A look at the girmitiyas of Trinidad and Tobago

JEROME TEELUCKSINGH

Today, use of the word coolie is considered a racial slur and is derogatory.

However, it was in common usage in the earlier colonial era. Official correspondence, newspaper articles and people used the term coolie when referring to Indian labour, the ships transporting them and the depots in India. Today, the accurate term for these indentured Indian labourers is – girmitiyas.

Nowadays, different terms as East Indian, Indian, Indo-Trinidadian, Indo-Trinbagonian or Indo-Caribbean have been used to describe the descendants of these people from India who were brought to TT or the Caribbean during the horrible indentureship era.

There were obstacles which handicapped integration of girmitiyas in this country.

Firstly, since 1845 the Indians have been distrusted by the Africans. The reason being that Indian indentured labourers worked for lower wages on the sugar plantations. Secondly, the different customs, foods, religion, language and clothing of emigrants from India made them appear “alien”, “strangers” and “interlopers.”

Undoubtedly, the return migration to India, of those who completed their five year contracts, provide some evidence of failed integration and incomplete assimilation in the Caribbean society. V.S Naipaul, in The Middle Passage, brilliantly captured the alienation and insubordination facing Indians in the colonial society.

Undoubtedly, the return migration to India, of those who completed their five year contracts provide the strongest evidence of failed integration and incomplete assimilation or acculturation in Trinidadian society. However, there were instances of good relations between Indians and other ethnic/racial groups during indentureship. And, there was also the brotherhood relationship or jahaji bhai.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the girmitiyas seemed a homogeneous entity but in reality, they were fragmented. The cleavages of religion, caste, class and gender were ever present. Furthermore, friction existed among Christian, Hindu and Muslim Indians.

Among the Hindus, the caste system kept Brahims, Kshatriyas and Chamars apart. And, there were distinct divisions between the educated and westernised middle class and poorer, illiterate lower class.

Radica Mahase in her groundbreaking study – Why Should We be Called Coolies?: The End of Indentured Labour provided a glimpse into the horrors of the indentureship system in various British colonies.

The fines, imprisonment and extensions of contracts were not deterrents to these rebellious and unhappy girmitiyas. They played a crucial role, along with the anti-indenture voices in India, in undermining the exploitative indentureship system.

It was a diverse resistance that incorporated absence from work, desertion, abusive language, refusal to work and breaches of immigration law. This continuous but sporadic resistance included property damage, malingering and assault.

There was also incidents of direct confrontation between Indian labourers and the overseers or planters. These included Cedar Hill Estate in 1882 and Endeavour Estate in 1884 in Trinidad.

Acts of violence involving indentured labourers included the 1913 Rose Hill riots, in British Guiana. It was not restricted to British West Indian colonies but other areas as Fiji and Mauritius.

The vital economic contributions of the early Indians are undisputed.

During the colonial era, Indians were involved not only in the sugar industry but also cocoa, coffee, coconut and citrus estates/plantations. In the post-indentureship era, many of the humble shop-keepers, peasant farmers and land proprietors were resilient and thrifty. Many ensured that their offspring became educated professionals.

In the early decades of the 20th century, organisations as the East Indian National Association (EINA) regularly submitted petitions to the governor, appealing for employment and promotion of Indians in the government service, legal recognition of Hindu and Muslim marriages, establishment of schools, participation of non-Christian religions in ecclesiastical grant and opening of roads in rural areas.

Gerad Tikasingh in examining the representation of Indian opinion during 1900-1921 argued that Indians felt a deep sense of anxiety and insecurity because of the contradiction between their valuable role in the colony’s development and their disadvantaged, lowly position in society.

Next week, on 29 May, is the second observance of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Indentureship.

Some of us do not see the girmitiyas as victims. There are myths such as Indians are wealthy and privileged and thus do not need compensation. Whenever, the descendants of these girmitiyas are omitted from discussions on reparations, this reflects our biased society.

We celebrate and recall the arrival of Indians into Trinidad and other former British colonies but we need to acknowledge another important milestone – the end of this brutal scheme. Very few people know that the final end of indentureship in the British colonies occurred on 1 January 1920. It is a date worth remembering!