Dr Ku­mar Ma­habir &

Shal­i­ma Mo­hammed

The on­line pro­gramme dis­cussed mon­u­ments and re-en­act­ments in the Gir­mi­tiya in­den­tured In­di­an di­as­po­ra. It ex­plored how mon­u­ments, memo­ri­als and his­tor­i­cal re-en­act­ments shape col­lec­tive mem­o­ry in the di­as­po­ra. In coun­tries such as In­dia, Fi­ji, Mau­ri­tius, Réu­nion, South Africa, Guyana, Suri­name, and Trinidad and To­ba­go, com­mu­ni­ties have cre­at­ed phys­i­cal and per­for­ma­tive spaces to com­mem­o­rate the his­to­ry and ex­pe­ri­ences of in­den­tured labour­ers and their de­scen­dants. By ex­am­in­ing these sites of re­mem­brance, the dis­cus­sion high­light­ed how her­itage, iden­ti­ty and cul­tur­al re­silience have been pre­served and trans­mit­ted across gen­er­a­tions.

The fol­low­ing are ex­cerpts from an In­do-Caribbean Cul­tur­al Cen­tre’s (ICC) Thought Lead­ers’ Fo­rum (14/06/26). The 316th edi­tion of the ZOOM pro­gramme was chaired by Aashirya An­roed of the Nether­lands and mod­er­at­ed by Shal­i­ma Mo­hammed of Trinidad. There were four speak­ers in the pro­gramme. The top­ic was “Mon­u­ments and Re-en­act­ments in the Gir­mi­tiya In­den­tured Di­as­po­ra”.

Kolkata’s two in­den­ture memo­ri­als

Kaberi Roy of In­dia said in sum­ma­ry: “I am deeply ho­n­oured to speak in this plat­form about two sig­nif­i­cant In­den­ture Memo­ri­als sit­u­at­ed in the port area of Kolkata, In­dia, near the Riv­er Ganges. The first struc­ture, in­au­gu­rat­ed in Jan­u­ary 2011, is the Kolkata In­den­ture Memo­r­i­al, a project brought to life through a col­lab­o­ra­tive ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of GO­PIO, specif­i­cal­ly Shri Ashook Ram­saran and late Madam Leela Gu­jad­hur Sarup. This was fol­lowed by un­veil­ing of the Suri­nam Memo­r­i­al in Oc­to­ber 2015, a project in­spired by the 2011In­den­ture Memo­r­i­al, and dri­ven by the Suri­name Am­bas­sador to In­dia, Smt. Ash­na Kan­hai.

“Kolkata is the on­ly city in In­dia with the dis­tinc­tion of hav­ing not one, but two memo­r­i­al sites to In­di­an In­den­ture Labour. This city is of im­mense his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance in the con­text of the In­den­ture Labour Sys­tem, not on­ly be­cause this is where it all be­gan and from where the largest num­ber of mi­gra­tion took place, but al­so be­cause this city served as the epi­cen­tre where the leg­isla­tive frame­work of the in­den­ture sys­tem was draft­ed and sus­tained.”

Memo­ri­als as keep­ers of his­to­ry

Ashook Ram­saran of USA and Guyana said in sum­ma­ry: “Memo­r­i­al mon­u­ments serve as es­sen­tial pub­lic dis­plays that ac­knowl­edge, ho­n­our and re­mem­ber sig­nif­i­cant his­tor­i­cal events for pos­ter­i­ty. Through­out my glob­al ad­vo­ca­cy, I have fierce­ly sup­port­ed and ini­ti­at­ed var­i­ous mon­u­ments to mark In­di­an ar­rivals and de­par­tures across nu­mer­ous Gir­mi­tiya coun­tries, in­clud­ing Guyana, Trinidad, Mau­ri­tius and Ja­maica. An­nu­al In­di­an Ar­rival Day reen­act­ments, com­plete with tra­di­tion­al prayers, dances and vi­brant pub­lic per­for­mances are vi­tal for pre­serv­ing cul­tur­al her­itage and re­in­forc­ing eth­nic co­he­sion with­in the wider In­di­an di­as­po­ra.

“In recog­ni­tion of this true deep his­to­ry, sev­er­al na­tions have suc­cess­ful­ly en­act­ed for­mal laws to des­ig­nate these ar­rival dates as of­fi­cial na­tion­al hol­i­days. Our on­go­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ef­forts are high­ly fo­cused on col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey of In­dia to se­cure pres­ti­gious UN­ESCO her­itage des­ig­na­tions for these his­toric de­par­ture de­pots. For fam­i­lies liv­ing across

oth­er coun­tries, es­tab­lish­ing phys­i­cal mark­ers en­sure the sac­ri­fices are nev­er for­got­ten by fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.”

Pre­serv­ing iden­ti­ty un­der cul­tur­al pres­sure

Dr Lé­na Ar­moudom of Réu­nion said in sum­ma­ry: “The In­di­an pres­ence in Réu­nion Is­land dates back re­mark­ably ear­ly to the orig­i­nal set­tle­ments, mean­ing the mod­ern pop­u­la­tion is deeply marked by In­di­an an­ces­try. Un­like the British mod­el of gov­er­nance, the French colo­nial sys­tem heav­i­ly pro­mot­ed a pol­i­cy of forced cul­tur­al as­sim­i­la­tion which un­for­tu­nate­ly caused the tra­di­tion­al Tamil lan­guage to grad­u­al­ly de­cline across gen­er­a­tions.

“De­spite these in­tense sys­temic pres­sures, de­scen­dants suc­cess­ful­ly pre­served their dis­tinct cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and an­ces­tral mem­o­ries through elab­o­rate tem­ple rit­u­als, fes­ti­vals and dra­mat­ic per­for­mances like the Bal­ataum. This tra­di­tion­al per­for­mance al­lows ac­tors to trans­mit his­tor­i­cal and mytho­log­i­cal mem­o­ry across gen­er­a­tions. I was in­cred­i­bly proud to act as the ini­tia­tor and com­mit­tee pres­i­dent for the Bara­chois Memo­r­i­al, which was of­fi­cial­ly un­veiled in Oc­to­ber 2015 to pay a last­ing, for­mal trib­ute to In­di­an slaves, in­den­tured labour­ers and oth­er free ser­vants.”

Re­claim­ing the Gir­mi­tiya sto­ry

Rizwaan Ab­bas of Cana­da and Fi­ji said in sum­ma­ry: “Work­ing along­side in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Cana­da as an ar­chae­ol­o­gist has shown me that all colonised peo­ple share a pro­found bond forged by col­lec­tive re­silien­cy. In Cana­da, the In­do-Fi­jian di­as­po­ra faces unique cul­tur­al chal­lenges be­cause we are of­ten dwarfed by a larg­er South Asian pop­u­la­tion, lead­ing to a lin­ger­ing fear of los­ing our dis­tinct in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty and his­to­ry. To coun­ter­act this, we have set out to ac­tive­ly de­colonise our cul­ture by shift­ing our fo­cus away from the re­stric­tive ter­mi­nol­o­gy im­posed by po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions and re­nam­ing the his­toric day as Gir­mi­tiya Day to di­rect­ly ho­n­our our re­silient an­ces­tors who were once placed in bondage.

“Through these grass­roots ef­forts, we are suc­cess­ful­ly build­ing a strong foun­da­tion for our unique iden­ti­ty, which has al­ready sparked an in­cred­i­ble surge of pride and cu­rios­i­ty among our youths. I am thrilled to share that the city of Sur­rey and the province of British Co­lum­bia have re­cent­ly is­sued of­fi­cial procla­ma­tions recog­nis­ing this day, putting Cana­di­an com­mu­ni­ties at the fore­front of glob­al rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. We are fi­nal­ly telling our own sto­ries.”