Dr Ku­mar Ma­habir

This year, the theme of the 80-page, full-colour, glossy mag­a­zine pro­duced by the In­do-Caribbean Cul­tur­al Cen­tre (ICC) is The In­di­an Di­as­po­ra in Be­lize, Guade­loupe and Suri­name.Be­lize is lo­cat­ed in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Guade­loupe in the North­ern Caribbean and Suri­name in South Amer­i­ca. Be­lize is Eng­lish-speak­ing, Guade­loupe is French-speak­ing, and Suri­name is large­ly Dutch-speak­ing. Yet, all three coun­tries be­long to the Caribbean and have de­scen­dants of East In­di­an in­den­tured im­mi­grant labour­ers domi­ciled in them.In­di­ans in Be­lize com­prise four per cent (7,000 per­sons) of the pop­u­la­tion, Guade­loupe, eight per cent (30,000), and Suri­name, 37 per cent (172,200).The In­di­ans in Be­lize have lost al­most all of their tra­di­tion­al cul­ture, Guade­loupe still main­tains some, while Suri­name, has man­aged to pre­serve a rich In­di­an cul­tur­al her­itage.

If there is one coun­try in the West­ern World that can be la­belled "Lit­tle In­dia," it is Suri­name. In­ter­est­ing­ly, Be­lize and Guade­loupe are long­ing to re-dis­cov­er and re-claim their In­di­an his­to­ry, her­itage and cul­ture. Both coun­tries are look­ing to­wards Trinidad for in­spi­ra­tion, in­ter­ac­tion, sup­port and sus­te­nance.For­mal­ly known as British Hon­duras, Be­lize is the on­ly Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­try in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. Bor­dered by Mex­i­co in the North and Guatemala in the West and South, it lies at the heart of the Caribbean Basin. Be­lize has gi­ant Mayan pyra­mids and the world's sec­ond largest bar­ri­er reef. It has a m&ea­cute;lange of over ten dif­fer­ent cul­tures which are con­cen­trat­ed in spe­cif­ic ar­eas in the six dis­tricts. Un­like any oth­er Caribbean coun­try, Be­lize ex­pe­ri­enced three waves of In­di­an mi­gra­tion, com­menc­ing in 1858. The first wave of mi­grants con­sist­ed of 1,000 de­port­ed ex-sol­diers (and their fam­i­lies) who had re­belled against the British Gov­ern­ment in In­dia's First War of In­de­pen­dence/ Se­poy Re­bel­lion.

The sec­ond wave of In­di­ans went to Be­lize in 1872 as ex-in­den­tured work­ers from Ja­maica. The third wave of In­di­an mi­grants to Be­lize left from Guatemala, from where they had gone to work in the cof­fee plan­ta­tions in Cafe Moun­tains. Unique to In­di­an his­to­ry in the Caribbean is the fact that ear­ly im­mi­grant labour­ers worked in Be­lize in the sug­ar­cane, as well as lum­ber and ba­nana plan­ta­tions. As ear­ly as the 1860s, they worked un­der the em­ploy­ment of Amer­i­can ex-con­fed­er­ates. With the pas­sage of time, the main­ly-Hin­du im­mi­grants have all con­vert­ed to Chris­tian­i­ty, re­sult­ing in the ab­sence of tem­ples and lack of fes­ti­vals in the coun­try.The on­ly rem­nants of Hin­du cul­ture are the spe­cial prepa­ra­tion of food with turmer­ic (cur­ry) and the ob­ser­vance of Hosay/ Muhar­ram.Guade­loupe is one of three French-speak­ing coun­tries in the Caribbean. It has been rep­re­sent­ed in the French Par­lia­ment since 1871. Oc­cu­pied by the British for a pe­ri­od of time, it was re­stored to France in ex­change for all French rights to Cana­da in 1763. Guade­loupe is per­haps the on­ly coun­try in the Caribbean that has part­nered with a city in In­dia; Basse-Terre in Guade­loupe has been twinned with Pondicheri in In­dia since 1981.

From 1854 to 1885, 42,326 In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers were brought by the French gov­ern­ment to work on the sug­ar­cane plan­ta­tions in Guade­loupe. Most of the im­mi­grants came from South In­dia, un­like those of the Eng­lish and Dutch-speak­ing coun­tries in the Caribbean who came from North In­dia. About one fifth (9,460) re­turned to In­dia.In­di­ans now com­prise eight per cent (30,000) of the pop­u­la­tion of Guade­loupe. It is re­mark­able that they have been able to main­tain their cul­tur­al prac­tices af­ter be­ing cut off lin­guis­ti­cal­ly from In­dia and oth­er In­di­an di­as­poric coun­tries.Dur­ing in­den­ture­ship, Hin­du prac­tices were for­bid­den and con­ver­sion to Ro­man Catholi­cism was com­pul­so­ry. How­ev­er, Hin­dus kept to their faith by cre­ative­ly syn­cretis­ing Hin­du, Mus­lim and Chris­t­ian be­liefs and prac­tices. To­day, most Ro­man Catholic In­di­ans par­tic­i­pate in Hin­du rit­u­als.