In 2006, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha cre­at­ed his­to­ry by open­ing the first East In­di­an Mu­se­um in the Caribbean. The in­sti­tu­tion was ap­pro­pri­ate­ly named ‘The In­di­an Caribbean Mu­se­um of Trinidad and To­ba­go,’ and is lo­cat­ed in a build­ing that once housed the Wa­ter­loo Hin­du School in Cara­pichaima.

Lo­cat­ed in that area are the Tem­ple in the Sea and the Dat­ta­treya Yo­ga Cen­tre, with its 85-foot-tall Hanu­man stat­ue. The mu­se­um is ded­i­cat­ed to the preser­va­tion of the ma­te­r­i­al his­to­ry of the quar­ter mil­lion In­di­ans who crossed two oceans to set­tle on a strange land called Trinidad, rough­ly 14,000 miles from their birth­place, In­dia.

The ma­jor­i­ty of the im­mi­grants orig­i­nat­ed from the states of Ut­tar Pradesh, Bi­har and West Ben­gal and brought with them the cus­toms and tra­di­tions of those re­gions.

The open­ing of the mu­se­um was the re­sult of con­tin­u­ous col­lab­o­ra­tion, con­sul­ta­tion and co­op­er­a­tion with the peo­ple whose his­to­ry has been pre­served with­in its walls. The mu­se­um it­self can be de­scribed as a na­tion­al trea­sure, a keep­er and a pre­serv­er of cul­ture, a win­dow to the past, a link to the present and a vi­sion for the fu­ture. It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see his­to­ry come alive, as it evokes past mem­o­ries to the vis­i­tor.

The mu­se­um’s large col­lec­tion has been ob­tained over a pe­ri­od of years through field trips by the own­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors of the in­sti­tu­tions. Some of the items have been ac­quired as gifts and be­quests from in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, pun­dits, his­to­ri­ans, schol­ars, friends and oth­er well-wish­ers of the com­mu­ni­ty.

The col­lec­tion con­sists of old mu­si­cal in­stru­ments like the har­mo­ni­um, sitar and the saran­gi or In­di­an vi­o­lin. One gets a glimpse of the old tra­di­tion­al kitchen with the chul­ha, dhal ghot­ni, tawah, tabla and oth­er kitchen uten­sils.

The In­di­ans were ac­cus­tomed to grind­ing a great deal of in­gre­di­ents, so there is a dis­play of the lorha and silh, the jaatah as well as the okhri and musar and a dhe­ki, which was used for de­husk­ing pad­dy grains.

The walls of the mu­se­um are dec­o­rat­ed with pic­tures, some over 100 years old, show­ing im­mi­grants in tra­di­tion­al ori­en­tal wear and in­clud­ing the dhoti and the kur­tah, as well as the sari and the ghangari (skirt) and jhu­la (blouse.) Man­nequins, be­decked as bride and groom, adorn the mu­se­um hall.

An­oth­er fea­ture is our art gallery with works by great In­di­an artists such as Dr Isa­iah Bood­hoo, M.P. Al­ladin, Sony­lal Ram­bis­son, twin broth­ers Prab­hu and Par­ma Singh and S. Ma­haraj and oth­ers.

An in-house li­brary con­tains over 200 ti­tles cov­er­ing top­ics on in­den­ture­ship through­out the Caribbean di­as­po­ra. Some of the re­gion’s most recog­nised schol­ars and re­searchers in the field have col­lec­tive­ly put to­geth­er the ex­pe­ri­ences of the East In­di­ans.

The mu­se­um’s lat­est ad­di­tion of over 100 ti­tles came from one of our bene­fac­tors in Cana­da, Dr Den­ni­son Moore, who has most gen­er­ous­ly con­tributed to the ex­pan­sion of our li­brary. His books cov­er top­ics on pol­i­tics, re­li­gion and his­to­ry of East In­di­ans.

Two very im­por­tant im­mi­gra­tion doc­u­ments dis­played in the mu­se­um area are ‘The Im­mi­gra­tion Pass’ and the ‘Cer­tifi­cate of Ex­emp­tion from Labour.’ The for­mer doc­u­ment pro­vides cru­cial in­for­ma­tion rel­a­tive to the im­mi­grant’s place of ori­gin in In­dia. This doc­u­ment is es­sen­tial, as it serves as a guide to the present-day East In­di­ans in Trinidad who wish to trace their an­ces­tral roots. The lat­ter doc­u­ment gave one the free­dom of move­ment af­ter com­plet­ing his/her con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions on the plan­ta­tions to which he/she had been as­signed.

A large met­al basin – the cop­per, which was used for boil­ing the sug­ar-cane juice, adorns the open space in our court­yard, and ad­join­ing it is a grind­ing stone used for sharp­en­ing tools and cut­lass­es with which the im­mi­grants per­formed their du­ties. Oth­er ob­jects of his­tor­i­cal and aes­thet­ic val­ue in­clude the sap­at (wood­en slip­pers), the kharow (the In­di­an ver­sion of the sap­at), the boli, the has­s­wa (grass knife) and the ka­jariya (re­cep­ta­cle for mak­ing eye lin­er).

The mu­se­um is ded­i­cat­ed to the col­lec­tion, restora­tion, preser­va­tion, arrange­ments and ex­hi­bi­tion of old ma­te­r­i­al ob­jects of East In­di­ans for the pur­pose of study, ed­u­ca­tion and en­joy­ment. Al­though the In­di­an Caribbean Mu­se­um ex­hibits arte­facts of a spe­cif­ic his­tor­i­cal ori­gin, and is owned by an in­di­vid­ual or­gan­i­sa­tion, it is com­mit­ted to serv­ing the gen­er­al pub­lic. Like schools and li­braries, mu­se­ums pro­vide pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion to peo­ple of all ages.

The mu­se­um is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion and is recog­nised by the Min­istry of Cul­ture, as well as Tourism. The mu­se­um is open from Wednes­day to Sun­day from 10 am to 5 pm.