“‘C****e’ became an ethnic slur, a reminder to Indians of menial origins and a subtle challenge to their claim to belong.”
—Gaiutra Bahadur,
C****e Woman:
The Odyssey of Indenture
For most of my career, the word “c****e” was something I encountered in colonial documents. I saw it in official reports, government correspondence, newspapers and other sources on Indian indentureship. People from different backgrounds were simply grouped together as “c****es” because the colonial authorities saw them mainly as low-class labourers.
Today, I no longer have to go to the archives to find the word. It has found its way onto my Facebook page.
Recently, in response to a few of my articles, I received numerous private messages and public comments calling me a “nasty c****e” and saying things like “allyuh c****e are *** stink.” Some came from fake profiles. Others came from people who were not ashamed to attach their own names and faces to their racist comments. I deleted the worst of them and wish I could unsee some of what was written.
This is the first time in my life I have been called a c****e. The comments, even the expletives, do not make me ashamed of who I am but they concern me deeply. They show how quickly disagreement can become racial abuse and how social media allows people to say publicly what they might once have kept to themselves.
Until recently, there seemed to be an unwritten understanding among Trinbagonians that we did not openly call each other c****e or the N-word.
The word did not begin in Trinidad and Tobago. Its origins are generally traced to South Asian words linked to wages, hire or day labour.
In India, it became associated with porters. In 2016, the Indian government announced that licensed railway porters, commonly called c*****s, would instead be known as sahayaks, meaning “helpers”—a move away from a term widely regarded as a relic of British colonial rule.
But a word’s meaning is also shaped by how it travels and how it is used. Under European colonialism, c****e became much more than the name of an occupation. Officials wrote of “c****e ships,” “c****e depots” and “c****e labour.” In his speech opposing the indentureship system in 1912, Gopal Krishna Gokhale captured the dehumanising effect of the label:
“Wherever the system exists, there, the Indians are only known as c****es, no matter what their position may be.”
The colonial records presented them as ignorant, backward and suited mainly for hard physical work. Their names, skills, families, beliefs and individual stories disappeared behind the label “c****e”.
By the 20th century, it had become a racial insult in T&T and the wider Caribbean. It was used to portray Indians and their descendants as dirty, inferior, foreign and never quite belonging. That is still the intention when someone says “stinking c****e” today. The speaker is not describing a railway porter or honouring the endurance of indentured labourers. The message is simple: know your place.
Today, c****e performs a racial function similar to the N-word used against people of African descent. Both African and Indian people were victims of colonial systems of exploitation, and their descendants continue to live with those legacies. We know the harm these words carry, so why are we using them?
Reclaiming the word makes the issue more complicated. When Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar described herself as “a little c****e girl” who became Prime Minister, she took a word meant to shame her and turned it into a statement of pride and achievement.
Writers and artists have done the same through “c****tude.” But that does not give everyone permission to use it. It is all about the intention—it can express pride when we use it for ourselves, but it remains a racial insult when someone uses it to demean us.
We also have to be consistent. Indo-Trinbagonians cannot demand respect while using the N-word or other racist language against Afro-Trinbagonians. Afro-Trinbagonians cannot condemn anti-Black racism while dismissing c****e as harmless picong. When a word is used to insult someone simply because of their race, then we must call it what it is—racism.
The thing is, people are free to disagree with what I write but calling me a c****e does none of that. It is racism and the word belongs in the archives, not on social media as a weapon against one another.
I am proud of my Indo-Trinbagonian heritage and equally proud to be Trinbagonian.
Throughout my life, as an educator and advocate, I have worked with children, families and communities of every race and religion and my commitment to T&T has never been limited to people who look like me. To me, putting T&T first means standing against racism and discrimination wherever they appear.
So, to those who called me a “nasty c****e,” you have not made me ashamed and you will not silence me. You have only shown me why our history still needs to be taught and why we need to educate younger generations.
And yes, I know my place — it is right here in the country my ancestors helped to build, my home.
