Indo-Caribbeans

Indo-Caribbeans or Indian-Caribbeans, are people of Indian descent who live in the Caribbean. They are mostly descendants of the original jahaji Indian indentured workers brought by the British, the Dutch, and the French during colonial times.

Indo-Caribbeans
Regions with significant populations
 Trinidad and Tobago470,376
(a plurality of the population)[1]
 Guyana317,000
(a plurality of the population)
 United States232,817
(Indo-Caribbean Americans)[2]
 Suriname161,000
(a plurality of the population)
 Jamaica146,000
 Martinique37,530[3]
 Guadeloupe36,011[4]
 French Guiana12,000
 Belize7,600
 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines5,900
 Saint Lucia5,200
 Puerto Rico4,100
 Barbados4,000
 Grenada3,900
 Saint Kitts and Nevis1,500
 British Virgin Islands1,100
Languages
Colonial Languages:
Indian Languages:
Languages spoken by more recent immigrants:
Religion
Predominantly:
Minority:
Related ethnic groups

Most Indo-Caribbean people live in the English-speaking Caribbean nations, Suriname, and the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana, with smaller numbers in other Caribbean countries and, following further migration, in Europe and North America.

Sub-groups

Caribbean Islands

Mainland Caribbean

Primary Diaspora

Secondary/Migrant Workers Diaspora

Mixed Ethnicities

Migration history
Indo-Caribbeans in the 19th century celebrating the Indian culture in West Indies through dance and music.

From 1838 to 1917, over half a million Indians from the former British Raj or British India and Colonial India, were taken to thirteen mainland and island nations in the Caribbean as indentured workers to address the demand for sugar cane plantation labour following the abolition of slavery.

Sugarcane plantations in the 19th century
A 19th-century lithograph by Theodore Bray showing workers harvesting sugarcane on a Caribbean plantation; on the right is the European overseer.

Much like cotton, sugarcane plantations motivated large-scale near-enslavement and forced migrations in the 19th and early 20th century.[5]

Following the emancipation of slaves in 1833 in the United Kingdom, many liberated Africans left their former masters. This created an economic chaos for British owners of sugar-cane plantations in the Caribbean region, and elsewhere. The hard work in hot, humid farms required a regular, docile and low-waged labour force. The British looked for cheap labour. Since slavery had been abolished, the British crafted a new legal system of forced labour, which in many ways resembled enslavement.[6] Instead of calling them slaves, they were called indentured labourers. Under this indentured labour scheme, Indians (primarily) began to replace enslaved Africans on sugarcane plantations across the British empire.

The first ships carrying indentured labourers for sugarcane plantations left India in 1838 for the Caribbean region. In fact, the first two shiploads of Indians arrived in British Guiana (now Guyana) on May 5, 1838, on board the Whitby and Hesperus. These ships had sailed from Calcutta. In the early decades of the sugarcane-driven migrations, indentured Indians were treated as inhumanely as the enslaved Africans had been. They were confined to their estates and paid a pitiful salary. Any breach of contract brought automatic criminal penalties and imprisonment. Many of these were brought away from their homelands deceptively. Many from inland regions over a thousand kilometers from seaports were promised jobs, were not told the work they were being hired for, or that they would leave their homeland and communities. They were hustled aboard the waiting ships, unprepared for the long and arduous four-month sea journey. Charles Anderson, a special magistrate investigating these sugarcane plantations, wrote to the British Colonial Secretary declaring that with few exceptions, the indentured labourers are treated with great and unjust severity; plantation owners enforced work in sugarcane farms so harshly, that the decaying remains of immigrants were frequently discovered in sugarcane fields. If labourers protested and refused to work, they were not paid or fed: they simply starved.[5]

The sugarcane plantation-driven migrations led to ethnically significant presence of Indians in Caribbean.[7] In some islands and countries, these Indo-Caribbean migrants now constitute a significant proportion of the population. Sugarcane plantations and citizens of Indian origin continue to thrive in countries such as Guyana, formerly, British Guiana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Martinique, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Croix, Suriname and Nevis.[5][8] By some estimates, over 2.5 million people in the Caribbean are of Indian origin. Many have ethnically blended with migrants from other parts of the world, creating a unique syncretic culture.

