Yvonne Ba­boolal

Wilber Adams, rep­re­sent­ing In­di­ans in Grena­da, broke down and cried dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion at the sem­i­nar on the In­di­an Di­as­po­ra in the Caribbean at UWI, St Au­gus­tine, yes­ter­day.

Pres­i­dent of the In­do-Grena­di­an Her­itage Foun­da­tion, Adams seemed so up­set while talk­ing about the ex­pe­ri­ence of In­di­ans in Grena­da, that he could not con­tin­ue and took his seat. It was while telling of his broth­er, a pro­fes­sor in Grena­da, who died ten months ago with­out be­ing recog­nised, that Adams broke down. Not­ing that the sem­i­nar was very spe­cial for him, he asked if his broth­er could be posthu­mous­ly ho­n­oured by the or­gan­is­ers.

Dr Brins­ley Sama­roo, chair­man of the sem­i­nar, promised as­sis­tance.

Adams, a for­mer school­teacher, said the 3,200 In­di­an in­den­tured im­mi­grants who ar­rived in Gren­da be­tween 1857 and 1890 were im­me­di­ate­ly Chris­tianised. Their de­scen­dants in­ter­mar­ried, had their names changed, and there was lit­tle left of In­di­an cul­ture among Grena­da's In­di­ans. He said In­di­ans in Grena­da were ex­posed to in­sults and he, per­son­al­ly, had been told: "In­di­an, go back home."

He said the In­do-Grena­di­an Her­itage Foun­da­tion was slow­ly chang­ing an­ti-In­di­an at­ti­tudes in Grena­da. "But In­di­ans in Grena­da are pre­car­i­ous­ly perched on the verge of ex­tinc­tion." Patrick Di­al, a pro­fes­sor from Guyana, said for near­ly two cen­turies In­di­ans in that coun­try had to fight off ef­forts to de­stroy their per­son­al­i­ties: "The food you ate, the clothes you wore, were held in con­tempt and ridiculed...In­di­an names were a source of fun, es­pe­cial­ly in pri­ma­ry school. In­di­an cus­toms were seen as un­civilised."

Di­al said pock­ets of this kind of dis­crim­i­na­tion still ex­ist­ed in Guyana to­day. Prof Ajai Mans­ingh, speak­ing on the is­sues and chal­lenges for In­di­ans in Ja­maica, said In­do and Afro-Ja­maicans knew noth­ing about In­di­an cul­ture. It was on­ly af­ter he held ex­hi­bi­tions and wrote news­pa­per ar­ti­cles that In­di­ans in Ja­maica start­ed know­ing about them­selves. He said for­mer Ja­maican prime min­is­ter, Ed­ward Sea­ga, told him his aunt was an In­di­an and PJ Pat­ter­son, the present prime min­is­ter, claims his grand­moth­er was an In­di­an. Mans­ingh said In­di­ans con­tributed to the cul­ti­va­tion of sug­ar cane, rice and ba­nanas in Ja­maica and changed Ja­maican di­et. "Be­fore In­di­ans came to Ja­maica, the sta­ple di­et was ground pro­vi­sions. It's now rice."

Suri­name is the on­ly coun­try in the West­ern Hemi­sphere where the In­di­an lan­guages of Hin­di and Ur­du are still spo­ken, Narinder Mohkam­s­ing proud­ly in­formed the sem­i­nar. He said this for­mer Dutch colony re­mained iso­lat­ed, lin­guis­ti­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly, from the rest of the Caribbean. Mohkam­s­ing said the for­mer colo­nial au­thor­i­ties, in their bid to have In­di­ans re­main in Suri­name af­ter their in­den­ture­ship, helped In­di­an cul­ture grow and thrive: "They opened scores of 'coolie' schools and even brought teach­ers from In­dia." He said there was a grow­ing ten­den­cy among young Hin­dus­ta­nis in Suri­name, how­ev­er, to give up the In­di­an lan­guages.