“What is called ‘Hin­duism’ in the present day could not be de­stroyed as any in­vad­er or for­eign­er or prac­tic­ing Hin­du could ex­plore Hin­duism in-depth. Its roots are em­bed­ded in mys­te­ri­ous sources. Its branch­es have in­vad­ed space. Hin­duism is all-per­va­sive, all-in­clu­sive and pen­e­trat­ing in­to the depths.”

In a pub­li­ca­tion ti­tled Hin­du Gods and God­dess­es, Swa­mi Har­shanan­da, a devo­tee of Ra­makr­ish­na, a famed Hin­du in­car­na­tion, be­gins his pub­li­ca­tion with an analy­sis of Hin­duism.

The Swa­mi con­tin­ues: “The pe­cu­liar char­ac­ter­is­tic of Hin­duism is that it does not eas­i­ly lend it­self to be fit­ted in­to any rigid pat­tern or frame­work. Un­like the oth­er great re­li­gions of the world, it does not have one founder, one scrip­ture, or even one way of life. It is pre­cise­ly due to this rea­son that it is some­times dubbed, not as a re­li­gion, but on­ly as a way of life or just a cul­ture.

“This eter­nal and an­cient spir­i­tu­al path is be­ing re­vealed to dif­fer­ent peo­ples of the earth in dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods of their his­to­ry, in dif­fer­ent ways. Maybe, the prophets through whom it is re­vealed are dif­fer­ent. Maybe, the mode of wor­ship rec­om­mend­ed is dif­fer­ent. Maybe, the Gods are giv­en dif­fer­ent names. But, the core of the teach­ing giv­en by all the re­li­gions and the con­tents of spir­i­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence ob­tained, are iden­ti­cal.”

Mem­bers of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and all those who joined in the cel­e­bra­tion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day do not re­ly on me­dia cov­er­age, ill-in­formed jour­nal­ists or even state fund­ing to guide them in­to wor­ship and recog­ni­tion of the ar­rival of our an­ces­tors and the con­tri­bu­tion they have made to the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Hin­du ‘pan­chang’ or cal­en­dar of re­li­gious events guides us on how to cel­e­brate and wor­ship the con­tri­bu­tion of our an­ces­tors. This ‘pan­chang’ is com­piled ac­cord­ing to both lu­nar and so­lar cal­cu­la­tions to pro­vide max­i­mum spir­i­tu­al and pos­i­tive in­flu­ence for the devo­tees.

In our 2025 re­li­gious cal­en­dar, it is clear­ly de­fined that Pitri Paksh be­gins on Sep­tem­ber 8th and con­tin­ues for 14 days. An­nu­al­ly, the Hin­du is in­struct­ed to re­mem­ber gen­er­a­tions of the an­ces­tors, and that on every morn­ing, they should rise, face the ris­ing sun and of­fer wa­ter from a lota (a brass ves­sel) in the name of the many de­ceased an­ces­tors who they could re­call.

Cer­tain ill-in­formed com­men­ta­tors write un­der the mis­tak­en no­tion that we cel­e­brate In­di­an Ar­rival Day on­ly be­cause it was de­clared a pub­lic hol­i­day. This is to­tal­ly er­ro­neous and re­quires these writ­ers to re­turn to more his­tor­i­cal re­search.

In­di­an Ar­rival Day was first cel­e­brat­ed in Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, as the East In­di­an Cen­te­nary on May 30th, 1945. This marked the hun­dredth an­niver­sary of the com­ing of In­di­ans to Trinidad. The act­ing Gov­er­nor, rep­re­sent­ing the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed King­dom, at­tend­ed, in­di­cat­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the ob­ser­vance.

Our lo­cal dig­ni­taries who ad­dressed the large crowd in­clud­ed Tim­o­thy Roodal, George Fitz­patrick, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, and Murli J. Kir­palani. Greet­ings were al­so read from Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi, Lord Wavell and Colonel Stan­ley, the Sec­re­tary of States for the Colonies. Gand­hi sub­se­quent­ly died in 1948, three years af­ter this his­toric event.

The In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty in T&T has shaped, mould­ed, carved and built it­self around the idea of progress. But names such as Sar­ran Teelucks­ingh, Tim­o­thy Roodal, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, Bhadase Sagan Maraj and Rudranath Capildeo are sel­dom re­mem­bered by to­day’s gen­er­a­tion.

Af­ter the 1945 cen­te­nary, for more than 25 years the May 30th an­niver­sary took a qui­eter note. Most of the in­den­tured labour­ers had passed to the great be­yond. Small­er an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions were held un­der the name In­di­an Em­i­gra­tion Day.

The 1979 cel­e­bra­tions were a great suc­cess, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha en­tered in­to dis­cus­sion with the In­di­an Re­vival and Re­form As­so­ci­a­tion, and it was de­cid­ed that In­di­ans were no longer em­i­grants but rather cit­i­zens - In­di­an Ar­rival Day was born.

We have achieved as a peo­ple and a com­mu­ni­ty de­spite ad­ver­si­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion, vic­tim­i­sa­tion and in­jus­tice. We have learnt to re­ly on self and on hard work and progress. This is what has sus­tained the In­di­an Di­as­po­ra, not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go but around the world. It is through ed­u­ca­tion and per­sis­tence that our present re­al­ism is fruit­ful and flour­ish­ing for our chil­dren to en­joy.

Six­ty-three years post-In­de­pen­dence and 180 years since our an­ces­tors’ ar­rival have seen a re-shap­ing of the cane cut­ters in­to the pro­fes­sion­als of to­day. Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi, in his words of wis­dom to the world, said: “There will have to be rigid and iron dis­ci­pline be­fore we achieve any­thing great and en­dur­ing, and that dis­ci­pline will not come by mere aca­d­e­m­ic ar­gu­ment and ap­peal to rea­son and log­ic. Dis­ci­pline is learnt in the school of ad­ver­si­ty.”