As T&T prepares to observe Indian Arrival Day on May 30, the story of Indian indentureship is once again brought into public focus. For historian Dr Radica Mahase, Indian Arrival Day is a reminder of something deeper: the responsibility to write, preserve and pass on the history of the Indian indentured labourers who helped shape T&T.
Mahase’s journey into indentureship studies began in 2001, when she pursued her Master of Arts in Modern Indian History at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. As part of the programme, she was required to complete two seminar papers. She chose to focus on the migration of Indian indentured labourers to Trinidad. One paper examined emigration from Bihar, while the other looked at the structure of the indentureship system under colonialism. Under the supervision of Professors Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya and Majid Siddiqi, she learned how to navigate Indian archives, interpret primary sources and write history.
After completing her studies in India, she returned to T&T and pursued her PhD at The University of the West Indies, St Augustine. It was then that historian Professor Brinsley Samaroo, one of her most important mentors, encouraged her to examine the end of Indian indentureship, a part of the story that was still underexplored.
Under his guidance and that of her supervisor, Professor Kundan Tuteja, visiting professor in Indian History at the UWI, she spent four years searching through colonial documents, census statistics, folk songs, pamphlets, letters, personal papers and village sources to build a fuller account of the system.
Samaroo’s influence went beyond the topic itself. He helped shape the way Mahase understood history.
He taught her that history was not only about facts, dates and documents, but about people and memory. It was about asking difficult questions and giving voice to those whose lives were often reduced to numbers in colonial records.
He also showed her how to make the history of indentureship relevant to the people of T&T, by bringing it home through place names, flora and fauna and the everyday traces of the past around us.
She has learnt that history must not remain trapped in universities and archives. Everyone should know our history and understand that the men, women and children who came to T&T were people with names, families, fears, dreams and beliefs. They were human beings with their own stories.
Over the years, Mahase has researched and written on migration from India, the conditions under which labourers travelled, the plantation experience, the role of women, culture, identity, resistance, and the ways in which Indian communities adapted and survived.
But Mahase’s work has never been limited to T&T. Her research has taken her across the world, from Trinidad to India, Mauritius, Fiji, the United Kingdom and other places connected to the wider Indian diaspora. These journeys have allowed her to see indentureship not only as a Trinidadian story but as part of a larger global history.
This perspective is reflected in her doctoral research, later revised and published as a book which examined the system as it existed in the Caribbean, South Africa, Fiji and Mauritius.
For Mahase, these countries are connected by a shared past. The ships may have gone to different countries, but the experiences of migration created a common history across borders. This understanding has shaped her involvement in the Indentured Labour Route Project, a Government of Mauritius/UNESCO initiative that brings together countries connected to indentured labour. Mahase currently serves as Vice President and is committed to working with scholars from around the world to strengthen research and heritage preservation.
For her, Indian Arrival Day is about resilience, creativity and belonging. It is about how people who came with very little built families, communities, institutions and traditions that are now part of the foundation of T&T.
The story includes achievement and survival, but also exploitation, poverty, trauma and struggle.
As T&T marks Indian Arrival Day, Mahase believes the country must take heritage more seriously. The history of indentureship and T&T’s history in general must be taught, preserved and protected.
“T&T is fortunate to have inherited such a rich, complex and powerful history, and because that history has helped shape who we are as a people, we must treasure it, protect it and take it seriously as part of our national identity,” she said.
