At Di­vali time, I of­ten think about the first set of In­den­tured ser­vants who ar­rived in the 19th cen­tu­ry to work in Trinidad. Af­ter the long jour­ney by sea, and ar­rival in a new land, as ser­vants and work­ers bound to es­tates, how did they spend their first Di­vali?

The ma­jor­i­ty would have been Hin­dus, some might have been Mus­lim or Chris­t­ian but all com­ing, from Ut­tar Pradesh or Bi­har main­ly, would have been part of an In­di­an civil­i­sa­tion which cher­ished Di­vali with the same fer­vour with which Chris­tians cher­ish Christ­mas.

The two prin­ci­pal sto­ries around Di­vali are that of Lord Ra­ma wel­comed by rows of light in Ay­o­d­ha af­ter con­quer­ing the evil king Rawan, and the wor­ship of Moth­er Lax­mi, a fe­male man­i­fes­ta­tion of God, who brings good­will and pros­per­i­ty to homes.

But what would these in­den­tureds have done in 1845? They prob­a­bly would have made a deya or two out of mud, rolled a wick from cot­ton, lit one or a few deyas, and said a prayer and cooked a mod­est meal. Maybe some gath­ered and sang bha­jans, or maybe they just talked..Some might have missed their home in In­dia; oth­ers might have wor­ried about the fu­ture. Who knows?

To­day, one of the de­scen­dants of peo­ple who crossed the dark wa­ter and has been cel­e­brat­ed in In­dia as a “daugh­ter of Bi­har,” Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar, is prime min­is­ter for the sec­ond time in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Last week, Di­vali was cel­e­brat­ed in Par­lia­ment and deyas were lit out­side the Red House. Di­vali has al­so been cel­e­brat­ed at the prime min­is­ter’s res­i­dence be­fore. In­sti­tu­tion­al­is­ing these things for con­ti­nu­ity, in­clu­sion and uni­ty are im­por­tant for a mul­ti-cul­tur­al na­tion. Di­vali was de­clared a pub­lic hol­i­day and there­fore recog­nised as a na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion in 1966. It was the first non- Chris­t­ian cel­e­bra­tion to be des­ig­nat­ed a hol­i­day.

Di­vali in T&T would have be­gun in bar­racks on the sug­ar plan­ta­tions of Trinidad, even­tu­al­ly mov­ing to the vil­lages that emerged at the edge of these es­tates, and then mov­ing, as free­dom came, in­to com­mu­ni­ties that were emerg­ing.

And so, Di­vali in T&T be­came first a fam­i­ly cel­e­bra­tion and then a com­mu­ni­ty fes­ti­val where tem­ples got in­volved, the youth chan­nelled their rest­less­ness and com­mu­ni­ty spaces would be lit up. Cul­tur­al per­for­mances and shows were built around “light­ing up” to pro­mote com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion and en­joy­ment. On Di­vali night, some com­mu­ni­ties would bright­en the place with deyas and flam­beaux. 

On Chin Chin Road, Cunu­pia, where I have lived since Di­vali day, 1984, the en­tire road would be lit up. This was al­so true in places like Fe­lic­i­ty, the orig­i­nal “Ami­ty Vil­lage” fic­tion­alised by Sheilah Solomon Klass, wife of US an­thro­pol­o­gist Mor­ton Klass, who did field­work on cul­tur­al re­ten­tion in Fe­lic­i­ty in the 1950s. Fe­lic­i­ty is home to one of the biggest, long-stand­ing Ram­leela fes­ti­vals in T&T.

Di­vali on­ly start­ed to be­come a fes­ti­val with a cen­tral lo­ca­tion in 1986, when Hans Hanoomans­ingh, a Pres­by­ter­ian, ini­ti­at­ed Di­vali Na­gar as pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC). The NCIC was found­ed in 1964, two years af­ter T&T In­de­pen­dence, to pro­mote In­di­an mu­sic and dra­ma. Di­vali Na­gar fa­cil­i­tat­ed the pro­mo­tion of In­di­an song, mu­sic, dance, dra­ma and cul­ture. It cre­at­ed a cul­tur­al ex­po­si­tion-like event in a de­fined space in Cen­tral Trinidad. And it opened up this fes­ti­val of Di­vali to the wider com­mu­ni­ty. Any­one could vis­it the Di­vali Na­gar on any night lead­ing up to Di­vali and feel wel­come.

The par­tic­i­pa­to­ry and in­clu­sive na­ture of Di­vali and its uni­ver­sal mes­sage that light will al­ways tri­umph over dark­ness, as good will ever tri­umph over evil, is an at­trac­tor across re­li­gious and racial bound­aries and a bridge for Hin­dus to reach out to oth­er In­di­ans and is a longer, wider bridge to reach all re­li­gions and races. Di­vali Na­gar and the NCIC even made a bridge of ac­cess to the Caribbean and the world.

The NCIC is a na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion ini­ti­at­ed by In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers like Bis­ram Gopie, Nasa­loo Ra­maya, Moen Mo­hammed, Baldeo Ma­haraj, Farzan Ali, Pope Shar­ma and Hanoomans­ingh across re­li­gious lines. And it has sought con­sis­tent­ly to em­brace oth­ers and broad­en its ap­peal while serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

The NCIC is some­thing that gov­ern­ment should sup­port to strength­en. Gov­ern­ment should not com­pete with it, nor seek to weak­en it. Its theme this year was dis­cern­ment. One job of gov­ern­ment is to help peo­ple help them­selves and to work with all to build a na­tion to­geth­er. May the deyas lit in 2026 fu­el en­light­en­ment.