Sat Ma­haraj

When Dr Er­ic Williams, first Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scribed all Hin­du schools as "cow­sheds," his sup­port­ers at Wood­ford Square en­joyed the sar­casm and dis­dain from the man whom some would like to de­scribe "the fa­ther of the na­tion."

Rather than help the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty trans­form these "cow­shed" schools, he and his po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), con­tin­ued the re­li­gious, cul­tur­al and even racial dis­crim­i­na­tion against the in­di­an com­mu­ni­ty and more es­pe­cial­ly the Hin­dus of Trinidad and To­ba­go. South of the Ca­roni Riv­er was re­gard­ed by the PNM gov­ern­ment who ruled Trinidad and To­ba­go for 30 con­sec­u­tive years (1956-1986), as for­eign ter­ri­to­ry.

The roads were left un­paved and im­pass­able, wa­ter to the house­holds was at a pre­mi­um and oth­er ser­vices that were avail­able to cit­i­zens else­where were de­nied the peo­ple south of the riv­er. Even sec­ondary schools for our chil­dren did not come to Coun­ty Ca­roni and else­where in the coun­try­side un­til a change of gov­ern­ment in 1986.

Chil­dren from Fe­lic­i­ty were sent to sec­ondary schools as far as South East Port-of-Spain. Par­ents had to de­lib­er­ate­ly with­draw their chil­dren from these sec­ondary schools be­cause they full well un­der­stood the in­tent and pur­pose of the place­ment of the sec­ondary school chil­dren.

But then Dr Er­ic Williams and the PNM were con­tin­u­ing the colo­nial pol­i­cy of con­ver­sion and mix­ing of the races. Mor­ton Klass in his book East In­di­ans in Trinidad, fo­cused on this prob­lem in the fol­low­ing words: "As an in­den­tured labour­er on a sug­ar plan­ta­tion of ei­ther Trinidad or British Guiana, the East In­di­an im­mi­grant was re­quired to as­sume a po­si­tion with­in the plan­ta­tion so­cial sys­tem. The po­si­tion in which he found him­self was one on­ly re­cent­ly va­cat­ed by a freed slave."

Klass con­tin­ued, "The plan­ta­tion sys­tem had de­vel­oped dur­ing slav­ery and it did not sub­stan­tial­ly change dur­ing the pe­ri­od of in­den­tured labour. No pro­vi­sion was made for be­hav­iour pat­terns ap­pro­pri­ate to the im­mi­grants' so­ci­ety of ori­gin, and by the very na­ture of the sys­tem there was min­i­mal op­por­tu­ni­ty for the ex­er­cis­ing of such pat­terns."

Dr Cuth­bert Joseph, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion and Cul­ture in the PNM gov­ern­ment, de­liv­ered a speech at the JFK lec­ture the­atre UWI, St Au­gus­tine on Au­gust 12, 1981 in which, for the first time a PNM politi­cian of his stature recog­nised the dif­fi­cul­ties that In­di­ans of Hin­du and Is­lam­ic ori­gin faced since their ar­rival on May 30, 1845 aboard the SS Fa­tal Raza­ck. Dr Joseph said: A few facts will pro­vide the ev­i­dence of cul­tur­al dis­crim­i­na­tion against In­di­ans dur­ing the colo­nial pe­ri­od:

a. The recog­ni­tion of imams as mar­riage of­fi­cers for Mus­lims was con­ced­ed on­ly in 1936 with the pass­ing of the Mus­lim Mar­riage and Di­vorce Or­di­nance.

b. The recog­ni­tion of pun­dits as mar­riage of­fi­cers for Hin­dus was le­galised on­ly in 1946 with the en­act­ment of the Hin­du Mar­riage Or­di­nance;

c. Le­gal pro­vi­sion was made for the cre­ma­tion of the dead in ac­cor­dance with Hin­du rites on­ly in 1953 through the pass­ing of the Cre­ma­tion Or­di­nance.

d. State as­sis­tance, of­fered since 1870 to Chris­t­ian de­nom­i­na­tions, for the op­er­a­tion of de­nom­i­na­tion­al pri­ma­ry schools was ex­tend­ed to Mus­lims on­ly in 1948 and to the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty on­ly in 1951;

e. Pro­pos­als for the in­tro­duc­tion of uni­ver­sal adult suf­frage in 1946 at­tempt­ed to ex­clude sec­tions of the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty through the ap­pli­ca­tion of a lit­er­a­cy test;

f. Up to the 1940s be­cause of the high lev­el of il­lit­er­a­cy then ex­ist­ing among rur­al In­di­ans, a rel­a­tive­ly small num­ber of them were to be found in the Gov­ern­ment Ser­vices and in the pro­fes­sions.

Writ­ing about the cul­tur­al dis­crim­i­na­tion suf­fered by In­di­ans in colo­nial Trinidad, CR Ot­t­ley had this to say: "It is of in­ter­est to ob­serve that it was the wear­ing of the trousers, jack­et and tie which first al­lowed him (the In­di­an) to make a breach in the high wall of so­cial os­tracism.

The In­di­an recog­nised that he could on­ly en­ter in­to those sec­tions of the so­cial mo­sa­ic con­sid­ered re­spectable, if he garbed him­self in the com­mon wear...Al­though his tra­di­tion­al wear was very much more in keep­ing with the cli­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in which he had his be­ing, to be ac­cept­ed by mem­bers of the larg­er so­ci­ety he had to dress 'prop­er­ly".

"Above all, and this placed him (the In­di­an) square­ly out­side the pale, he did not wor­ship the one and on­ly God ex­ist­ing at that time in Trinidad-the God Almighty of the Chris­tians...To all and sundry he was a hea­then, a fourth-class cit­i­zen liv­ing in a world of his own...This dis­dain and mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the way of life of the In­di­an left him liv­ing in a sort of im­peri­um in im­pe­rio in re­la­tion to the larg­er so­ci­ety."

• Sat­narayan Ma­haraj Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha