­lies to have larg­er dis­plays. Mean­while, an emerg­ing In­di­an mid­dle class helped to spon­sor cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el. Di­vali was leav­ing the pri­vate do­main and en­ter­ing the pub­lic space.

Its de­c­la­ra­tion as a pub­lic hol­i­day in 1966, fol­low­ing per­sis­tent cam­paign­ing by Hin­du lead­ers and or­gan­i­sa­tions, marked an im­por­tant stage in this de­vel­op­ment. Fam­i­lies, mandirs and com­mu­ni­ty groups through­out T&T or­gan­ised larg­er pub­lic cel­e­bra­tions, wel­com­ing peo­ple of dif­fer­ent eth­nic and re­li­gious back­grounds and all so­cial stand­ings. To­day, Di­vali is tru­ly a na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion, root­ed in the re­li­gious ob­ser­vance that Hin­dus have sus­tained across gen­er­a­tions. Its growth re­flects the con­tri­bu­tions of com­mu­ni­ties through­out T&T. No sin­gle or­gan­i­sa­tion or per­son owns that his­to­ry; each gen­er­a­tion has helped to pre­serve the cel­e­bra­tion and widen par­tic­i­pa­tion.

From the plan­ta­tions and cane fields, Di­vali has grown in­to a cel­e­bra­tion that is in­te­gral to our na­tion­al life. Its his­to­ry tells us how peo­ple who ex­pe­ri­enced dis­place­ment drew strength from their cul­ture, built com­mu­ni­ties and es­tab­lished roots here. As we light our deeyas, we should re­mem­ber those gen­er­a­tions and recog­nise what they helped to cre­ate. The de­scen­dants of peo­ple who once iden­ti­fied with Ra­ma’s ex­ile now light deeyas in the coun­try they call home. Their tra­di­tions be­long ful­ly with­in the sto­ry of T&T be­cause they helped to make this coun­try what it is.

Hap­py Di­vali, T&T.