To­mor­row, the Catholic Church will cel­e­brate The Solem­ni­ty of the Most Holy Trin­i­ty (Trin­i­ty Sun­day) – Fa­ther, Son and Holy Spir­it who, Pope Fran­cis re­mind­ed us, “are all equal­ly God, and can­not be di­vid­ed”. He said love is at the heart of the Trin­i­ty and high­light­ed the fact that this solem­ni­ty re­news in us “our own mis­sion to live in com­mu­nion with God and with each oth­er…

“We are not called to live with­out the oth­er, above or against the oth­er, but with the oth­er, for the oth­er and in the oth­er… The Holy Spir­it guides us to­wards full knowl­edge of Christ’s teach­ings. Je­sus came to the world to ac­quaint us with the Fa­ther…Every­thing, in Chris­t­ian life, re­volves around the mys­tery of the Trin­i­ty and is ful­filled in this in­fi­nite mys­tery.”

Pope Leo XIV has de­scribed the Tri­une God as a “dy­nam­ic dance of mu­tu­al love” that calls hu­man­i­ty out of self-cen­tred­ness in­to ac­tive en­counter with oth­ers. He said fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties, schools and work­places can be places where gen­uine en­coun­ters among peo­ple can take place.”

More than 38 years ago, Desmond Tu­tu de­scribed Trinidad and To­ba­go as “a rain­bow coun­try”. We are blessed to have a rich di­ver­si­ty of peo­ple liv­ing here. If we tru­ly en­counter each oth­er in our mul­ti-eth­nic, mul­ti-cul­tur­al, and mul­ti-re­li­gious Re­pub­lic of T&T, we will go a long way to fos­ter em­pa­thy, dis­man­tle harm­ful stereo­types, and pro­mote in­clu­sion/so­cial har­mo­ny.

Our di­ver­si­ty is one of our great­est strengths. Maya An­gelou right­ly said, “...di­ver­si­ty makes for a rich ta­pes­try, and we must un­der­stand that all the threads of the ta­pes­try are equal in val­ue no mat­ter what their colour.” And I would add, “or their eth­nic­i­ty.”

This “pre­am­ble” is time­ly as to­day we cel­e­brate the 181st an­niver­sary of the ar­rival of 225 in­den­tured labour­ers who ar­rived in T&T from In­dia on the ship, the Fa­tel Raza­ck. The ship had left Cal­cut­ta on Feb­ru­ary 16, 1845. Pas­sen­gers dis­em­barked on Nel­son Is­land in the Gulf of Paria on May 30, 1845 and were quar­an­tined. I was pleased to have worked with my fa­ther, the late Bal­go­b­in Ramdeen, on a pa­per which he pre­sent­ed at T&T’s High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don in 2014. He died in 2016. Here are some ex­tracts:

“Be­tween 1845 and 1917, there were 319 voy­ages by ship bring­ing 147,592 In­di­ans from In­dia to work as in­den­tured labour­ers on sug­ar­cane plan­ta­tions owned by the British in T&T. About 60 per cent were Hin­dus, 13 per cent were Mus­lims, and 27 per cent were Chris­tians, Bud­dhists and per­sons of oth­er faiths. They were sent to work on var­i­ous es­tates through­out Trinidad…

“They brought with them as­pects of their cul­ture such as re­li­gions, lan­guages, lit­er­a­ture, mu­sic and mu­si­cal in­stru­ments, dress, tra­di­tions, food/seeds, plants, fruits such as man­goes, gua­va, tamarind, okra, and seime, cloves, gin­ger, saf­fron, dhal, pep­pers, mus­tard, spices, ghee etc. The dhan­tal, a mu­si­cal in­stru­ment, was de­vel­oped in T&T. The in­den­ture con­tract was an ex­ploita­tive one. The treat­ment of In­di­ans un­der in­den­ture­ship was in­hu­mane. Life was not easy for the 75 per cent or so who re­mained af­ter in­den­ture­ship…

“For many years Hin­du and Mus­lim mar­riages were not recog­nised by the State in T&T. This had ad­verse ef­fects on the lives of wives and chil­dren as land owned by the men in their fam­i­lies went bona va­can­tia, to the State, when these men died. Hin­du mar­riages were not recog­nised as le­gal un­til May 13, 1946 (with the pas­sage of the Hin­du Mar­riage Act) – over 100 years af­ter the ar­rival of the first in­den­tured In­di­an labour­ers to T&T; and Mus­lim mar­riages were sim­i­lar­ly not recog­nised un­til De­cem­ber 1, 1964 (with the pas­sage of the Mus­lim Mar­riage and Di­vorce Act).

“In the ear­ly years of in­den­ture­ship, the law stat­ed that one could on­ly vote if one could read and write. For many years, un­til Bhadase Sagan Maraj start­ed build­ing schools, In­di­ans were de­nied adult suf­frage, since many were un­able to read or write and could not reg­is­ter to vote. They on­ly gained adult suf­frage on 1 Ju­ly 1946.”

I thank my pa­ter­nal great, great grand­par­ents, 18-year-old young man, Mada­ree (Hin­du) and 20-year-old young woman, Oozerun, (Mus­lim), for tak­ing the 96-day jour­ney to T&T. They ar­rived in Trinidad on the Edith Moore on De­cem­ber 6, 1858, and were sent to work as in­den­tured labour­ers on the Mon Plaisir Sug­ar Es­tate, Cunu­pia.

The de­scen­dants of the Di­al/Ramdeen fam­i­ly have ac­com­plished much in var­i­ous fields of en­deav­our. Each per­son is of worth; what­ev­er our eth­nic­i­ty. I am proud of my mixed her­itage: African and In­di­an.

Hap­py In­di­an Ar­rival Day!