Filed under: Culture
In commemoration of the first indentured labourers from India to Trinidad in 1845, replacing the emancipated Black slaves from Africa, the Indian Arrival Day has been celebrated since 1945 on 30 May in Trinidad and Tobago.
The first Indian Hindu labourers arrived on a ship called the Fath Al-Razak, more commonly known as Fatel Razack, meaning “victory to Allah the Sustainer”, was owned by an Indian Muslim called Ibrahim Bin-Yussef.
The celebrations are carried out by the Indian community in Trinidad and Tobago, now some 40.3 per cent of the total population. There has been contention in the past as regards to the name of the holiday. According to online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, Arrival Day was renamed Indian Arrival Day to the protestation of groups who argued that no national holiday should be restricted to a particular ethnic group.
The indentureship occurred between 1845-1917, with some 140,000 people making arduous and near improbable journeys.
Originally contracted to do between 5-7 year indentureships, after which labourers were promised a return passage to India, many stayed and made their homes in Trinidad and Tobago.
Trinidadian Nicholas Laughlin writes in a post on his weblog dated 30 May: “I suppose I wish I knew exactly when my ancestors first arrived in Trinidad, and maybe a few days’ research at the National Archives would turn up some answers, but I find I’m far less interested in the moment of arrival itself and far more interested in the new journey that ‘arrival’ begins – in the process by which wanderers, exiles, prisoners, and explorers make of the disjecta membra of many old worlds something new and strange and perhaps, in the original sense of the world, wonderful.”
Similar celebrations are carried out in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Jamaica and Guyana.
The Indian government announced dual citizenship rights to some 20 million Indians outside of India early 2003, according to a UK-based BBC News Online report in January 2003. The report said that there were some 3 million Indians in the Gulf in 2003; 2.9 million in Burma; 1.6 million in the United States; 1.6 million in Malaysia; 1 million in South Africa; 950,000 in the Caribbean; 942,000 in the United Kingdom; 700,000 in Mauritius; 333,000 in Fiji; 200,000 in East Africa; 150,000 in Canada; 90,000 in Singapore; and 45,000 in Afghanistan.
How influential have Indians been in your communities, if at all?
Research: 1 June 2006.
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