IRA MATH­UR

On De­cem­ber 11, NALIS host­ed the launch of Hosay Caribbean: Tad­jahs on Wheels by Dr Sat­nar­ine Balka­rans­ingh. This work un­rav­els the lay­ered his­to­ry of a tra­di­tion that be­came both a protest and a means of cul­tur­al sur­vival un­der colo­nial rule.

His Ex­cel­len­cy Dr Ra­jpuro­hit, who re­vealed that he had vis­it­ed Kar­bala dur­ing his time in Iraq, shared that the book res­onat­ed deeply with him. He not­ed its vivid doc­u­men­ta­tion of the tra­di­tions that con­tin­ue in Iraq and In­dia and its vi­tal role as a record of the di­as­po­ra’s his­to­ry and cul­tur­al adap­ta­tion.

In Hosay Caribbean: Tad­jahs on Wheels (Mo­bile Mau­soleums of Muhar­ram), Dr Balka­rans­ingh frames Hosay as a de­fi­ant as­ser­tion of cul­tur­al and com­mu­nal iden­ti­ty. The book ex­plores the mas­sacre of 1884 when colo­nial au­thor­i­ties fired on the pro­ces­sion in San Fer­nan­do, killing 16 peo­ple and in­jur­ing over 80.

This bru­tal act, like the Can­boulay Ri­ots of the same year, re­vealed the colo­nial au­thor­i­ties’ fear of cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion as a form of re­sis­tance. Speak­ing at the launch, Neil Parsan­lal, chair­man of the board of NALIS, drew a pow­er­ful par­al­lel be­tween the Hosay fes­ti­val and the an­nu­al re-en­act­ment of the Can­boulay Ri­ots, em­pha­sis­ing their shared role in re­sist­ing colo­nial sup­pres­sion.

“There is an­oth­er cul­tur­al ob­ser­vance that, in many ways, par­al­lels the el­e­ments of the Hosay fes­ti­val and war­rants the same depth of in­quiry and re­spect. I re­fer to the an­nu­al re-en­act­ment of the Can­boulay Ri­ots, a tra­di­tion metic­u­lous­ly pre­served by cul­tur­al his­to­ri­an and archivist Pearl Ein­tou Springer,” he said.

Parsan­lal high­light­ed the his­tor­i­cal over­lap, not­ing, “The Can­boulay Ri­ots of 1881 and 1884—sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the lat­ter oc­cur­ring in the same year and town as the Hosay Mas­sacre—rep­re­sent­ed Afro-Trinida­di­an re­sis­tance to colo­nial sup­pres­sion of Car­ni­val, an event deeply root­ed in the cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions of for­mer­ly en­slaved peo­ple.”

He un­der­scored their deep­er mean­ing, “Can­boulay, like Hosay, was more than mere fes­tiv­i­ty. It was a de­c­la­ra­tion of iden­ti­ty, an as­ser­tion of free­dom, and a chal­lenge to op­pres­sive sys­tems. The de­fi­ance em­bod­ied in these ri­ots re­minds us of the re­silience that lies at the heart of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mul­ti­cul­tur­al her­itage.”

Parsan­lal con­clud­ed by ad­vo­cat­ing for fund­ing to adapt Balka­rans­ingh’s work in­to a bal­let, call­ing it “the epic it is meant to be,” and stress­ing that “dance can be a pow­er­ful tool for peace­build­ing, al­low­ing for non-ver­bal, em­bod­ied learn­ing, ex­plor­ing iden­ti­ty, and fos­ter­ing re­la­tion­ships.”

The par­al­lels be­tween Hosay and Can­boulay are strik­ing. Both served as cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions and as acts of re­sis­tance against colo­nial sup­pres­sion, unit­ing mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties in de­fi­ance of op­pres­sive sys­tems.

Dr Balka­rans­ingh re­veals in the book how Or­di­nance 9 of 1882 re­strict­ed Hosay pro­ces­sions to rur­al ar­eas, seg­re­gat­ed par­tic­i­pants by re­li­gion and eth­nic­i­ty, and sought to erode uni­ty with­in the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty. De­spite these mea­sures, the “pro­ces­sion­ists” marched on Oc­to­ber 30, 1884, car­ry­ing tad­jahs and chant­i­ng marsīyas, dirges mourn­ing Imam Hus­sein’s mar­tyr­dom at Kar­bala.

The book vivid­ly re­counts this trag­ic day, “The spec­ta­cle—thun­der­ing tas­sa drum­ming, with clash­ing brass cym­bals, fren­zied fenc­ing of sticks and goatskin shields—was re­liv­ing the pas­sion of Hus­sein in that bat­tle of long ago in that an­cient, dis­tant land of Ara­bia. A sec­tion with­in the pro­ces­sion would have been chant­i­ng the high­ly emo­tive, dirge-like po­et­ic vers­es, marsīyas. This was the an­nu­al norm of Muhar­ram pro­ces­sions brought from the moth­er­land, In­dia. To the un­fa­mil­iar, it was may­hem.”

At Cipero Street, Ma­jor Bowles and his de­tach­ment con­front­ed the first pro­ces­sion. The Ri­ot Act was read in Eng­lish—un­heard and un­in­tel­li­gi­ble to many marchers. Bowles or­dered his men to fire.

“Guns al­ready cocked, now lev­elled, they shot in­to the on-com­ing mass from a dis­tance of as close as 25 feet. Two vol­leys of buck­shot-loaded am­mu­ni­tion tore through the ad­vanc­ing crowd. The tad­jahs, sym­bols of grief and de­fi­ance, lay top­pled on the blood­stained ground.”

Dr Balka­rans­ingh’s re­flec­tion on this mo­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant, “The per­for­mance of an an­cient mourn­ing cer­e­mo­ny had been de­lib­er­ate­ly ex­ploit­ed by the au­thor­i­ties to recre­ate an im­me­di­ate, ir­rev­o­ca­ble new grief over the dead, dy­ing, and se­vere­ly wound­ed. This was a dou­ble mar­tyr­dom—for Imam Hus­sein and his fol­low­ers at Kar­bala, and now for their own kin in San Fer­nan­do.”

The mas­sacre left a scar on the com­mu­ni­ty but al­so ce­ment­ed Hosay’s sig­nif­i­cance as a sym­bol of re­silience and re­sis­tance.

Dr Balka­rans­ingh’s thor­ough re­search from Iraq to In­dia, from Be­lize to Guyana to T&T is com­ple­ment­ed by his artis­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty, honed through decades as a dancer, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, and cul­tur­al ad­vo­cate. The book ex­am­ines how the tad­jahs have evolved from frag­ile bam­boo frames to in­tri­cate il­lu­mi­nat­ed struc­tures, and it ex­plores the pres­sures that threat­en the fes­ti­val’s sur­vival, in­clud­ing the loss of skilled ar­ti­sans and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges. These in­sights and his­tor­i­cal depth make the work in­dis­pens­able for un­der­stand­ing Trinidad’s cul­tur­al land­scape.

As Parsan­lal chal­lenged dur­ing the launch: “Let us be­gin to plumb the depths of our rich cul­tur­al her­itage, to ex­plore the rel­e­vance of our his­tor­i­cal sym­bols and arte­facts and ex­am­ine their re­place­ments. Let us ex­am­ine, as Dr Balka­rans­ingh has done so bril­liant­ly in his study, the true val­ue of what we have in­her­it­ed to de­ter­mine what is wor­thy of preser­va­tion for ad­mi­ra­tion and, con­verse­ly, what are wor­thy re­minders of what has made us unique and re­silient peo­ple we have be­come.”

Lisa Mor­ris Ju­lian, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, drew par­al­lels be­tween the re­sis­tance sym­bol­ised by Hosay and the strug­gles of the First Peo­ples and con­grat­u­lat­ed Dr Balka­rans­ingh on his im­por­tant work.

Dr Balka­rans­ingh writes with ur­gency, aware that oral his­to­ries risk van­ish­ing in­to the haze of leg­end with­out doc­u­men­ta­tion. His work un­der­scores the need to pre­serve these sto­ries as arte­facts and liv­ing lega­cies. He chal­lenges read­ers to con­sid­er what parts of our cul­tur­al her­itage mer­it preser­va­tion and how tra­di­tions can evolve with­out los­ing their essence.

Hosay Caribbean is both a his­tor­i­cal re­source and an in­vi­ta­tion to re­flect on the re­silience of cul­tur­al tra­di­tions. Balka­rans­ingh’s work en­sures that the sac­ri­fice of those who marched in 1884 will not be for­got­ten, of­fer­ing read­ers a lens through which to view his­to­ry, re­sis­tance, and adap­ta­tion. For T&T and the broad­er Caribbean, this book is a trib­ute to the past and a call to en­gage with the cul­tur­al lega­cies that shape the present and fu­ture.