Vi­jay Ma­haraj

The In­di­an Coun­cil for In­ter­na­tion­al Co-op­er­a­tion is an or­gan­i­sa­tion based in New Del­hi, In­dia. One of the prime ob­jec­tives of this or­gan­i­sa­tion is to link the In­di­an di­as­po­ra world­wide. The An­tar Rashtriya Sa­hayog Parishad (AR­SP), es­tab­lished in 1978, is an­oth­er such or­gan­i­sa­tion that is non-gov­ern­men­tal, non-prof­it and non-po­lit­i­cal.

Their pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tives are:

• Pro­mote good­will and un­der­stand­ing among peo­ple of the world through nur­tur­ing peo­ple-to-peo­ple re­la­tion­ships.

• Or­gan­ise cul­tur­al ex­changes be­tween the schol­ars and thinkers of In­dia and oth­er coun­tries.

• Sup­port stud­ies and re­search to pro­mote a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the peo­ple of In­dia and vice ver­sa.

• Pro­mote aware­ness about the prob­lems of In­di­ans abroad, and high­light­ing their achieve­ments in their adopt­ed coun­tries.

• Or­gan­ise hos­pi­tal­i­ty to PIO guests vis­it­ing In­dia for so­cial, cul­tur­al & aca­d­e­m­ic works.

• Pro­vide as­sis­tance to stu­dents from abroad, es­pe­cial­ly the stu­dents from the In­di­an Di­as­po­ra.

• Pro­vide fa­cil­i­ties to peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin to trace their roots in In­dia.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha of Trinidad and To­ba­go Inc. is linked to these or­gan­i­sa­tions, hav­ing at­tend­ed con­fer­ences in New Del­hi, In­dia and through­out the In­di­an di­as­po­ra.

These in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions pub­lish ar­ti­cles and books fo­cus­ing on the im­pact that In­di­an in­den­tured im­mi­gra­tion has had on the var­i­ous places they have been trans­port­ed to as in­den­tured im­mi­grants.

San­skrit is an an­cient lan­guage which is con­sid­ered the moth­er of the In­do-Eu­ro­pean lan­guage fam­i­ly. Latin, Eng­lish and oth­er lan­guages owe their ori­gin to San­skrit and San­skrit root words. The word ‘name,’ the San­skrit word is ‘na­ma.’ The word is de­rived from San­skrit. The syl­la­bles in na­ma are ‘na’ and ‘ma.’ The word na­ma has a deep spir­i­tu­al mean­ing in San­skrit.

Look­ing at the San­skrit root ‘stha.’ This root in San­skrit gives the mean­ing: placed, stood, firm, stand­ing. The Eng­lish word ‘stand’ and re­lat­ed words come di­rect­ly from this root. The word ‘sthan/stan’ refers to a place and is found in names like Ra­jasthan, Pak­istan, Kaza­khstan, and Uzbek­istan. The Eng­lish word ‘know’ comes from the San­skrit root ‘jna,’ which al­so means ‘to know.’ Like­wise, many lan­guages have root words de­rived from San­skrit.

The word San­skrit means that which is ‘well done’ or ‘very de­fined.’ San­skrit is in­deed a re­fined lan­guage. Words are pro­nounced di­rect­ly from the sound of the let­ters.

The con­cept of mantra be­longs to the San­skrit lan­guage. The word mantra means that which pro­tects the mind. Mantras are col­lec­tions of sounds with deep mean­ing and vi­bra­tions which are de­signed to up­lift the mind in­to a deep state of med­i­ta­tion. San­skrit names have deep mean­ing and sub­tle di­vine vi­bra­tions which have the same ef­fect as mantras.

One of the first ar­eas in which the in­den­tured In­di­ans set­tled in Trinidad was Diego Mar­tin. Most of these peo­ple came from vil­lages around the city of Pat­na and called their new home Pat­na Vil­lage, af­ter vil­lages on the bank of the Gan­ga Riv­er in the State of Bi­har.

Where the labour­ers set­tled, they took the names of their an­ces­tral places of ori­gin. Those who had come from the far north-east­ern cor­ner of the sub-con­ti­nent called their street Nepal Street. Afghani im­mi­grants from the far north of Greater In­dia named their street af­ter Kan­da­har.

The co­coa, cof­fee and ba­nana pro­pri­etors need­ed in­den­tured labour­ers from dry ar­eas of In­dia. Labour­ers were ob­tained from many Pa­hari (hilly) vil­lages in Ra­jasthan. Most of these peo­ple set­tled with their oth­er Pa­hari-speak­ing com­pa­tri­ots in an area which they called Pa­hari Ganj. To­day, that set­tle­ment, on the To­co Road, is called Pa­hari Vil­lage.

“From the south-east­ern coastal area of In­dia bor­der­ing on the Bay of Ben­gal, a group of In­di­ans trav­elled to the far south-west­ern penin­su­la of Trinidad. These im­mi­grants from the Coro­man­del Coast of In­dia named their new abode Coro­man­del, a live­ly vil­lage on the road to Ce­dros.

“Boodoos­ingh Vil­lage, on the way to Point Fortin, is named af­ter an en­ter­pris­ing for­mer in­den­tured labour­er who be­came a ma­jor landown­er and an em­ploy­er of in­den­tured In­di­ans. Fyz­abad is named af­ter Faiz­abad in Ut­tar Pradesh. Del­hi Road, a main thor­ough­fare of Fyz­abad, re­minds us that the arkatis (re­cruiters) were hired by the ship­ping and plan­ta­tion com­pa­nies to re­cruit labour­ers for over­seas work.”

Nam­ing is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant in the Hin­du tra­di­tion and is one of the 16 san­skaras. Nam­ing cer­e­monies are an ex­treme­ly im­por­tant part of tra­di­tions and cul­tures, and names are cho­sen for mean­ing and the sub­tle vi­bra­tions that they in­spire.

Names are pow­er­ful sounds with vi­bra­tional en­er­gy and must be deeply re­spect­ed. We should nev­er dis­re­spect names in any tra­di­tion. We should seek to im­prove and up­lift our­selves by recog­nis­ing the uni­ver­sal pow­er and mean­ing of names.