Sat Ma­haraj

The em­i­gra­tion of In­di­ans to Trinidad start­ed un­der an in­den­ture sys­tem in 1845. An in­den­ture means a con­tract. It bound In­di­ans to ac­cept cer­tain con­di­tions. Strict­ly speak­ing, it was an il­le­gal and fraud­u­lent con­tract, be­cause most In­di­ans were ig­no­rant of the pro­vi­sions. In many cas­es they were trapped or kid­napped and trans­port­ed to Trinidad with­out even be­ing told the name of the is­land.

The in­den­ture­ship last­ed from May 30, 1845, un­til 1917, dur­ing which pe­ri­od about 143,900 In­di­ans were brought to Trinidad. The pro­por­tion of Hin­dus among them was ap­prox­i­mate­ly 85 per cent.

Dr Er­ic Williams, first prime min­is­ter, in his book In­ward Hunger, at­tempt­ed to stereo­type the Hin­du and In­di­an when he wrote: "There was no ques­tion that the In­di­an oc­cu­pied the low­est rung of the lad­der in Trinidad. Cribb'd, cab­in'd and con­fin'd in the sug­ar plan­ta­tion econ­o­my, from which oth­er racial groups had suc­ceed­ed in large part in es­cap­ing, the few who did es­cape to the Mec­ca of Port-of-Spain were con­cen­trat­ed on the out­skirts of the town in a sort of ghet­to pop­u­lar­ly known as 'Coolie-Town'–to­day St James, a bustling sub­urb of the cap­i­tal–which tourists in­ter­est­ed in Ori­en­tal scenes and cer­e­monies were ad­vised to vis­it in or­der to see 'the Son of In­dia in all phas­es of Ori­en­tal prim­i­tive­ness.'"

Al­bert Gomes in his book, Through a Maze of Colour, was even more ex­plic­it in his de­scrip­tion of treat­ment met­ed out to In­di­ans.

"The Coolies, as the East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­er was stig­ma­tised–came in for a spe­cial share of pub­lic sadism. They swarmed the streets of down­town area where their ser­vices as beasts of bur­den could be cheap­ly se­cured to car­ry tremen­dous loads on their heads for long dis­tances. Ragged, un­washed and un­der­fed they roamed the streets un­der con­stant bar­rage of jeers, sneers and ob­scen­i­ties from every side."

Un­der the colo­nial gov­ern­ment, the Hin­dus did not ex­pect that for­mer slave mas­ters and now over­seers of these "ragged, un­washed and un­der­fed" an­ces­tors of ours will ever be per­mit­ted to be­come ed­u­cat­ed en­tre­pre­neurs and lead­ers in this land. A num­ber of Chris­t­ian church­es were en­cour­aged and fi­nanced to pro­vide some lim­it­ed ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties to our an­ces­tors. But the cost was al­ways that they should aban­don their re­li­gious and cul­tur­al tra­di­tions. Con­ver­sion was the price for ed­u­ca­tion.

The Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty was on­ly of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty of self-ed­u­ca­tion in 1952, when the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha was cre­at­ed by Act No 41 of that year. The Hin­du ed­u­ca­tion board was formed un­der the lead­er­ship of Bhadase Sagan Maraj and a dra­mat­ic at­tempt was made to build schools and pro­vide ed­u­ca­tion to the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty.

Hin­du schools were es­tab­lished in places like Debe, Pe­nal, Rousil­lac, Fe­lic­i­ty, Be­ju­cal, Ca­roni Vil­lage, Tamana and oth­er aban­doned Hin­du vil­lages across Trinidad. And al­though Dr Er­ic Williams de­scribed them as "cow­sheds," the Hin­du pop­u­la­tion has been trans­formed from these hum­ble schools.

Prof Sel­wyn Ryan, in his Ex­press col­umn of May 12, 2012, wrote: "Al­so on my list, for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons, is Bhadase Maraj. Bhadase built schools where there were once 'cow sheds,' and though we scoffed, many Hin­dus were helped to get on­to the ed­u­ca­tion es­ca­la­tor as a re­sult. We see the re­sults now, but could not see them then."

He con­tin­ues: "An ob­jec­tive list would al­so in­clude Sat Ma­haraj. Many de­plore some of what he says and dis­claim him as a spokesman for Hin­dus, but he has been in the trench­es us­ing var­i­ous mech­a­nisms, the courts in­clud­ed, to fight cas­es on be­half of his con­stituents."A num­ber of present-day aca­d­e­mics at UWI, St Au­gus­tine ap­pear not to un­der­stand this self-trans­for­ma­tion of the Hin­du, de­spite colo­nial and po­lit­i­cal sup­pres­sion.

Prof Theodore Lewis, in the Ex­press of May 14, wrote: "The school sys­tem has al­so be­come a proxy for the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem. Hin­du, Mus­lim and Pres­by­ter­ian pri­ma­ry schools are out­per­form­ing gov­ern­ment, Catholic, An­gli­can and oth­er schools, on clear ev­i­dence. It means that the chil­dren and teach­ers in these schools are work­ing hard­er, and that suc­cess helps to ful­fil the proph­esy of high ex­pec­ta­tions. I think we will find that in these schools we do not see the same lev­el of teacher dys­func­tion that we see in oth­ers.

"There is a strong re­li­gious di­men­sion to them that helps to in­cul­cate dis­ci­pline. There is al­so an at­ten­dant eth­nic iden­ti­ty di­men­sion, that prob­a­bly is taboo to talk about, that comes with the tac­it ex­clu­sion­ary na­ture of the school pop­u­la­tions on the count of re­li­gion and ge­og­ra­phy."

The Ma­ha Sab­ha does not ap­pre­ci­ate Prof Lewis' as­ser­tion that the school sys­tem has be­come a proxy "for the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem." It is an his­tor­i­cal fact that un­der Dr Er­ic Williams and the PNM, we Hin­dus were de­nied an equal op­por­tu­ni­ty to ed­u­cate our chil­dren. But even un­der a hos­tile gov­ern­ment our schools, our teach­ers, our par­ents and devo­tees across the land worked to con­vert our cow­shed schools in­to the suc­cess­ful teach­ing/learn­ing in­sti­tu­tions that Prof Lewis has now be­come alert­ed to.

This trans­for­ma­tion did not take place un­der a Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion nor a Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion!