Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

Part 2

May 30, 1845 to May 30, 2015, marks a sig­nif­i­cant part in the de­vel­op­ment of East In­di­ans in this part of the world. There is no doubt that this pe­ri­od of 170 years re­quired sev­er­al at­trib­ut­es to im­prove the pres­ence of East In­di­ans in T&T.

Long be­fore Swa­mi Vivekanan­da at­tend­ed the Par­lia­ment of World Re­li­gions in Chica­go, USA, our fore­fa­thers had al­ready made a long jour­ney over sev­er­al months to reach their des­ti­na­tion, Trinidad, that was then re­ferred to as the New World. We al­ways re­mind our­selves of our his­to­ry be­cause we are for­tu­nate that our an­ces­tors brought with them the in­valu­able re­li­gious lega­cy of Sanatan Dhar­ma (Hin­duism).

The Par­lia­ment of World's Re­li­gion start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1893 at the Art In­sti­tute of Chica­go where the first Hin­du voice was heard in North Amer­i­ca and the rest of the world. Vivekanan­da gave his first lec­ture on that day. Though ini­tial­ly ner­vous, he bowed to Saraswati, the Hin­du god­dess of learn­ing, and he felt he got re­newed en­er­gy in his body; he felt some­one or some­thing else had oc­cu­pied his body–"The Soul of In­dia, the echo of the Rishis, the voice of Ra­makr­ish­na, the mouth­piece of the resur­gent Time spir­it."

"I am proud to be­long to a re­li­gion which has taught the world both tol­er­ance and uni­ver­sal ac­cep­tance. We be­lieve not on­ly in uni­ver­sal tol­er­a­tion, but we ac­cept all re­li­gions as true. I am proud to be­long to a na­tion which has shel­tered the per­se­cut­ed and the refugees of all re­li­gions and all na­tions of the earth. "I am proud to tell you that we have gath­ered in our bo­som the purest rem­nant of the Is­raelites who came to South­ern In­dia and took refuge with us every year in which their holy tem­ple was shat­tered to pieces by Ro­man tyran­ny," the Swa­mi re­mind­ed the world.

Even though most of our Trinidad an­ces­tors came from a large­ly im­pov­er­ished back­ground and un­der ques­tion­able cir­cum­stances, it is an his­tor­i­cal re­al­i­ty that over the du­ra­tion of in­den­ture­ship, many came for rea­sons which were not al­ways based on im­pov­er­ished cir­cum­stances. In­deed, there are re­ports of peo­ple be­ing ab­duct­ed and brought against their will.

When we cel­e­brate In­di­an Ar­rival Day, it is not to place our­selves su­pe­ri­or to any oth­er eth­nic or re­li­gious group. Rather it is to in­di­cate how for­tu­nate we are as chil­dren of the "Rishis" who have been blessed and priv­i­leged to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise our most an­cient re­li­gion and cul­ture thou­sands of miles away from its birth­place, In­dia.

As we cel­e­brate on May 30, it is com­pul­so­ry for us to ap­pre­ci­ate the ef­forts and sac­ri­fices which our an­ces­tors made to pro­tect our cul­ture that en­ables us to prac­tise our lifestyle with free­dom and in­de­pen­dence.In life, there is a con­stant strug­gle to move a com­mu­ni­ty for­ward, es­pe­cial­ly in a di­verse so­ci­ety as ours.

Over the pe­ri­od 1845-2015, the chal­lenges would have changed form and com­plex­i­ty, but it is a con­stant strug­gle not on­ly to main­tain what we have se­cured, but al­so to con­tin­ue work­ing to move the com­mu­ni­ty for­ward.

The re­quire­ments of the tasks al­ways de­mand fo­cus and con­cen­tra­tion or it will be ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult to achieve our tar­gets and goals. We must use the month of May to as­sess our strengths and what we have achieved so far, and de­fine and de­tail the ef­forts that are need­ed to con­tin­ue our on­ward march.

Any com­mu­ni­ty which be­lieves that it has achieved all its goals and be­comes com­pla­cent will end up in a down­ward spi­ral which will be dif­fi­cult to re­verse. The el­ders in our Dhar­ma al­so have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to analyse the strengths and weak­ness­es of our com­mu­ni­ty and pre­pare plans to take the com­mu­ni­ty for­ward. As we re­mind our­selves of the over­all progress and de­vel­op­ment of our com­mu­ni­ty, it is nec­es­sary to note what are the is­sues that re­quire im­me­di­ate fo­cus and pon­der on res­o­lu­tions to these chal­lenges.

From a very chal­leng­ing and im­pov­er­ished be­gin­ning, our an­ces­tors found that the first few decades of ar­rival, ac­cess to food, hous­ing and shel­ter were dif­fi­cult.

Health and phys­i­cal wel­fare were not ap­pro­pri­ate­ly pro­vid­ed for by the au­thor­i­ties, but the com­mu­ni­ty did not re­main sta­t­ic. In spite of all re­stric­tions and chal­lenges, the ear­ly East In­di­ans found cre­ative ways to prac­tise their re­li­gion as an an­ti­dote to the pres­sures they ex­pe­ri­enced.It is al­so very sig­nif­i­cant to note that our an­ces­tors be­queathed us the most ex­cel­lent ex­am­ple of fam­i­ly and re­li­gious prac­tices.

These an­ces­tors have plant­ed in us the val­ue, ben­e­fit and im­por­tance of plac­ing God and Dhar­ma as the piv­ot of our lives. In prim­i­tive struc­tures erect­ed for wor­ship pur­pos­es, they breathed life in­to the prac­tice of Dhar­ma in this part of the world.

And with lit­tle or no ac­cess to mu­si­cal in­stru­ments, they cre­at­ed and carved in­stru­ments which were use­ful in ac­com­pa­ny­ing the song and dance com­po­nents of Dhar­ma. The im­pact of our ear­ly vi­sion­ary an­ces­tors can­not be ar­tic­u­lat­ed ad­e­quate­ly, and the im­pact of their con­tri­bu­tions must be ap­pre­ci­at­ed as we cel­e­brate.