RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In the lat­ter part of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, a ten-year-old boy named Seer­atan left In­dia for Trinidad un­der the in­den­ture­ship sys­tem—one of thou­sands who crossed the Kala­pani (ocean voy­age) in­to an un­cer­tain fu­ture on the sug­ar cane plan­ta­tions.

More than a cen­tu­ry lat­er, his great-grand­son, Ma­han­tji Dr Bal­li­ram Chadee, now moves be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go, Cana­da, In­dia and com­mu­ni­ties across the glob­al di­as­po­ra, car­ry­ing a dif­fer­ent mis­sion, cen­tred on spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, hu­man­i­tar­i­an work and pre­serv­ing iden­ti­ty.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia in com­mem­o­ra­tion of T&T’s 181-year an­niver­sary of In­di­an in­den­ture­ship, Dr Chadee said the de­scen­dants of those ear­ly mi­grants con­tin­ue to face ques­tions of be­long­ing while nav­i­gat­ing life in mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­eties.

Be­tween 1845 and 1917, more than 147,592 In­di­an labour­ers came to Trinidad un­der con­tracts de­signed to sup­ply labour to colo­nial sug­ar plan­ta­tions. Many im­mi­grants left their vil­lages in north­ern In­dia and en­tered dif­fi­cult work­ing con­di­tions.

This sto­ry of in­den­ture­ship, he said, is not sim­ply a his­tor­i­cal ac­count but one that still shapes the ex­pe­ri­ences of de­scen­dants gen­er­a­tions lat­er.

Re­flect­ing on chal­lenges he be­lieves con­tin­ue to af­fect In­do-Caribbean com­mu­ni­ties at home and abroad, Chadee said, “The peo­ple of In­do-Caribbean back­ground in the di­as­po­ra have faced con­stant chal­lenges. You al­ways have to prove a point, you have to prove your­self… just to get ahead.”

He said this pres­sure of­ten leads peo­ple to ad­just as­pects of who they are in or­der to fit in­to so­cial or pro­fes­sion­al en­vi­ron­ments.

“Whether you change your re­li­gion, you change your pro­fes­sion, you go along be­cause some peo­ple think that’s the on­ly way you can move ahead,” he said.

He said de­scen­dants of in­den­tured labour­ers con­tin­ue to ne­go­ti­ate ques­tions of iden­ti­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly out­side of the Caribbean.

De­spite re­ceiv­ing in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for his work, Chadee said, he has of­ten en­coun­tered sur­prise from peo­ple un­aware of the his­to­ry of In­di­an mi­gra­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I’ve been to In­dia twice … I got a Doc­tor of Let­ters de­gree for my work in Ban­ga­lore,” he said.

“Even then, peo­ple were sur­prised that In­di­an de­scen­dants live in Trinidad.”

He said those ex­pe­ri­ences high­light­ed a con­tin­u­ing need for In­do-Caribbean com­mu­ni­ties to de­fine and pre­serve their own nar­ra­tives.

Dr Chadee him­self has spent more than two decades build­ing in­sti­tu­tions and pro­grammes root­ed in faith and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach.

He is the founder and spir­i­tu­al leader of the Hanu­man Mis­sion in Fyz­abad, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and Ajax, Cana­da. The or­gan­i­sa­tion, es­tab­lished in 2002, has ex­pand­ed in­to a net­work of hu­man­i­tar­i­an and spir­i­tu­al ini­tia­tives ex­tend­ing be­yond the Caribbean.

Its projects in­clude or­phan­age feed­ing pro­grammes, ed­u­ca­tion­al out­reach, wheel­chair dis­tri­b­u­tion ef­forts and a long-run­ning eye surgery ini­tia­tive in part­ner­ship with Sankara Eye Hos­pi­tal in Ban­ga­lore, In­dia. Ac­cord­ing to mis­sion records, more than 4,200 surg­eries have been fa­cil­i­tat­ed through the pro­gramme.

In 2025, he al­so co­or­di­nat­ed a wa­ter well project in Bi­har, In­dia, linked to vil­lages as­so­ci­at­ed with an­ces­tral mi­gra­tion routes dur­ing com­mem­o­ra­tions mark­ing 180 years of In­di­an Ar­rival.

An or­dained Hin­du min­is­ter, reg­is­tered mar­riage of­fi­cer, ed­u­ca­tor, coun­sel­lor and mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er, Dr Chadee has al­so worked ex­ten­sive­ly in re­li­gious and cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tion.

For over 20 years he has host­ed re­li­gious and cul­tur­al broad­casts, in­clud­ing a week­ly Hanu­man Chal­isa pro­gramme car­ried on ra­dio and tele­vi­sion.

His work has re­ceived in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. In 2020, he was award­ed a Doc­tor of Let­ters de­gree from Swa­mi Vivekanan­da Yo­ga Uni­ver­si­ty in Ban­ga­lore for con­tri­bu­tions to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and hu­man­i­tar­i­an ser­vice.

He has al­so re­ceived ho­n­ours in­clud­ing the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi Pravasi Gold Medal, the Hind Rat­tan Award, the Nel­son Man­dela Lead­er­ship Award, Cana­da’s Sov­er­eign’s Medal for Vol­un­teerism, the On­tario Medal for Good Cit­i­zen­ship and the King Charles III Coro­na­tion Medal.

But de­spite those ac­com­plish­ments, Dr Chadee said his phi­los­o­phy re­mains ground­ed in prin­ci­ples learned through com­mu­ni­ty life and in­her­it­ed val­ues.

“Peo­ple in the vil­lage sys­tem… it takes a vil­lage to raise a child. That’s how we grew up,” he said.

He de­scribed ser­vice as cen­tral to both faith and iden­ti­ty.

“You can’t on­ly pray. Pray­ing is sec­ondary. Do­ing com­mu­ni­ty work and hu­man­i­tar­i­an work is first,” he said.

“You can’t pray for a hun­gry man.”

As In­di­an Ar­rival Day ap­proach­es, Dr Chadee said greater col­lab­o­ra­tion re­mains one of the com­mu­ni­ty’s un­fin­ished tasks.

He be­lieves or­gan­i­sa­tions and lead­ers across the di­as­po­ra of­ten op­er­ate sep­a­rate­ly when greater co­op­er­a­tion could cre­ate broad­er im­pact.

“Every­body seems to want to take cred­it for every­thing,” he said.

“We could do much more if we had re­spect for each oth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty.”

He said the next chap­ter of the In­do-Caribbean sto­ry may de­pend not on­ly on pre­serv­ing cul­ture but al­so on build­ing stronger re­la­tion­ships across com­mu­ni­ties.

“If we stand to­geth­er and have a uni­fied front… we will be in a bet­ter place for the years ahead,” he added.