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The one million People of Indian descent (PIO) who live in the Caribbean were delighted on hearing the news that India is planning to install a memorial, and then build a museum dedicated to its early emigrants in the Diaspora. PIO in the Caribbean feel that the proposed museum in Kolkata would complement their Indian Caribbean Museum which was opened in 2006 in Trinidad and Tobago.
The memorial plaque will be installed near the Kidderpore (Demerara) depot clock tower in Kolkata on January 11, 2011. Symbolically, Demerara is also the name of a region in Guyana (Caribbean) where 239,000 migrants from India came to work as indentured labourers. It is in ports like Kidderpore in India that about one million indentured workers waited, sometimes for months, for ships to take them to colonies on journeys that sometimes took as long as 103 days.
The commemorative plaque would be inaugurated by Minister Vayalar Ravi of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. It is expected that many delegates to the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Indian Diaspora Conference) would attend. The Executive Vice President of Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), Ashook Ramsaran, would also be present.
Ramsaran was born in Guyana (then British Guiana) and is the grandson of Indian indentured immigrants. As a private individual, he took the first step towards establishing the memorial, and was later supported by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), the Ministry of Culture, the Port Trust, and the Government of West Bengal. At the inauguration ceremony, Ramsaran would be accompanied by historian Leela Sarup (Indo-Mauritian) of the Global Indian Diaspora Heritage Society (GIDHS) which is based in
Kolkata.
The plaque is meant to commemorate the spirit of those who left India between 1834 - 1920 “as Indian indentured labourers to far-away lands seeking better livelihoods for themselves and their descendants; for their pioneering spirit, determination, resilience, endurance and perseverance amidst the extremely harsh and demeaning conditions they encountered …”
The President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo; the Prime Minister of Mauritius, Ravichandra Ramgoolam, and the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, have been invited to participate in the inauguration ceremony. Newly-elected, Persad-Bissessar is not only the first woman Prime Minister of the twin-island republic, but also the first woman Prime Minister of the Indian Diaspora.
Between 1838 and 1917, Indians left the ports of Calcutta (Kolkata) and Madras (Chennai) for the Caribbean. They travelled halfway around the world to work as indentured labourers (semi-slaves) in the sugarcane fields at a time when Britain ruled both colonies.
The Dutch and French were also involved in the indentureship scheme, resulting in Indians being taken to far-flung places such as Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam in the Caribbean as well as to Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Fiji.
The majority of PIO in the Caribbean came from eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar in north India and from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in south India. Of all the places in the Indian Diaspora, the Caribbean is located the farthest, but it has been able to keep its ancestral culture alive even among its youngest generation. The Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean has produced V.S. Naipaul, the 1992 Nobel Prize winner for Literature; Sundar Popo, who popularised chutney music; and great cricketers such as Rohan Kanhai, Alvin Kallicharan and Shivnarine
Chanderpaul.
At a nearby site in Kolkata, there are plans to build a heritage museum and research centre. Land has already been granted for this project which would house emigration records, literary works, pieces of art, artifacts, photographs, documentaries and films relating to Indian
indentureship.
Located near the world-famous Temple-in-the-Sea, and the 84-foot/26 meter Hanuman murti [sacred statue] in Trinidad, the Indian Caribbean Museum is the only one of its kind in the
world.
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