Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­pro­t­er

Af­ter in­den­tured East In­di­ans sweat­ed and toiled in T&T's sug­ar­cane fields, they en­sured that their chil­dren had a space at the ta­ble of de­ci­sion-mak­ing and to­day, a grand­daugh­ter of Bi­har, In­dia, has tak­en her right­ful place as Prime Min­is­ter of T&T for the sec­ond time.

"... That is the Mem­ber for Siparia - Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC," Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein added in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

De­liv­er­ing greet­ings for next Fri­day's In­di­an Ar­rival Day com­mem­o­ra­tion dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the 13th sesi­son of the Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment, Ho­sein said, "It was 180 years ago that our fore­fa­thers left In­dia on the Fa­tel Raza­ck and jour­neyed to T&T in search of op­por­tu­ni­ty, hope and a new be­gin­ning.

"On ar­rival, they en­tered a pe­ri­od of in­den­ture­ship. They strug­gled on the sug­ar­cane fields, meet­ing many chal­lenges and hor­ren­dous work­ing con­di­tions. Some lost hope while oth­ers lost their lives at the hands of the colo­nial rulers. Through re­silience, they per­se­vered.

"As a peo­ple, we pay re­spect and homage to the in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tion of the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty in T&T. While many were un­e­d­u­cat­ed, they stuck to the be­lief that ed­u­ca­tion re­mains the gate­way out of the cy­cle of pover­ty. To­day, many of us are the prod­uct of their be­lief, as they en­sured that their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren were ed­u­cat­ed."

Ho­sein said in­den­tured labour­ers' off­spring played a crit­i­cal role in shap­ing T&T's di­rec­tion.

"They've oc­cu­pied seats in the Par­lia­ment, in court as judges and mag­is­trates, they held the high­est of­fice of the land - Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, prime min­is­ter, leader of the op­po­si­tion, lawyers, doc­tors, en­gi­neers, no­ble prize win­ners and much more," he said.

"While we may be dif­fer­ent and we came on dif­fer­ent boats, we are one so­ci­ety, one coun­try but most im­por­tant­ly - one peo­ple. As the PM tells us, let our dif­fer­ences unite us in­stead of di­vide us so that we can build a brighter and pros­per­ous T&T."

Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty is an in­te­gral com­po­nent of T&T's so­ci­ety. "Whether they were brought here through eco­nom­ic rea­sons, or by fate and des­tiny, the ear­ly im­mi­grants had to en­dure much suf­fer­ing by leav­ing their home­land, un­der­tak­ing the per­ilous jour­ney across the Kala Pani, as well as the chal­lenges of set­tling as in­den­tured labour­ers in a for­eign en­vi­ron­ment," Gon­za­les said.

"How­ev­er, af­ter 180 years and many gen­er­a­tions, In­do-Trinida­di­ans have come to be ed­u­cat­ed, suc­cess­ful mem­bers of our so­ci­ety as aca­d­e­mics, busi­ness­peo­ple, and pro­fes­sion­als in many fields, much as a re­sult of the PNM pro­vid­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for all.

"Yet, while domi­ciled in the West­ern world, they've main­tained and con­tin­ued to prac­tice their In­dige­nous cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions which are now in­te­grat­ed and ap­pre­ci­at­ed by all mem­bers of our plur­al so­ci­ety."

To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son, al­so ex­tend­ing greet­ings to the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty, said, "We ho­n­our your lega­cy of strength and count­less con­tri­bu­tions you've made to our na­tion's cul­tur­al and so­cial fab­ric."

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh al­so said, "It is both an ho­n­our and priv­i­lege to join in and ex­press greet­ings ... not on­ly to our In­do-broth­ers and sis­ters, but to the na­tion as a whole.

"What be­gan as a sim­ple prac­ti­cal ex­er­cise in 1845 of sup­plant­i­ng a de­plet­ed labour force, by 1917 re­sult­ed in over 140,000 im­mi­grants of In­di­an de­scent ar­riv­ing on T&T's shores. This his­toric jour­ney not on­ly pro­vid­ed a new labour force but al­so through the pas­sage of time, evolved in­to a so­cial phe­nom­e­non, re­flect­ed in the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic fab­ric of this coun­try, which we com­mon­ly re­fer to as a so­cial and cul­tur­al melt­ing pot."

Singh added, "This evo­lu­tion­ary process in­fused an en­tire­ly new cul­tur­al di­men­sion in­to the so­ci­ety of T&T. So im­por­tant was this process that to­day, T&T stands as a bea­con of tol­er­ance, im­bued with so­cial and po­lit­i­cal

har­mo­ny. These are but some of the facets which make T&T such a unique so­cial ex­pe­ri­ence, as to­day we're looked up­on as an ex­am­ple to the world, as a har­mo­nious, ho­moge­nous so­ci­ety."

The Par­lia­ment was lat­er ad­journed to a date to be fixed.