Culture is expressed in every area of Hindu life. It is, therefore, simpleminded to reduce our culture to only song and dance. Trinidad and Tobago culture may be calypso, steelpan and Carnival for some people. This view of culture may explain why some youths are so lost and disoriented. It may also explain why some youths fill the jails or why school violence and gang warfare is so destructive in some areas.
Culture unites the secular and the sacred. For us, it is about joy as well as serious contemplation of death and rebirth. It is about accumulating wealth to provide for our family, as well as maintaining the temple or giving to charity.
Music, songs, bhajans and dancing are aspects of Hindu culture. Such patterns in the arts reflect our thinking on devotional themes, or on the rites of passage, or on the joy of life, but they are definitely not the sum total of our culture.
Here in T&T, our jamna bhoomi, our land of birth, Indo-Trinidadians are the only people since slavery who were killed for practicing aspects of their culture. The Hosay Riot in 1884 was a cruel oppression of Indians. Hindus were also killed in that colonial disregard for the humanity of Indians. The Hosay in Trinidad was a multi-ethnic festival where Christians, Hindus and Muslims participated. In July 1884, the authorities in Trinidad set out to prevent the celebration of Hosay.
The Governor was away in London. The anti-Indian officials connived with the Protector of Indians to create an ordinance preventing Hindus and Blacks from participating in Hosay.
Sookhoo, a Hindu on Philippines Estate, drew up a petition protesting the new ordinance. It was summarily dismissed by the authorities. They said Hindus had no right in a Muslim festival.
Sookhoo and his band of followers proceeded to defy the authorities. The colonial police killed 16 unarmed Indians and wounded more than one hundred. We must always remember the Hosay Massacre on October 30, 1884, as a tribute to our ancestors and the religious aspects of their culture. The tolerance of Hinduism was shown in Sookhoo’s determination to participate in Hosay.
Indian Arrival Day evokes such memories, because children must know of the traditional tolerance of Hindu culture. Hindus, for thousands of years, have welcomed and permitted the observance of different paths to God.
We have never killed anyone because they refused to convert. The colonial regime did not understand the ancient source of Sookhoo and his Hindu brothers thinking of religious tolerance. Even today, an independent T&T does not yet fully understand the Hindu concept Vasudeva Kutumbaka, the world is one family.
We are still paying a terrible price because people do not understand the Hindu view of culture or tolerance. They want us to accept Carnival, steelpan and calypso as T&T’s culture, but they refuse to support Indian dance, harmonium, dholak, dhantal or sitar.
They refuse to spend money on the musical instruments of our choice for our schools. No musical instrument is superior to any other. The guitar is not superior to the sitar. The steelpan is not superior to the organ. Children must be exposed to all.
Powerful institutions of the state spend taxpayers’ money, our money, on other types of music, on other festivals, while refusing to spend our money on Indian Arrival Day, Phagwa or other aspects of Indian culture in T&T. Culture is not something a state can control. It is the spontaneous expression of a people.
No government in this country will prevent Indian culture from growing, evolving and flourishing. Culture is our way of thinking, believing and creating. No government can control our Hindu culture in T&T. Our culture will fertilise the nation and the world.
We are not afraid, even if we are hurt by the neo-imperialist state attitudes to Indian culture. It is resistance against colonial oppression that tempered our resilience. It is the knowledge of the contempt of the oppressor which strengthened our pride.
We will not allow our children to abandon our bhajans, or mantras, or Phagwa, or any aspect of our music or culture. We will use it to strengthen our foundations, to sharpen our thinking and to clarify our insight.
Occasions such as Indian Arrival Day and Divali must always be shown as an abundant display of Indian culture in all its forms and beauty. The infinite genius of our minds collectively, will guarantee a bright future, where our children like deyas, in the darkness, will light up this land, Trinidad and Tobago, our beloved jamna bhoomi.