Our youth cannot imagine the chronology of pain that was a day in the life of an indentured barrack Indian. There were no clocks. The crowing of cocks awakened the bone-weary barrack dwellers. These birds, another Indian import, survived by scratching around for the unlikely scraps that may have been abandoned by the malnourished brotherhood of poverty inhabiting the hovels of despair.

Those too tired to respond to the chorus of the cocks heard a continuous, loud, jarring, clanging, banging, gonglike noise. It was the estate overseer’s instrument of early warning to awake. A large piece of old iron was being beaten in the yard, just after the cocks crowed at 4 am. The banging announced that another day of submission to the overseer’s will was soon to begin. There was no mercy for latecomers at morning muster.

Dr Eric Williams uncharitably said of the Indians who voted against the PNM in the Federal elections of 1958, “They have hookworms in their brains.” He was referring to the condition of destitution that was barrack life. The arrogance of the out-voted politician evoked the reality of the barrack dwellers riddled with round worms, bellies full of hookworms sucking the substance of their meagre meals from the debilitated stomachs.

Walking barefooted on ground that served as the latrine meant worms invaded the foot between the toes.

The documentaries seen on TV of families of apes in Africa submitting themselves to the cleaning and picking of skin parasites evoke vivid memories of that hurtful aspect of barrack life: the licepickers. There was a class of work in barrack life, the licepickers!

From such inauspicious circumstances developed the grandparents of the law-abiding and productive citizens of our janma bhoomi, our land of birth, which we love dearly, T&T.

Eric Williams wrote: “The Indian population was a sick population. Malaria and ankylostomiasis were the chief scourges. The Indians lived and died by sugar. Much of the disease was directly traceable to the barrack system. The barrack room represented squalor, destitution and degradation” (from Inward Hunger by Eric Williams).

Williams echoed Gomes when he wrote in Inward Hunger : “The Indian in Trinidad was a man with the cutlass, oppressed by the law which, instead of being his protector, was his principal enemy. The cutlass was a way of life, useful not only for cutting cane but also for slicing its owner’s loaf or slitting his wife’s lover’s throat.”

What Gomes observed, Williams hinted at: “There was no question that the Indian occupied the lowest rung of the ladder in Trinidad.”

Nevertheless, revenge or vendetta against Africans was never the animating idea of the Indian community.

Hindu tradition and the story of the Ramayan instilled a fortitude in every suffering generation of Indians. Lord Rama overcame the terrible torments of exile. This story, told evening after evening for generations, focused the mind not on revenge but on achieving success.

The Ramayan was the fountain of strength, nourishing the will to acquire English, literacy in a foreign language and the cultural skills of Creole Trinidad civilisation. Those were essential tools of building businesses or getting children into prestige schools and then into the professions.

Our youth in these trying times must reflect on the philosophy of their ancestors. They face a resurgent 1970 nationalism devoted to destroying the meritocracy Indo-Trinidadians have helped to build. This meritocracy has served all sections of the nation well.

The demands to abandon fairness in employment practices at the Central Bank of T&T, in the selection of students for medical scholarship or places at the University of the West Indies are traumatic for a community that has struggled to promote justice and racial equality.

We need the will to be charitable. We must never degenerate into the tamasic (evil) rage of the devotees of adharma (anti-religion) or unrighteousness to return injustice with injustice. Failed societies in Africa, Europe, and even the partition of India, were the result of discrimination as the policy of the state.

Despite what Gomes and Williams recorded, or the present anti-Indian hysteria, which reflects the inevitable adjustment to changes in our society, we must not abandon hope in T&T. We must celebrate India Arrival Day with pride and optimism. We must not become refugees in spirit or in fact.

Indian Arrival Day must be an occasion of recommitment to the promise of our nation, a beacon to the world. Hindu tolerance and respect for the religion of others must guide our children to be examples of all the youth.

Hinduism impresses on us the necessity to involve children in duty towards pundits, their parents, family members and village elders. In these times of craziness among some sections of our youth, we must re-emphasise the Hindu family values. We must set examples which show that racism and targeting of any group for preferential advancement based on racial criteria is evil.

Indian Arrival Day must be celebrated with solemn dignity, drawing on the knowledge of the squalid existence of ancestors who lighted the way for us to succeed.

SATNARAYAN MAHARAJ is the Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha