Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is call­ing on cit­i­zens to com­mit to the vi­sion for a bet­ter T&T by em­u­lat­ing the courage and re­silience ex­hib­it­ed by the first In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers to ar­rive in this coun­try 180 years ago.

In her In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage yes­ter­day, the Pres­i­dent said the sto­ry of the 225 pas­sen­gers who came from In­dia to T&T is “one of the most pow­er­ful and in­spi­ra­tional sto­ries in our na­tion’s his­to­ry.”

“It is a sto­ry, not just of sur­vival, but of tri­umph over every imag­in­able ad­ver­si­ty. It teach­es us what can be achieved when we per­se­vere and do not give up,” said Her Ex­cel­len­cy.

She said while many could have re­turned to In­dia af­ter five years, very few chose to do so even though they were dis­cour­aged from wor­ship­ping and even con­gre­gat­ing.

“To­day, 180 years lat­er, we re­flect, with re­spect and grat­i­tude, on the ex­pe­ri­ences, sac­ri­fices and en­dur­ing lega­cy of those fear­less men and women. Their jour­ney across the Kala-Pani was per­ilous, and we can imag­ine that lone­li­ness and un­cer­tain­ty must have threat­ened to over­whelm them, even be­fore they ar­rived. We can al­so imag­ine that many of them might well have stepped off of that ship with down­cast hearts. Yet, once on land, their in­domitable spir­it re­vived.

“Even though they had no tem­ples, mosques or church­es where they could seek so­lace, and even though their land­lords, the colo­nial British Raj, dis­cour­aged so­cial gath­er­ings and sub­tly frus­trat­ed any ef­fort at wor­ship, they re­fused to lan­guish and die. In­stead, they held firm to their prin­ci­ples and be­liefs, and de­vot­ed them­selves to chang­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in­to op­por­tu­ni­ties. The re­sult has been one of the great­est lessons in re­silience that our coun­try has ever wit­nessed.”

The Pres­i­dent said the best way to ho­n­our and cel­e­brate their rich and last lega­cy is through ac­tion.

“This year, let us use the oc­ca­sion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day to pay trib­ute to their lega­cy, not just by ex­pres­sions of grat­i­tude and con­grat­u­la­tions, but al­so by the way in which we choose to live, dai­ly. Let us com­mit to lead­ing lives that ex­em­pli­fy the val­ues they worked so hard to pre­serve. Let us un­der­take to do our part to con­tribute to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try that they worked so hard to build. Let us ded­i­cate our­selves to com­plet­ing the work that they be­gan of cre­at­ing a more re­spect­ful and uni­fied so­ci­ety.”

Her Ex­cel­len­cy added, “The sto­ry of In­di­an in­den­ture­ship teach­es us what can be achieved when in­di­vid­u­als choose to com­mit to a vi­sion greater than them­selves. This In­di­an Ar­rival Day, let us choose to com­mit our­selves to the vi­sion of a greater Trinidad and To­ba­go.”