Tony Fras­er

To­day, In­do-Tri­nis dom­i­nate the pro­fes­sions of law and med­i­cine, and per­haps oth­ers which do not have as high a pro­file and so are not as eas­i­ly vis­i­ble. They have joined the old French-Cre­ole busi­ness elite in big busi­ness and com­merce, and with amaz­ing en­ter­prise and vigour, In­do-Tri­nis have spread the small and medi­um-sized busi­ness en­ter­prise to all parts of the coun­try in which they pre­dom­i­nate.

As out­lined in the pre­vi­ous col­umn, in this se­ries of ar­ti­cles analysing how the dif­fer­ent eth­nic, gen­der and ge­o­graph­i­cal groups of peo­ple have ad­vanced dur­ing the 50-year pe­ri­od of in­de­pen­dence, In­do-Tri­nis, al­though hav­ing had a late start com­pared to the Afro-Tri­ni pop­u­la­tion, have out­stripped all oth­ers in group ad­vance. Pre­vi­ous sug­ar-cane ar­eas such as Cunu­pia, parts of Ch­agua­nas, Princes Town, in Cou­va, Tu­na­puna and else­where along the east-west cor­ri­dor, and in dozens of small­er towns such as Rio Claro, In­do-Tri­nis have es­tab­lished thriv­ing com­mer­cial busi­ness op­er­a­tions.

Mid­dle-class res­i­den­tial ar­eas in Ch­agua­nas, in a cane­field set­tle­ment of the 1950s and 1960s; Palmyra, along the Man­a­ham­bre Road, in up­scale St Joseph Vil­lage and in Gulf City, the up­per mid­dle class and elite of the In­do-Trinidad com­mu­ni­ty in busi­ness and at the top of the pro­fes­sions have built foun­da­tions of per­ma­nence.

Ques­tion is: what are a few of the ma­jor fac­tors which ac­count for this trans­for­ma­tion of the hu­man con­di­tion of In­do-Tri­nis, who came out of in­den­ture­ship rel­a­tive­ly late (1917) and long af­ter the Afro-Tri­ni pop­u­la­tion? The ac­qui­si­tion of land through pur­chase and in ex­change for pas­sage back to In­dia gave the for­mer in­den­tured work­er a start as small farm­ers, and this in con­trast to the eman­ci­pat­ed Africans who were pre­vent­ed from small land­hold­ings, as the colo­nial gov­ern­ment sought to force them back to the sug­ar es­tates to pro­vide labour for the French Cre­ole planters.

That apart, a hu­man cul­ture of ac­quis­i­tive­ness; dri­ving am­bi­tion and sac­ri­fice; strong fam­i­ly life, which ex­tends to com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing; in­dus­try and com­merce with a keen sense for busi­ness pos­si­bil­i­ties; the pur­suit of in­de­pen­dent op­er­a­tions out­side of the state sec­tor (In­dos did not de­pend in their ear­ly de­vel­op­ment on the State to pro­vide them with jobs and ca­reers); a re­liance on ed­u­ca­tion as a means of per­son­al de­vel­op­ment; the re­ten­tion of el­e­ments of their an­ces­tral cul­ture; the growth of a strong in­sti­tu­tion­al base, in­clu­sive of re­li­gious and ed­u­ca­tion­al struc­tures, and the emer­gence of po­lit­i­cal aware­ness, which has lead to the ac­qui­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal pow­er, are cen­tral amongst the fac­tors which have dri­ven the enor­mous ad­vance of In­do-Trinidad dur­ing the first 50 years of po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence.

Po­lit­i­cal con­scious­ness took root in the 1940s through a num­ber of groups, as­so­ci­a­tions and a few pub­li­ca­tions to as­sert the In­do-Tri­ni sense of self­hood-HP Singh and oth­ers from the In­di­an mid­dle class were in­volved. By the 1930s, Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tions, the largest and most in­flu­en­tial be­ing the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul- Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (1936), be­gan putting or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture to Is­lam in re­li­gion and ed­u­ca­tion.

In a sim­i­lar vein a decade and a half lat­er, Bhadase Maraj formed the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and along with the likes of Sim­boonath Capildeo be­gan es­tab­lish­ing schools for Hin­du chil­dren to re­ceive a pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion while pro­mot­ing the Hin­du re­li­gion.

As in­di­cat­ed last week, the Cana­di­an Mis­sion (Pres­by­ter­ian Church) and to a less­er ex­tent the Catholic and An­gli­can Church­es be­gan pro­vid­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and Chris­tian­i­ty in the 19th cen­tu­ry. To­day, apart from the sig­nif­i­cant In­do-Pres­by­ter­ian con­gre­ga­tion, Na­pari­ma Boys' and Girls' Col­leges, St Au­gus­tine Girls, Hillview Col­lege, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege and St Joseph's Con­vent are the ma­jor in­sti­tu­tions for ed­u­ca­tion­al achieve­ment by In­dos at the sec­ondary-school lev­el.

AS­JA and the Hin­du pri­ma­ry schools pro­vide the ed­u­ca­tion­al base, with AS­JA's sec­ondary schools achiev­ing quite a mea­sure of suc­cess at the sec­ondary lev­el. At the lo­cal ter­tiary lev­el, In­do-Tri­ni stu­dents out­num­ber oth­er eth­nic groups at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of UWI. Un­doubt­ed­ly, In­di­an mu­sic, now In­di­an ra­dio sta­tions, and In­di­an films played a very sig­nif­i­cant role in cul­tur­al re­ten­tion and pride. The ac­qui­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal pow­er by the UNC has al­so giv­en greater con­fi­dence to the In­do-Tri­ni cul­ture to be­come more self-as­sured and as­sertive. Bas­deo Pan­day is the stand­out in this re­gard.

In ad­di­tion to which, as has been the case with the Afro-Tri­ni (and at times To­ba­go) par­ty, when in pow­er, the UNC by it­self or in al­liance has been able to wa­ter its com­mu­ni­ty with con­tracts from the State, pre­dom­i­nance on state boards and oth­er po­si­tions of promi­nence which have all con­tributed to the as­cen­dant sta­tus of In­do-Trinidad. While it would be im­pos­si­ble to dis­en­tan­gle any one of the above fac­tors and more from the mix, strong fam­i­ly life, kin­ship ties, com­mu­ni­ty and cul­ture would be the foun­da­tion blocks up­on which all else have been built.

• To be con­tin­ued