Though production was centered in the Caribbean, sugarcane production played a significant role in pre-World War II global politics and population movements. France, for example, negotiated with Britain leading to Act XLVI of 1860, whereby large numbers of Indian indentured labourers were brought for harsh sugarcane plantation work in French colonies in the Caribbean region.[9] The Caribbean colonies of the Netherlands too benefitted from the indentured laborers from India.

Post World War II trends
Indian indentured laborers worked for decades for meagre wages in sugar cane plantations of the Dutch East Indies. This image from Tropenmuseum Royal Tropical Institute shows two Indo-Caribbean people walking towards the house of a Dutch engineer in a Caribbean sugar cane plantation.

The majority of the Indians living in the English-speaking Caribbean came from eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar which are mostly Hindi-speakers, while those brought to Guadeloupe and Martinique were largely from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. About twenty percent (20%) of the indentured were Tamils and Telugus particularly in Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.

A minority emigrated from other parts of South Asia, including present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Indo-Caribbeans comprise the largest ethnic group in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname.

They are the second largest group in Suriname, Jamaica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe.

There are also small communities in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, French Guiana, Panama, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Netherlands Antilles. Small groups also exist in Haiti, where they are sometimes mistakenly referred to as "mulattos".

Contemporary migration

Modern-day immigrants from India (mostly Sindhi merchants) are to be found on Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten, St. Thomas, Curaçao and other islands with duty-free commercial capabilities, where they are active in business. Other Indo-Caribbean people descend from later migrants, including Indian doctors, Gujarati businessmen and migrants from Kenya and Uganda.

Diaspora

Indo-Caribbeans have migrated to the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and to other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America

Culture
Many Caribbean islands celebrate traditional Indian festivals, such as Diwali, as shown in this Divali Nagar decorations from Trinidad and Tobago.
Temple in the Sea
See also: Hinduism in the West Indies, List of Hindu temples in Trinidad and Tobago, and Indo-Caribbean music

The indentured Indians and their descendants have actively contributed to the evolution of their adopted lands in spite of many difficulties.

Commemoration

In recent years, attempts to commemorate the Indian presence and contributions have come to fruition:

Indian Arrival Day is a holiday celebrated on May 30 in Trinidad and Tobago each year since the 1990s. It was first celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago and then other countries with significant Indian people whose ancestors came as indentured laborers. It commemorates the first arrivals from Akhand Bharat (South Asia) to Trinidad and Tobago, on May 30, 1845, on the ship Fatel Razack

In 1995, Jamaica started to celebrate the arrival of Indians in Old Harbour Bay, St. Catherine Parish on May 13.

In 2003, Martinique celebrated the 150th anniversary of Indian arrival. Guadeloupe did the same in 2004. These celebrations were not the fact of just the Indian minority, but the official recognition by the French and local authorities of their integration and their wide-scale contributions in various fields including agriculture, education, and politics, and to the diversification of the culture of the Creole peoples. Thus, the noted participation of the whole multi-ethnic population of the two islands were in these events.

St. Lucia and many Caribbean countries have dedicated commemorative days to acknowledge the arrival and important contributions of their Indo-Caribbean populations. St. Lucia celebrates its Indo-Caribbean heritage on May 6. Other dates when India Arrival Day is celebrated in the Caribbean include May 5 (Guyana), May 10 (Jamaica), May 30 (Trinidad and Tobago), June 1 (St. Vincent), and June 5 (Suriname).[8]

Indo-Caribbean media - Canada

There are three Indo-Caribbean newspapers based in Toronto:

  • Indo-Caribbean World - has been in existence for 25 years
  • Caribbean Xpress - has been in existence for five years
  • Indo-Caribbean Times - existed for about two years; ceased publication after the death of one its founding members in April 2010

Notable Canadian Indo-Caribbeans

Other notable Indo-Caribbeans

Politics and Government

Literature

Sports

Arts and Entertainment

Science, Medicine, and Health

Religion, Philanthropy, and Philosophy

Pundits

[10]

  • Dharmachariya Pandit Ramlall
  • Dharmachariya Shri Mahant Deodath Dass
  • Dharmacharya Pandit Arjun Doobey[11]
  • Pundit Rudranath Maharaj
  • Pundit Bal Gangadhar
  • Acharya Pundit Prakash Gossai
  • Pundit Krishna Harrybatchan
  • Pundit Deonarine Gajraj Maharaj-Agnihotri[12]
  • Pundit Hardath Maharaj
  • Dharmacharya Pundit Krishna Maharaj
  • Pundit Mahase Maharaj
  • Pundit Mahadeo Maharaj
  • Pundit Munelal Maharaj
  • Pundit Nirmal Maharaj
  • Pundit Parasram Maharaj
  • Dharmacharya Pundit Uttam Maharaj
  • Pundit Capildeo Maharajh
  • Dharmacharya Pundit Basdeo Misir
  • Pundit Sriram Jadoonanan Misra
  • Pundit Kashiprasad Mishra
  • Dharmacharya Pundit Rampersad Parasram
  • Pundit Samsundar Parasram
  • Doon Pundit
  • Dharmacharya Pundit Krishna Rambally
  • Pundit Seusankar Seunarine
  • Pundit Abhedanand Persad Sharma
  • Pundit Harripersad Sharma
  • Dharmacharya Pundit Jankie Persad Sharma
  • Dharmacharya Pundit Sahadeo Persad Dubay Sharma
  • Dharamacharaya Mahant Garib Sieuraj
  • Pundit Rampersad Tewarie (Darhi Baba)
  • Pundit Sahadeo Tiwari
  • Pundit Teeluckdharry
  • Pundit Ramdath Vyas

Criminals
gollark: You should just eternally restrict them if they refuse to be in the right channels or whatever. Or just ban them.
gollark: He *will* exact vengeance at some point.
gollark: The media centre thing or something else?
gollark: Uesr#4952 I think.
gollark: Just respond with vaguely ominous messages like "We know what you did" until they stop.

See also

References
  1. "TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 2011 POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS DEMOGRAPHIC REPORT" (PDF). Guardian.co.tt. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  2. "Indo-Caribbean Times December 2007 - Kidnapping - Venezuela". Scribd. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  3. "Martinique Population 2020". World Population Review. World Population Review. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  4. "Guadeloupe Population 2020". World Population Review. World Population Review. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  5. "Forced Labour". The National Archives, Government of the United Kingdom. 2010.
  6. Hugh Tinker (1993). "New System of Slavery". Hansib Publishing, London. ISBN 978-1-870518-18-5. Missing or empty |url= (help)
  7. K Laurence (1994). "A Question of Labour: Indentured Immigration Into Trinidad & British Guiana, 1875-1917". St Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-12172-3. Missing or empty |url= (help)
  8. "St. Lucia's Indian Arrival Day". Caribbean Repeating Islands. 2009.
  9. "Indian indentured labourers". The National Archives, Government of the United Kingdom. 2010.
  10. http://www.hindisongstt.com/artist_listing.php?catId=17
  11. https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=3520
  12. http://ftp.guardian.co.tt/lifestyle/2011/10/26/late-pandit-unsung-hero-hinduism

[1]

  • Indo-Caribbean Alliance, Inc. - a 501(c)3 non-profit organization providing services and advocacy to New York City's growing Indo-Caribbean community
  • Jahajee Sisters: Empowering Indo-Caribbean Women - a movement-building organization, led by Indo-Caribbean women, committed to fighting gender-based violence and advocating for reproductive justice. Jahajee Sisters fosters solidarity and empowerment through dialogue, arts, leadership development and grassroots organizing.
  • South Asian Indentured Labor - Online Archive of Research and Resources - an online archive and living syllabus of text-based resources related to Indian indentureship, with country-specific resources related to Indians indentured to the Caribbean and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora
  1. Gupta, Bashabi (2011). "Indian Diaspora in the United States: Brain Drain or Gain?". Diaspora Studies. 5 (1): 139–154. ISSN 0973-9572.
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