As T&T marks 180 years of East In­di­an ar­rival, lec­tur­er in his­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh is urg­ing cit­i­zens to draw on their an­ces­tors’ strength and sac­ri­fice to con­front to­day’s chal­lenges in­clud­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, sui­cide, de­pres­sion, and al­co­holism.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia as the coun­try cel­e­brat­ed In­di­an Ar­rival Day, Teelucks­ingh said some of these chal­lenges ex­ist­ed dur­ing the in­den­ture­ship pe­ri­od yet Africans and In­di­ans worked hand in hand to solve prob­lems.

“In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers faced dis­crim­i­na­tion, mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion and pover­ty lead­ing to a high rate of il­lit­er­a­cy. Yet the chil­dren of In­di­ans in ar­eas such as Pic­ton, Di­a­mond, and Welling­ton were able to ac­cess ed­u­ca­tion, of­ten through the sac­ri­fice of par­ents who had lit­tle them­selves,” he said.

De­spite be­ing paid in al­co­hol and ex­posed to harm­ful vices like gam­bling, he said, many in­den­tured im­mi­grants per­se­vered.

“They had oth­er vices like gam­bling they were able to over­come, and it showed per­sis­tence and sac­ri­fices to en­sure their chil­dren got an ed­u­ca­tion.

“There wasn’t prop­er jus­tice for many of the women who were raped, mur­dered or abused—yet the com­mu­ni­ty kept go­ing.”

He point­ed out that plan­ta­tions were not on­ly worked by In­di­ans but by African ex-slaves as well. He em­pha­sised the uni­ty that ex­ist­ed be­tween the two groups.

“There were In­di­ans and Africans work­ing to­geth­er in the la­goon plant­i­ng rice and al­so on the co­conut and cof­fee es­tates. This uni­ty and com­pat­i­bil­i­ty be­tween Africans and In­di­ans—the ‘Ja­ha­ji Bhai’ broth­er­hood of the boat—was some­thing re­al.

“The les­son we learn from here is, that the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty to­day has a high lev­el of sui­cide and de­pres­sion. But we can look at how our fore­fa­thers were able to cope and suc­cess­ful­ly over­come these prob­lems. With­in the fam­i­ly, we could re­solve con­flict. Pan­chay­ats ex­ist­ed to solve prob­lems like do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and sui­cide.”

He added, “It wasn’t a per­fect vil­lage or com­mu­ni­ty, but it was close-knit, and the ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly played an im­por­tant role.”

Mean­while, his­to­ri­an Dr Rad­i­ca Ma­hase, who com­plet­ed her doc­tor­ate on in­den­ture­ship, said this an­niver­sary must serve as a re­minder of how far the com­mu­ni­ty has come—and what lies ahead.

“Com­mem­o­rat­ing 180 years since the ar­rival of the first shipload of In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers is the per­fect time for us to re­flect on how far we have come and what we need to do to con­tin­ue build­ing up our­selves and our na­tion,” she said.

Ma­hase stressed their lega­cy pro­vides not just pride, but a blue­print for deal­ing with present-day is­sues.

“Their lega­cy teach­es us the pow­er of per­se­ver­ance in the face of ad­ver­si­ty and the im­por­tance of uni­ty in over­com­ing hard­ship. From their tra­di­tions, we draw lessons of dis­ci­pline, re­spect for self and oth­ers, and spir­i­tu­al ground­ing—val­ues that are ur­gent­ly need­ed in our so­ci­ety to­day.”