Tag Archives: Indian Arrival Day

General T&T, Racism Watch

The Indentures Did Not Affect the Wages of the “Apprentices”

4 Comments

By Stephen Kangal
June 14, 2022

Stephen KangalIndians were recruited by ” arkatias” and transported to work on the cane-fields of Caroni in Trinidad because after a period of keen observation and analysis by the occupying British and based on their experience in sugar cultivation in India (UP and Bihar) and taking into account the extreme famine of the 1850’s it was decided that perhaps with the advice of the established East India Company, Indians were going to be the most effective and economic type of unskilled labour to increase sugar production and achieve increasing efficiencies.

This was a business decision taken by the planters.
Continue reading The Indentures Did Not Affect the Wages of the “Apprentices” →

General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Indian Arrival Day Celebrations Not Historically Driven

3 Comments

By Stephen Kangal
June 07, 2022

Stephen KangalIndians came here to increase sugar production reaching 200,000 tonnes in the 1960’s and not to decrease the cost of sugar production as their wages/conditions were set. They were deceived into believing that they were coming to “chalay chinee”. We cannot be misled by Cudjoe’s Afro-centric lenses because the jahajees were already versed in sugar cultivation in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. What did the Indians think or have in their minds as they embarked from Kidderpore Docks in Calcutta bent to Trinidad after enduring the Indian Famine of 1850’s? They survived the “Kala pani” and the “pagal samundar” en route to create a better life for us. They worked for a mere pittance that was superior to what they left in UP and Bihar and did not come on their own to compromise the high wage demands of the apprentices.
Continue reading Indian Arrival Day Celebrations Not Historically Driven →

Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

I arrived by birth

31 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 30, 2017

Raffique ShahThere was a minority view back in the 1980s/1990s when the lobby for a holiday to mark the presence of Indians in Trinidad & Tobago was loudest, that the termination of indentureship in 1917, not their arrival in 1845, should be celebrated. If that had prevailed, this year the Indo-Trinidad community would have marked the centennial of end of their semi-slavery. But the very vocal majority had their say and their day, hence the declaration of a public holiday on Arrival Day, May 30, the date when, in 1845, the Fatel Rozack docked in Port of Spain and deposited 200-odd wretched Indian souls on these shores.
Continue reading I arrived by birth →

General T&T, Labour, Politics, Racism Watch

Spreading Planter Propaganda

10 Comments

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 21, 2017

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI am sorry I am only now getting back to Kamal Persad’s response to my article, “Getting It Right” (March 26). I noted: “While Indians were treated in a horrible, inhumane manner…, there is no doubt the Indians were brought to Trinidad to undercut the progress that Africans were making at the economic front.”
Continue reading Spreading Planter Propaganda →

General T&T, Hindu, India, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

GOPIO: T&T Indians second class citizens

7 Comments

By Kim Boodram
Jun 1, 2016 – trinidadexpress.com

lettersNEARLY two hundred years after they became part of the building of Trinidad and Tobago, people of East Indian descent are still considered second class citizens, the president of the local chapter of the Global Organisation of Indian People (GOPIO), Karran Nancoo, has said.
Continue reading GOPIO: T&T Indians second class citizens →

General T&T, Media, PNM, UNC

Indian Arrival Day messages

14 Comments

By Richard Lord
Monday, May 30, 2016 – guardian.co.tt

lettersOn the observance of Indian Arrival Day today, President Anthony Carmona says the indigenous Indian culture brought by indentured labourers benefitted not only T&T but the world.

In his Indian Arrival Day message, Carmona said East Indian culture has produced doubles, Trini roti and curry blend and chutney music. He said citizens must remember the journey of the East Indian forefathers during the current times of economic challenges He said the East Indian presence in T&T has also had a great influence on the Caribbean way of life.
Continue reading Indian Arrival Day messages →

Education, General T&T, Hindu, India

Happy Indian Arrival Day: Documenting Indian/Trinibagonian History

3 Comments

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 01, 2014

Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe“A child is as much wronged by being left uneducated as it is by being left unfed.” Antoine Fortune, Public Opinion, October 30, 1888.

I endorse Sat Maharaj’s offer of grants of “about $100,000 to local historians who wish to document ‘authentic’ East Indian history in the communities” (Express, May 25). Although I don’t know what Sat means by “authentic” history or what constitutes misrepresented histories “by the children of converts,” I still think his thrust is correct. We need to pay greater attention to our past so that we can better understand our present.
Continue reading Happy Indian Arrival Day: Documenting Indian/Trinibagonian History →

General T&T, Hindu, India, Race and Identity

Happy Indian Arrival Ki Din

3 Comments

By Stephen Kangal
May 29, 2013

Stephen KangalOn the occasion of the 168th anniversary of the commemoration of the arrival of the East Indian community to Trinidad may I focus on the post-arrival vindication and justification of the system of Indus Valley customs and values. This tried and tested system has underpinned, dominated and pervaded the modus operandi of the East Indians and has been responsible for the degree of fulfilling lives and good law-abiding citizenry that they have conducted in T&T in spite of the adversarial conditions and hostile and negative environmental and social conditions that they had to overcome to gain acceptance to their culturally persistent way of life.
Continue reading Happy Indian Arrival Ki Din →

General T&T, Hindu, India, Race and Identity

The Cowshed Fable

28 Comments

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 30, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI want to congratulate my East Indian compatriots for the achievements they have made over the 167 years they have spent in Trinidad and Tobago and the enormous efforts they have made to carve out a space in these two beautiful islands in the West Indies. I also wish to congratulate Sat Maharaj for the herculean efforts he has made to improve the educational standards of his people and his determination to ensure that his people receive their rightful share of the national pie. When the history of the second half of the twentieth century is written I am certain he will take his place as one of the more outstanding Trinbagonians of the era.
Continue reading The Cowshed Fable →

Culture, General T&T, Hindu, India, Race and Identity, Religion

167 Years of Indian “Arrival”: Are Indians Still Arriving?

8 Comments

By Alana Lalman
May 30, 2012

lettersI was well poised to begin writing for an article on Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad and Tobago when I coincidentally stumbled over Satnarayan Maharaj’s commentary about Indian Arrival in the Guardian newspaper that day. Sat Maharaj is the secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) organization which is the major Hindu organization in Trinidad and Tobago. It operates 150 mandirs and over 60 schools. It was formed in 1952 when Bhadase Sagan Maharaj merged the Satanan Dharma Association and the Sanatan Dharma Board of Control.
Continue reading 167 Years of Indian “Arrival”: Are Indians Still Arriving? →