As Trinidad and To­ba­go nav­i­gates the com­plex­i­ties of the 21st cen­tu­ry - seek­ing to deep­en di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion for yet an­oth­er time, to achieve dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion for the first time af­ter sev­er­al false starts and to forge so­cial co­he­sion in a more mean­ing­ful way, a per­sis­tent as­pi­ra­tion - I am won­der­ing how the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty should cel­e­brate the 181st an­niver­sary of In­di­an Ar­rival Day more mean­ing­ful­ly?

Should it em­pha­sise the past less as an an­chor and, in­stead, treat the jour­ney of liv­ing here more like a blue­print for mean­ing­ful sov­er­eign­ty, adap­ta­tion and in­no­va­tion, for in­stance, know­ing that re­flec­tions and learn­ings could lead to im­prove­ment?

When you think of it, even though T&T still has a lot to achieve, and even though most com­mu­ni­ties still have a prob­lem feel­ing ful­ly se­cure and com­fort­able, most, if not all, éth­nic com­mu­ni­ties have been able to move past the lim­its im­posed on them by his­to­ry to make a con­tri­bu­tion to the civil­i­sa­tion be­ing built here. In­dige­nous art forms such as ca­lyp­so, the steel­pan and lim­bo have been cre­at­ed here by Afro-Tri­ni in­ge­nu­ity. In­di­ans have been strong and per­sis­tent in car­ry­ing for­ward tra­di­tions they brought with them, and this ought to be com­mend­ed. But they have al­so em­braced pan, ca­lyp­so, so­ca and cre­at­ed chut­ney, been in­stru­men­tal in the fu­sion of chut­ney so­ca and have cre­at­ed the tra­di­tion of lo­cal In­di­an clas­si­cal singing. Re­ten­tion, cre­ation, em­brace, en­gage­ment and fu­sion. In ad­di­tion, they have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to art, lit­er­a­ture, sci­ence, the pro­fes­sions, acad­e­mia, ed­u­ca­tion, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, busi­ness and food.

I re­call CLR James’ ob­ser­va­tion on VS Naipaul’s House for Mr Biswas - that the nov­el cap­tured the search by the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty for a room in the na­tion­al build­ing. That was then. Naipaul’s sig­nif­i­cant book, pub­lished in 1961, cov­ered the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Now, the chal­lenge is, hav­ing se­cured the room, by and large, how to live well to­geth­er in the house and how to gov­ern/man­age it for the well-be­ing of all?

And that is the dilem­ma for In­di­ans now: how to be co-cus­to­di­ans of the land space, the mul­ti-eth­nic and mul­ti-re­li­gious so­ci­ety and the fu­ture of many gen­er­a­tions yet un­born of every race, class and eth­nic­i­ty. That is the dilem­ma, no less, for peo­ple of African de­scent too - how to be co-cus­to­di­ans of this place for all, now and in the fu­ture. The two have to tan­go and agree to go for­ward to­geth­er in har­mo­ny.

The claim that every­body wants to make in T&T is own­er­ship of the whole, full be­long­ing and free­dom to be and to be­come. Not pos­ses­sion but co-own­er­ship - a shared feel­ing of se­cu­ri­ty that could take us to shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and mu­tu­al trust.

It may well be that the very ad­ver­sar­i­al na­ture of par­ty pol­i­tics in this coun­try makes it dif­fi­cult to come to terms with the con­cept of co-own­er­ship and joint cus­to­di­an­ship. Pol­i­tics can com­pli­cate a ra­tio­nal ap­proach to good gov­er­nance, man­ag­ing the house well and shared pros­per­i­ty.

In­di­ans be­gan to add their con­tri­bu­tion to a so­ci­ety that was al­ready tak­ing shape when they came, but by be­ing present, per­sis­tent and con­tribut­ing, they brought a dif­fer­ent world view which helped to add shape and form to Caribbean civil­i­sa­tion by adding an­oth­er di­men­sion with vi­tal­i­ty.

In­di­ans have, over time, forged a shared des­tiny with oth­er dis­parate, up­root­ed groups of peo­ple, some of whom they met here and oth­ers who came af­ter, with­out eras­ing the mem­o­ry of their ori­gins. What might have be­gun as a cul­ture clash has eased in­to a fair amount of tol­er­ance, mu­tu­al re­spect, ap­pre­ci­a­tion and shar­ing. Per­haps we take these things for grant­ed.

But the ur­gent is­sues now are how to gov­ern and man­age the house for the well-be­ing of all, be­cause if we do not, it might crum­ble. And how to con­tribute to­ward build­ing a Caribbean civil­i­sa­tion where all have voice, ac­knowl­edge­ment and recog­ni­tion. In­di­ans don’t want to be left out, ig­nored, passed over, or mut­ed. Nor does any­one else for that mat­ter. Each would pre­fer to re­tain, adapt, in­te­grate, fuse, evolve at their own pace in re­la­tion to so­ci-cul­tur­al dy­nam­ics and nav­i­gate, ex­plore and dis­cov­er based on their own world view.

At the same time, Af­i­cans do not wish to be over­whelmed, side­lined and ruled over. They were here first, and their an­ces­tors suf­fered great­ly, and they feel they have earned cer­tain fun­da­men­tal rights. Deep feel­ings root­ed in gen­uine an­guish can work against the con­cept of co-own­er­ship/co-cus­to­di­an­ship.

We need to nur­ture a sense of mu­tu­al se­cu­ri­ty and a sense of whole­ness suf­fi­cient to move on to the next big col­lec­tive task to­geth­er. Now.