East Indians, West Indians and The Quest For Caribbean Political Unity

EAST INDIANS, WEST INDIANS AND THE QUEST FOR CARIBBEAN POLITICAL UNITY
Author(s): Selwyn Ryan

Source: Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 48, No. 4, Federation and Caribbean Integration
(DECEMBER 1999), pp. 151-184
Published by: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the
West Indies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27865170
Accessed: 30-06-2017 19:18 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
University of the West Indies, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic
Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social and Economic
Studies
This content downloaded from 136.145.174.50 on Fri, 30 Jun 2017 19:18:30 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Social and Economie Studies 48:4 (1999) ISSN: 0037-7651
EAST INDIANS, WEST INDIANS AND

THE QUEST FDR CARIBBEAN
POLITICAL UNITY
Selwyn Ryan
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the attitudes and concerns which informe
approaches of Indians and cre?les in the Caribbean to the Car
unity project from 1947 to the present It documents and ana
some of the critical political and cultural issues which determin
attitude of these groups.
I
Indians in the Caribbean have had a somewhat ambivalent relation
ship with the other peoples of the region and to proposals for its
political unification. This is in large part due to their belief that their
Christian Afro-Caribbean counterparts ? the cr?oles as they refer to
them ? regard the Caribbean Sea as their ethnic lake and their pres
ence in the region as an unwelcome intrusion. This is in part a by
product of their experiences with "creole" nationalist politics in Trinidad
and Tobago and Guyana and to a lesser extent in the other territories
such as Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent. Cultural and
religious differences also served to define their reaction to cr?oles as
well as to the unification movement.
Before addressing these particular issues, we need to first
identify the demographic dimension of the problem. David Lowenthal
estimated that in 1961, Indians constituted some 12 per cent of the
Federal population (Lowenthal 1961: 82). Jamaica had about 20,000,
the Windward Islands a few thousand, and Trinidad 330,000. There
were then few Indians in either Barbados or the Leeward Islands.
Pp 151-184
152 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
Guyana was not in the Federation. In both Trinidad and Tobago and
Guyana, Indians are now the single largest ethnic group. In Trinidad
and Tobago, they number 471,107 or 40.3 per cent of the population
(1990 Census) while in Guyana they number approximately 389,760,
or some 51.4 per cent of the population (1980 Census).
The second issue that requires comment if only because the term
is often used in this paper, relates to the word "creole" as used by
Indians. The term is used in various ways in Caribbean society. It was
used to define whites who were born in the Caribbean, mulattos, as
well as persons who were obviously African. Indians in Guyana and
Trinidad and Tobago however used the term to describe the latter.
Many used the terms "creole", "kilwal" or "kirwal" instead of the stan
dard English form. In the Hindu schema, to be "creole" was to be
polluted and therefore someone to avoid. Creoles were in fact seen as
belonging to an 'undercaste'. Haraksingh notes that the characterisation
of Blacks by Hindus derived from religion and culture. As he writes in
a passage that explains much about the relations between the two com
munities (1974: 67-68):
In Trinidad, by each of the standards of birth, occupation
and customs, it seemed to indentured Indians that Negroes were
hopelessly polluted. Indians quickly invented a myth about the
origin of Negroes. They were supposed to have been adherents of
Ravana in his inglorious struggle against Rama. The monkey-God
Hanuman, faithful servant of Ravana, tied a burning cloth to his
tail and swished it through the air. The flames darkened the skins
of Ravana's followers and curled their hair. Negroes were there
fore to be identified with the ungodly and the polluted.
If a man engages in an occupation which is ritually impure, he

pollutes not only himself but also the group to which he belongs.
After the abolition of slavery, many Negroes entered the trades,
leather-work being a favorite choice. To the Indians, however, leather
represented a defiled substance and the man who handled leather
was ritually defiled. Similarly, to eat the flesh of swine or cattle
was to be polluted. Generally, Negro habits which were strange to
Indians, seemed ritually dangerous and unacceptable. Accordingly,
in the Indian scheme of things, Negroes were accorded a position
almost beyond the pale.
East Indians, West Indians and the Quest 153
When Negroes are looked at in this way, as an Indian caste ? as

untouchables, in fact ? then relations between the races become
much more understandable than if they were seen simply as being
determined by stereotyped notions formed during the days of
early contact. True, caste is losing much of its significance, but the
atavism prevails especially in those two areas where crossing the
caste lines has been traditionally difficult, if not proscribed ?
commensality and intermarriage. Any attempt to look at race rela
tions in Trinidad must take into account that there is an Indian'
view of things that is different from the western perspective.
II Indo-Guyanese and the Federal Idea

The Guyanese were ambivalent about Federation for several reasons.
Some chose to emphasize their "continental" as opposed to their "coastal
destiny." They saw their future as being linked more with the South
American continent on which they were located than with the English
speaking Caribbean to which they were linked by culture and history.
Gordon Lewis also observed that there was conflict between the "theory
of a Pan-American fraternal Alliance with Latin neighbors, and the
brooding omnipresence of the Venezuelan threat to Guyanese territo
rial integrity in the form of the famous boundary dispute" (1968:258).
Lewis saw this as "a denial of West Indianism feeding on the obses
sional dream of massive interior development.
Guyanese Indians had other reasons to be cautious about estab
lishing political links with the Anglophone Caribbean islands. As the
late Cheddi Jagan explained in an address to the General Meeting of
the Association of Caribbean Studies in 1994:
Caribbean peoples like to say of themselves, "All ah we is wan"
Because Caribbean peoples live in the same geographical area and
have had similar, if not identical histories and experiences of plan
tation dominance, colonial exploitation and post-colonial under
development and poverty, the assumption is held that we are a
homogeneous mass. Yet, it is possible for a Jamaican to surfer
from cultural shock upon landing in Trinidad or Guyana, such as
they may not experience in Britain. The saying, "AM ah we is wan"
is to be understood more as an expression of our aspiration than
as a description of our Caribbean reality. Probably, it can be
regarded as a slogan under which perceptive and influential
Caribbean leaders in social, economic, political and religious af

fairs can marshal their efforts and mobilize their constituents to
foster greater regional cooperation, if not unity. (95-1)
Jagan felt that any effort to force political integration which did not
recognise the plural nature of Guyanese society was bound to fail. To
quote him further:
Any attempt to achieve integration of any kind, however urgent
and desirable the need for this integration at the regional level,
that ignores or simplifies the nature of our plurality, will not only
result in self-defeat; it will generate enough suspicion and cyni
cism that will frustrate future efforts at integration before these
are even conceived. Lessons learned from the break-up of the Fed
eration show that integration cannot be forced. (ibid:2).
Jagan's position in 1994 was not much different to the one many Indo
Guyanese took fifty years earlier. Like most of them, he feared that the
majority status which Indians enjoyed in Guyana would be eroded as
"creole" West Indians migrated to Guyana in search of economic op
portunity. While this fear was not always openly articulated, it clearly
informed their political behaviour. As Lowenthal observed, "British
Guyana's East Indians, already as numerous as and perhaps more pow
erful than the Creoles, fear that federation might force them to relin
quish their supremacy and might also open up British Guyana to unre
stricted Negro immigration from the islands" (61:83)
Jagan did not always oppose Federation, however. Under his lead
ership, the Peoples Political Party (PPP) had in fact committed itself to
work for the "eventual political union of British Guyana with the
Caribbean territories." Jagan however went back on this pledge, much
to the chagrin of Martin Carter, Sydney King, Rory Westmas and other
leftist elements in the PPP who broke with Jagan on the issue, arguing
that his volte face on Federation was due to his desire to retain the
tribal loyalty of the Indians. (Spinner 1984:68). Jagan did not openly
identify race or fear of "creole" migration as the reason for his opposi
tion to Federation. Given his publicly stated ideological orientation, ?
scientific socialism - other kinds of issues had to be given greater
prominence. His publicly articulated objection focused mainly on the
colonial nature of the Federal Constitution being proposed. Speaking
in the Legislative Council as early as 1948, Jagan expressed concern

about the type of Federation that was being contemplated by the estab
lished elites of the region. As he said:
... I am not in agreement with the proposed Federation ? closer
union or closer association ? as enunciated by the vested inter
ests. That would merely mean the pooling of a few services and
leaving the colonies to be the swimming pool of outside capital.
My view of Federation is that we should have a strong federal
body which would have certain powers delegated to it by several
units ? a strong federal body having that power with Dominion
status, and with each of the units having internal self govern
ment. That is the Federation with which I am in agreement.
(Manley 1979:30).
Ten years later, Jagan's position remained exactly the same. As he told
the Guyana Legislative Council:
The PPP says that Federation under Crown Colony Government
can never succeed. We say: let us have Dominion status before we
start talking about Federation, and let us have internal self-gov
ernment in order to remove the shackles first. If the West Indian
leaders demanded Dominion status now, they would get it, not
because the British Government is so generous, but because of the
trend of things.... It is high time in this country and in the West
Indies for all political leaders to join together and demand inde
pendence now...(ibicf; 31)
Jagan insisted that he was in favour of unity, but was not pre
pared to pursue it unless certain structural changes were contemplated
which promised to yield outputs which would release "his people" from
bondage. Interestingly enough, Jagan chose to regard Indian opposi
tion to the Federation in class terms. He argued that Indians belonged
to the proletariat, and thus had little interest in what was essentially a
concern of "bourgeois" elements in Caribbean society. Jagan however
seemed to be using this fiction of the class basis of the Indian popula
tion to rationalise his opposition to the Federation which was justified
on the basis of ideology rather than ethnicity. Both factors were
probably operative.
The late Gordon Lewis, who was on the left of the Caribbean
political continuum, was sharply critical of Jagan's ambivalence. He felt
Jagan had a historic responsibility to enter the Federation and to try

and change it from within; that, in his Fabian view, is what a true
revolutionary ought to do. Lewis also complained that Jagan conve
niently chose to ignore the emergence of a conservative Indian bour
geois element in Guyana which had little sympathy or concern for the
Indian rice farmer or sugar proletariat. As he wrote:
..the Jaganite temptation to see "Indian" and "working class" as
synonymous terms leads to a dangerous optimism about the social
attitudes of the Indian landlord and businessman. It was argued
that, as a 'native' capitalist class, the anti-imperialist feelings of the
Indian business group made them potential allies in the colonial
struggle. But the argument was fatally weak because it imputed
to the members of that group feelings that in fact they did not
much entertain and overlooked the vital fact that they were will
ing to help finance the PPP in order to better their own class
position and to anaesthetize any possible move against them by a
future PPP government on the ground that they constituted, as in
fact they do, some of the worst employers in the economy. (68:286)
Jagan's ambivalence towards the Federation was also informed by his

judgment about the leaders of the trade unions and political parties in
the region, persons whom he once saw as his "political gods" (Jagan
63:90). Given his ideological position as an international communist,
Jagan had good reason to be suspicious of the bona-fides of West In
dian political leaders. We recall that the period 1948-58 was one in
which the Cold War was at its most frigid, and that Jagan and people
like Hubert Critchlow, Grantley Adams, Albert Gomes, Norman Manley,
Patrick Solomon and Eric Williams found themselves on opposite sides
of the ideological fence. The split became fully evident in 1952. Jagan
was clearly distressed that the Caribbean Labour Congress of which
Grantley Adams was President, had become a casualty of the Cold
War. In his The West on Trial (66:180), Jagan had the following to say
about the collapse of the C.LC. and his subsequent attitude towards
the Federation:
The British TUC's decision to break with the World Federation
of Free Trade Unions [W.F.T.U.] had catastrophic effects, particu
larly in the West Indies. West Indian leaders had been accus
tomed to accepting the lead from the British Labour Party. In
1945, prominent Guyanese and West Indian leaders had partici

pated in the founding conference of the World Federation of Trade
Unions ( W.F.T.U.) in Paris. In the same year, the Caribbean Labour
Congress (C.L.C.) had been launched in Barbados with socialism
and independence as its aims. And at the CLC's 1947 Confer
ence at Kingston, Jamaica and the progressive West Indian leader
ship had demanded a West Indian Federation with dominion sta
tus and internal self-government for each constituent unit. But by
1948, West Indian leadership had begun to reflect the changed
attitudes in the socialist international and in the British Labour
Party.
Jagan, who had been sharply critical of Adams for defending British
colonial policy at a meeting of the United Nations Assembly in Paris in
1948, pleaded with Adams, Frank Walcott and others, to ensure that
everything be done to ensure the survival of the CLC. As he wrote:
We pleaded in the interests of West Indian unity and the cause of
West Indies Federation that everything should be done to prevent
the disbanding of the C.L.C. The C.L.C. we argued, had been the
repository of all progressive thought in the Caribbean. We said
that if affiliations to the W.F.T.U. and I.CF.T.U. of trade union
affiliates of the C.L.C. had led to disruption, then two separate
organisations should be established. These would be the Carib
bean Labour Congress and Caribbean Federation of Labour. The
C.L.C. should affiliate only political parties and should become
the political arm of the West Indian movement. The Caribbean
Federation of Labour should embrace trade unions in the area
and must be affiliated neither to the I.CF.T.U. nor the W.F.T.U.,
but must approach for aid and guidance both of these world
organisations.... Unfortunately, our proposal was not accepted by
Adams, and so shortly afterwards, the CLC. was disbanded, (ibid:
182)
Jagan felt it would have been a betrayal of trust to join the kind of
union that was being endorsed by the British West Indian leadership
whom he said lacked both vision and statesmanship. Jagan in fact ac
cused the West Indian leadership of having a capacity for deception
which he found "detestable" and difficult to practice. As he explained:
Having preached to the workers the gospel of scientific socialism,
I could not somersault. The 'art* of deception is a 'quality' I find
detestable and difficult to practice. Had I taken this path, I have
no doubt the workers would regard it as a betrayal of trust and

treat me with the same contempt their one-time supporters came
to feel for Leigh Richardson of British Honduras, Norman Manley
of Jamaica, Grantley Adams of Barbados and Albert Gomes of
Trinidad, (ibid. 395-6)
Jagan complained that Manley et al had not only gone back on social
ism; they had also not shown any willingness to pursue a common
economic policy, especially in relation to foreign investment. They also
accepted a Federal structure that was constitutionally backward.
They allowed the British government to force on them a Crown
Colony constitution. Their brave speeches and the resolution passed
at Montego Bay in 1947 in favour of a strong Federation with
dominion status were quickly forgotten. Of course, this was the
logical outcome of the post-1948 events. Having joined forces with
the cold war exponents, they were in no position to fight them.
Consequently, by the mid-1950s, they did not have the courage to
demand the same constitutional powers which the British govern
ment had proposed for the imposed but white-dominated Central
African Federation. In addition, self-interest and petty national,
insular prejudices prevailed. Each leader wanted to be a Prime
Minister or Chief Minister. The result was that when the Federa
tion began in 1958, it was hampered by a top-heavy superstruc
ture with very high salaries at the centre, in the capital, Port of
Spain, Trinidad, and with ten other colonial establishments and
highly paid governors, administrators, premiers and chief minis
ters on the periphery, (ibid.: 182-3)
Jagan felt that the aim of Britain's policy was to keep the Federa
tion economically weak and financially strapped. "A weak Federation
of poor separate territories still provided Britain with its strategic
foothold in the Western Hemisphere." (ibid.: 183) Jagan's lament was
that the West Indian political elite had given up both socialism and
anti-imperialism and had sold out for a mess of pottage. Guyana thus
had no compelling reason to link up with such a body.
Jagan was also embittered by the fact that Caribbean governments
under Adams, Bustamante and Gomes had banned him and Burnham
from entering their territories in 1954 and had also supported the
British Government when it suspended Guyana's constitution. They
had likewise marginalised him in other ways. In his view, therefore, it
was not he who had changed. "It was the West Indian leaders and their
opposite numbers in the British Labour Party and the TUC who had.
It was they who betrayed us and the cause of humanism and socialism"
(ibid.: 44').
III
The attitude of Jagan and the Indo-Guyanese provoked angry reactions

from the Afro-Guyanese who viewed the Federation as a way of escap
ing the "demographic logic" of their minority status. Guyana's Afro
Saxon establishment believed that Guyana should become a member
of the West Indian Federation, and accused the Indo-Guyanese of dis
loyalty to the Caribbean and of harbouring notions of making Guyana
an "island outpost of Greater India." The reasons for their thinking
were at once cultural, ideological and politically opportunistic. A. A.
Thorne spoke for many when he remarked in the Guyana Legislature
that:
...we would be lacking in gratitude if we cut loose from the West
Indies with their British outlook and declare ourselves a separate
unit where we have two major races at each other's throat, and
where the one race would say, "we look to India" and the other
Ve look to Great Britain. (Lewis 1963: 269)
There was however no significant effort among a majority of

Indians to create an "Indian" outpost in Guyana. Guyanese society was
however divided at its roots, and while there was much talk about the
need for racial unity, such unity as existed was superficial. What
happened in the forties and fifties was that the descendants of en
slaved Africans and indentured Indians had begun to compete for po
litical power and the resources that would accrue to those who con
trolled the post-colonial state. As Lewis observed:
what happened is that, for the first time, the society saw its
unintegrated condition, that is to say, realized the full significance
of the group differences in terms of political action and public
policy. But the condition, of course, had been there all along.
Seen from this viewpoint, it no longer becomes a question of the
personal faults of the individual leaders, Jagan's 'inflexibility* or
Burnham's 'opportunism', for the dual charisma of Jagan-Burnham

only reflects the play of those deeper forces. (Lewis 1963: 27)
Lewis also noted that the Marxist language and ideological posturing
of the original PPP had failed to overcome the barriers which existed
between radicals of the two political elites.
The society was more divided vertically along racial-cultural lines
than it was divided horizontally along class lines; or, more exactly,
being in fact divided in both senses, it was to the racial-cultural
identity that the masses turned as they were driven to find some
sort of haven from mutual division and self-contempt, (ibid.:
276-7)
There would later be expressions of nostalgia about the "good
old days* when racial harmony obtained, but as Lewis rightly opined,
this harmony was only made possible by the physical separation of the
races. "The Georgetown Negro could afford to take a tolerant view of
the rural Indian, like the northern American liberal being broadminded
about the American Negro of the Deep South, because he never, or
rarely saw him." (ibid.: 277)
As Guyanese Indians began moving from the plantations into
Georgetown "to escape the prison of agricultural jobs and in search of
education and other job opportunities, they became progressively
creolised. These processes led to the development of a society which
was less compartmentalised, and gave rise to confrontations which
were hitherto rare. The Afro-Guyanese and mixed elements reacted to
the increased mobility of the Indo Guyanese with fear which they
rationalized in terms of Indian communal aggressiveness. Indians were
seen as having a "plan of conquest* instead of what really was "a search
for Indian equality within a Guyanese universe* As Lewis further
noted:
The superordinate creole culture chose to see all this in racial, not
economic terms. It saw it as an Indian revolt, not as the creolisation
process of potentially new bourgeois allies in the class struggle.
The attitude was expressed, early on in 1929, in the leading
newspaper's editorial opinion that 'it was a mistaken policy to
convey to the Indian community, undoubtedly a useful asset to
the colony, the impression that they were indispensable to its fu
ture well-being and so produce that inflated spirit which led them,
despite every concession made to them, to ask, like Oliver Twist,

for more/ Instead, then, of seeing the process, in Martin Carter's
apt dualogy, as the demand of the agricultural sector, the 'field
slave culture', for entry into the modernizing sector, the 'house
slave culture', the Guyanese social and political establishment pre
ferred to see it as a slave rebellion, thus giving the lie, incidentally,
to the later rationalization that it was opposed to the movement
because, after 1950, it was 'communist', (ibid.: 280-1)
The Robertson Commission, which visited Guyana following the dis

turbances of 1953, also saw race as being at the core of the trouble in
Guyana. As the Commission opined:
Education is now eagerly sought by Indian parents for their chil
dren: many Indians have important shares in the economic and
commercial life of the Colony; the rice trade is largely in their
hands from production to marketing. Their very success in these
spheres has begun to awaken the fears of the African section of
the population, and it cannot be denied that since India received
her independence in 1947 there has been a marked self
assertiveness amongst Indians in British Guyana. Guyanese of
African extraction were not afraid to tell us that many Indians in
British Guyana looked forward to the day when British Guyana
would be not a part of the British Commonwealth but of an East
Indian Empire. The result has been a tendency for racial tension
to increase, and we have reluctantly reached the conclusion that
the amity with which as the Waddington Report said, "people of
all races live side by side in the villages" existed more in the past;
today the relationships are strained; they present an outward ap
pearance which masks feelings of suspicion and distrust. We do
not altogether share the confidence of the Waddington Commis
sion that a comprehensive loyalty to British Guyana can be stimu
lated among peoples of such diverse origins. There is little
evidence of any coalescing process in inter-marriage between the
Indian and African components of the population. (Cited in
Spinner: 57-8)
Unlike Jagan, but like most Afro-Guyanese, Forbes Burnham believed

in the desirability of forging links between Guyana and the insular
Caribbean. Burnham valued the cultural links with the insular Carib
bean, the logic of which to him seemed inescapable. As he said in
1967:
It is true that the federation came to grief, but it is also true that
the West Indian people in fields other than cricket or in addition
to the field of cricket, are most anxious that there be a coming
together. We do not underestimate the difficulties. We do not for
one moment attempt to ignore the individual problems which may
arise, but of this we are sure, that the fact of a Caribbean nation
will be in our time. And, secondly, that Guyana is in a peculiar
position to make a tremendous and significant contribution to
the achievement of that fact. (Manley 1979:29)
Guyana, he said, was prepared to compromise its sovereignty in the

interest of the political unity of the Caribbean. He however hastened
to add that the form of unity should not be that of the 1958-62 consti
tution, or "half-baked" copies of the Australian, Canadian or American
models, but one that fitted the needs of the region. He however never
made clear what an ideal constitutional formula would look like.
(/bic/.:38)
Burnham denied that his interest in Caribbean political union

was driven by a belief that such a link would help to compensate for
the numerical weakness of the Afro-Guyanese element. As he said in
1971, "I am not seeking a West Indian nation to keep me in office. I
have other means." And so he did. Burnham felt that there were other
tangible geopolitical and economic reasons for seeking to broaden and
deepen Guyana's political and economic links with the insular Carib
bean. In his view, Guyana would be the long term beneficiary of a
flourishing integrated Caribbean economy, even if in the short run, all
the economic advantages seemed to be going to the more industrialised
islands such as Trinidad and Tobago. As he said in 1967:
Either we weld ourselves into a regional grouping serving prima
rily Caribbean needs, or lacking a common positive policy, have
our various territories and nations drawn hither and thither into,
and by other large groupings where the peculiar problems of the
Caribbean are lost and where we become the objects of neocolo
nialist exploitation, and achieve the pitiable status of mendicants,
(ibid.; 38)
Burnham believed that the survival and economic viability and

independence of Guyana and the Caribbean required that they pursue
a common political destiny. Thus his pursuit of the CARIFTA option.
It is also clear that Burnham appreciated the importance of the Carib

bean link in Guyana's border dispute with Venezuela. The Trinidad
Government would in fact play a critical role in 1970 in helping to
establish the protocol which served to defuse the Guyana-Venezuela
border crisis for a period of 12 years. The protocol enabled Guyana to
join the OAS as well as have access to the resources of the Inter-Ameri
can Development Bank (IDB). (ibid)
Burnham, and later Desmond Hoyte, who succeeded him as Presi
dent, would also come to value the support or benevolent neutrality of
Caribbean leaders as allegations mounted that they had established a
racial dictatorship in Guyana. Jagan and the PPP never ceased to re
proach the leadership and people of the insular Caribbean for turning
their backs on Guyana and of legitimising Burnham and Hoyte by
maintaining normal relations with his Government when the evidence
seem unequivocal that elections in Guyana were neither free nor fair.
It is however tempting to argue that had Guyana not opted out of
Federation, the political history of the region in general, and Guyana
in particular, might have been fundamentally different. Would Will
iams have behaved in the way he did after Jamaica voted to leave the
Federation? Would the Indo-Trinidadian community have responded
differently? They might have felt more comfortable in a union of which
Guyana was a part and may have taken a different stance in relation to
Williams's post-Federal agenda.
IV Indo-Trinidadians, Creoles and the Federation
There was a great deal of hostility among cre?les in the insular

Caribbean to the attitude of the Indo-Guyanese on the question of
Federation. Typical was the view of Albert Gomes, the de facto Chief
Minister of Trinidad and Tobago in the years 1950 to 1956. As Gomes
recalled in his political biography:
There were certain recurrent themes that had the effect of a
pneumatic drill on one's nerves. One such was Guyana's endless
singsong on the theme of her "continental destiny" which history
has since treated rather shabbily. The time had come when this
problem... will have to be brought into broad daylight, carefully
examined, its symptoms diagnosed and profound study given to
the possibility of finding some cure for it. We know what the
situation is in British Guyana. We know that there the organised
opinion of this section of the British Guyana community went so
far at one stage as to suggest that a considerable section of the
East Coast of British Guyana should have been considered very
seriously as a possible province of India. (1974: 198)
Gomes was also sharply critical of Guyana's belief that its economic
destiny lay with the countries behind the "iron curtain" rather than
with the insular Caribbean. As he said with evident scorn:
British Guyana was no longer particularly concerned about trade

with the West Indies, but had plans for bigger things. She was
thinking of trade with China, Russia and the iron curtain coun
tries. Of course, we thought the idea ridiculous and told Jagan so.
It was the beginning of the end. A fruitful relationship that might
have meant everything both to British Guyana and the West Indies
was shattered by this doctrinal folly. (1974: 205)
Gomes felt that with Guyana going its own way, a vital link in
the Federal chain was lost. Without British Guyana, the Federation
would never be the same:
A Federation of the West Indian islands and British Guyana would
be the ideal union. The islands must find somewhere for their
surplus people and British Guyana must find people to put into
its vast unexplored and unsettled areas with their unknown and
undeveloped resources. Tragically, however, it is less reason than
prejudice and political ambition that decides questions of the kind.
Those who covet supreme power in British Guyana, no less than
those who do so in the islands, prefer to have it concentrated in
their own hands and subject to no other authority but their own,.
For this reason they see Federation as an intrusion, and its inevi
table discipline as threatened interference that must be resisted at
all costs, (ibid.: 205)
Indo-Trinidadians believed, and had good reason to so believe,

that Afro-Trinidadians viewed them as less than full citizens, and
considered their claims for full political and social incorporation as
evidence of a "plan of conquest." Being in a numerical minority, they
also felt that they would be politically overpowered in the proposed
Federation, and made these views clear in various memoranda to the
Colonial Office (cf. Ryan 1972:100). Interestingly enough, Indian po

litical leaders in the Legislative Council told the Colonial Office that
Trinidad and Tobago desired "responsible government as a condition
precedent to political federation of the British Caribbean territories,"
a position that Bustamante had also taken at the Montego Bay Confer
ence in 1947 (Gomes 1974:196) and which Jagan also endorsed (Manley
1979:30). Gomes however saw this as mischief making on the part of
those who wished to frustrate the federal movement. As he wrote:
When the recommendations of the Montego Bay conference were

presented to the Trinidad Legislature, they came under severe
fire. Opposition from the Indian element came dramatically to
the fore. I realised how well founded were the fears I had ex
pressed at Montego Bay. Busta's blow had found its mark. His
Montego Bay resolution - listed as Resolution 2 of the conference
- provided both the incentive to insular claims and the source of
political mischief that I had anticipated it would be.
It was seized upon by the members of the opposition in the Trinidad

Legislature who cleverly turned it to their purposes by alleging that its
assertion of insular claims was inadequate. They desired a less equivo
cal affirmation by both the conference and Her Majesty's government
of the right of the territories to achieve self-government. Two amend
ments were moved to the effect. They were defeated, but the damage
had been done. Now all the enemies of federation had a rallying point
and a cause that seemed plausible and could, therefore, be made popu
lar. (ifcfc/.:196)
Gomes believed that the British would never grant self-govern
ment prior to Dominion status. As he said, "I should like to ask my
friends whether they know of any single instance in the history of
colonial constitutional development, of an island of half a million people
being permitted to graduate to self-government and then later to have
dominion status bestowed upon it. I am afraid that this is a case in
point where the Colonial Office officials are infinitely more intelligent
than the raucous representatives of the people who have been putting
forward such arrant nonsense." (Ibid: 199)
The Indo-Trinidadian community was however not unanimous

in its objection to Federation. A small cosmopolitan element felt that
once they chose to stay in the Caribbean, Indians had to make a choice
between India and the Caribbean. They had to support the forces of
socialism, nationalism and regionalism. If they did not, they would be
crushed. They felt that Afro-Trinidadians would vote for "respon
sible" Indians as they had done in previous elections. For these rea
sons, they also rejected the suggestion that Trinidad Indians should
agitate for a political union with British Guyana in which the balance
between cre?les and Indians would be nearer parity. The cosmopoli
tans were however in a distinct minority (Hansard, Trinidad and
Tobago, December 10, 1954:557-558).
The question of the Indians' position in the Federation came to
a head during the debate in the Legislative Council on the proposed
federal plan agreed to in London in 1953. There were extremely heated
charges and counter-charges that the Indians were attempting to wreck
the aspirations of the West Indian community. Indians were reminded
that many of their leaders had strongly opposed the Federal idea in the
past and that their official spokesmen had sent a memorandum to the
Secretary of State protesting against Federation on the ground that
"they had worked hard to build this country, and that Federation, if it
came, would mean that Negroes would be able to get the better of
Indians. n It was also claimed that one Indian Legislator was "parading
up and down the country telling Indians that Negroes from the smaller
islands will come and mix with the Indian race and pollute it" (Ryan
1972: 100; Proctor: 1961).
Indian members of the Legislative Council however denied that
they were against Federation; they were merely opposed to the idea of
unrestricted immigration. As the Hon. Mitra Sinanan put it:
... the plain, simple and unvarnished truth is that we are all com
mitted to the question of Federation. But what we say is that
whilst we agree on the principle of Federation, we want to make
sure that the structure and form are good for the political climate
and ambitions of the people of the colony. ... We can say without
fear of contradiction that the country does not want any unre
stricted immigration. (Hansard: 1954:557-558)
But creole politicians refused to accept these protestations at face

value. They felt that Indians were firmly opposed to Federation, but
were afraid to say so openly. Instead, they were trying to establish road
blocks in the hope that delay would result in the scrapping of the
project. Whether or not this was a fair characterization of the position
of the Indian political leadership is difficult to say. It would appear that
up to 1956 Indian political leaders were hostile to Federation, but that
by 1958 their skepticism had abated somewhat, since they had come to
feel that in a Federation, they had the option of forming coalitions
Williams address was entitled "The Dangers Facing Trinidad and
Tobago and the West Indian Nation* (Ryan 1972: 192). It was a speech
that served to poison relations between Williams and the Indo
Trinidadian community for many years to come.
Interestingly, the speech came just months after the leadership of
the Hindu community had made a very important and very symbolic
pro-federal gesture by joining Williams in his struggle to have Trinidad
chosen as the site of the Federal capital. Among the reasons given for
the reluctance to site the capital of the Federation in Trinidad and
Tobago was the fact of the Indian presence in Trinidad. The British
Capital Site Mission which was sent out to make recommendations as
to where the capital should be located argued that under no circum
stances should it be located in Trinidad. The reasons which it gave for
this recommendation were the "low tone" of political life in the island,
the absence of a stable party system, the rampant individualism which
characterised life in the island, and the divisions between the two major
ethnic groups. The Indian presence was seen as likely to corrupt the
politics of the Federation as it was believed it had done in respect of
the politics of Trinidad and Tobago. To quote that Report:
A disturbing element in the public life of Trinidad, to which im
portance is attached in the other islands, is the presence there of
a large population, 35 per cent of the whole, of East Indian de
scent. East Indians, it is alleged, have ideals and loyalties differing
from those to be found elsewhere in the Federation and they exer
cise a disruptive influence on social and political life in Trinidad
which would influence the social and political life of the capital if
it were placed on that island. We pass no judgment on these alle
gations, except to say that the existence of such a large minority,
differing in so many ways from the rest of the people of the island,
is bound to introduce complications which will make the growth
of healthy political conditions in Trinidad even more difficult
than it would otherwise have been. (1956:20)
Williams, whose political victory in the elections of 1956 came
after the Capital Site Mission had submitted its report, resented the
Mission's slur on political life in Trinidad and Tobago and on the
Indian community. Williams' major triumph in 1957 was to persuade
Bhadase Sagan Maraj, the leader of both the Opposition People's Demo
cratic Party (PDP) and the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, the largest
Hindu Organisation in the country, to accompany him to Jamaica to
help put Trinidad's case to have the Federal capital located in Trinidad,
rather than in Barbados or Jamaica as the Capital Site Mission had
advised. In agreeing to go to Jamaica with Williams, Maraj indicated
that he did not have the full support of his PDP colleagues in the
Trinidad Legislative. In fact Maraj startled the community when he
indicated that he did not enjoy the confidence of the 4 other members
of the PDP parliamentary caucus, and that he should be regarded as an
independent rather than as Leader of the Opposition. The PDP felt
that the Party should continue to maintain an attitude of non-coopera
tion with the PNM (Ryan 1972: 175). Interestingly, however, one of
the key members of the PDP in the Legislative Council, Simbhoonath
Capildeo, publicly announced that "however doubtful he might have
been about the benefits of Federation before it had been consummated,
he had now decided to give his fullest cooperation towards making a
success of the venture" (cited in Siewar 1994: 1). Following 1958, the
Indo Trinidadian political leadership in fact refrained from publicly
opposing Federation.
The collapse of the Federation in 1962 and Williams's reaction
to it however caused grave consternation within the Indo-Trinidadian
community. The Democratic Labour Party, which was the successor to
the PDP, was of the view that Trinidad and Tobago should remain in a
Federation consisting of the remaining states in the Federation.
Williams would however have none of it. "One from 10 left nought",
he quipped. Williams' objections to a Federal formula and his endorse
ment of the unitary state option provoked rage within the Indo
Trinidadian community. Williams' fear was that a Federal union would

allow the DLP to combine with other elements in the region to capture
power from the PNM As he told the General Council:
Could you be sure, Ladies and Gentlemen, that in a Federation,
where the other places must get a number of seats... that a Federa
tion does not expose you to having a Federal Government consti
tuted of an opposition minority in Trinidad buying fluid votes in
other territories and able to control the Trinidad economy through
controlling the Federal Government?... You could be sure it would
not happen in a unitary state. The question is not an academic
issue at all ... the last Federal elections produced a government
that has given the PNM more trouble than even the DLP. (Ryan
1972: 307)
Williams felt that 'jealousy' and 'malice' towards the PNM and to
him as its leader was so strong among Caribbean politicians that they
would do anything to undermine its strength even if the interests of
the West Indies were sacrificed in the process. They preferred to re
main colonies and be 'tupenny' rulers in their own little bivouacs,
rather than be led by the PNM, 'the undisputed intellectual leaders of
the colonial nationalist movement in this part of the world/ What
Williams was in fact demanding, in his typically monopolistic 'zero
sum' approach to party politics, was 'one single state ruled by one
single party, the PNM, which lays down the blueprint for legislation
and development'. The only way to save the Eastern Caribbean was
for Trinidad and Tobago to expand, absorb, and socialize its popula
tion into th? norms which the PNM had defined for Trinidad. It was
the very sort of missionary paternalism which the minorities in Trinidad
were not prepared to accept, even though often it was the methods
chosen to define and impose those norms, rather than the norms them
selves, which were the main source of alienation (ibid.: 307).
Curiously enough, Williams argued that it would be easier for
Trinidad and Tobago to control the flow of migrants if unity were
pursued within a unitary as opposed to a Federal framework:
It is much easier for a unitary state to control the... factors in
volved in migration than it is in a Federal government, where you
must have, if it is a proper Federation, the right of freedom of
movement, with the territory that is affected by the migrants
1 70 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
having no effective economic power over the territories that

supply the migrants. (/?>/d.;308)
It was an implausible argument and made no sense whatsoever.

Williams seemed to be as concerned about the social consequences
of unrestricted immigration from the Eastern Caribbean as Indians
were about its political consequences. As he said during the pre-inde
pendence general elections:
People will come here to take up land we don't have, possibly to
take up jobs at rates of wages lower than the workers of Trinidad
and Tobago would work, come in here perhaps to be strike break
ers, ... come in here looking for houses that don't exist and create
shanty towns, while we are at present and at an enormous ex
pense cleaning the shanty town on the outskirts of Port of Spain.
That is the type of argument the DLP brings, (ibid: 301)
Williams had nightmares about the emergence of a Federal Gov

ernment that would be controlled by a coalition of the DLP and other
Caribbean politicians. "Imagine what will happen if this vindictive and
ferocious Opposition that we have ... could, with some backward men
dicant politicians, get control of PNM's treasury. All of them want to
get control of Trinidad's revenue from oil!" (ibid.: 1972: 302).
The Indian community was very concerned about the possible
racial significance of the PNM's decision to work for a unitary-state
settlement, and one could not blame them for believing that it was an
immoral plot to swamp them. It seemed quite logical to them that it
would be much easier for Afro-Trinidadians to neutralize them in a
unitary than in a Federal state. As one of their pamphleteers expressed
it:
It is not so much the welfare of these little islands that the PNM is
interested in, but the votes which they believe they will receive
from them, and which they hope will abrogate the voting capacity
of the Indians in Trinidad twenty or thirty years from now. The
concept of a unitary state, therefore, is founded on racialism. We
protest against any attempt to swamp Trinidad with Grenadians
or any other people for no other reason but for vote catching. ...
We were in a Federation with these islands, and mainly through
PNM connivance this Federation is now defunct. We are still
prepared to consider the question of a Federation of the nine
units, but we will not have any of them in any unitary state with
Trinidad, it does not matter who says that we should, (ibid.: 310)
The argument was that, in a federation, the votes of the black
population in the 'Little Eight' would not be of any assistance to the
PNM in its aim to nullify Indian voting-strength twenty years hence.
In a unitary state, the black vote in these islands would provide the
PNM with the voting strength needed to establish a one-party racial
dictatorship against the Indian community. But in view of the general
agreement that any recreated Federation would have had to be a strong
and highly centralized one, it may be wondered whether it would really
have been any less difficult for the PNM to manipulate the system
against the Indians.
But one could not help speculating that the harsh terms which
Williams proposed for such a unitary state were meant to discourage
anyone from taking them seriously. It seemed to be a new form of
imperialism based on a new metropolitan centre, with the smaller units
abandoning all hope of economic development based on industry. In
fact, they would become tutelary wards of Trinidad, as was Tobago, a
prospect which few Eastern Caribbean politicians were likely to find
attractive. Their response was almost predictable. The Chief Minister
of Grenada, Eric Gairy, declared that,
"the smaller units will not agree to any unitary state. They have
their national aspirations and would not give in easily. R.A.
Bradshaw, Chief Minister of St. Kitts, was even more expressive:
Federation has been brutally violated. It lies prostrate, frightfully
dismembered and torn for all the world to see the destructive
capabilities of some learned West Indians. ... The culprits are
known, and the memory of what they've done will ever haunt
them. They take a sadistic pride in their destructive achievement.
... They have disgraced and made the West Indies the classic laugh
ing-stock of the twentieth century" (ibid.: 310).
The Premier of Barbados, Errol Barrow, who had offered to work

closely with Williams in the new Federation, saw the PNM's offer as
"the most gratuitous insult that could ever have been extended to any
group of people ? an even more gratuitous insult than was offered by
Vervoerd to native peoples in South Africa." Sir Grantley Adams, now
an embittered man, simply urged that "the feelings of the people of
Trinidad should be tested." Adams felt, quite mistakenly, that the aver
age Trinidadian still wished to remain with the other units. Williams
is fast becoming a little Castro', he complained. Trinidad's premier
calypsonian, the Mighty Sparrow, himself a native of Grenada, used
the medium of the calypso to express his belief that 'this ain't no time
to say we ain't Federating no more'. Sir Arthur Lewis, a native of St.
Lucia, also lamented: "To most West Indians, the disintegration of this
group [of islands] into two independent states whose peoples would
be foreigners to each other would come as an immeasurable personal
tragedy, and the authors of such a break would have a sad niche in
History"1 (ibid.: 311).
V We are all Creoles, now!

The collapse of the Federation in 1962 did not of course mean the
death of the idea of political unity which for many remained a dream
deferred. The desire for economic cooperation was also widely shared
and was to find expression in the CARIFTA project and subsequently
in CARICOM. The desire for cultural unity also remained alive and
found a vehicle in CARIFESTA and other musical or cultural festivals
whether held in the insular Caribbean or in the Caribbean diaspora in
North America and Europe. While the claim to a common cultural
heritage was more strongly felt among the African descended elements
of the population who in the words of the Mighty Stalin were the true
"Caribbean Men" who had made "the same trip on the same ship", the
Indo Caribbean element in the Caribbean society or a significant sec
tion thereof, continually bemoaned the fact that the notion of what
constituted Caribbean culture was defined to exclude their contribu
tion. The evidence indicates that they desperately want to be admitted
to the mainstream of Caribbean society and not to be seen as an alien
tributary seeking to flow against the main currents of Caribbean his
tory and cultural development.
To most Christian Caribbean cre?les, Caribbean culture was about
Christmas, All Saints, Easter, Heritage Festivals (Tobago), dub, jonkanoo,
dance hall music, pocomania, reggae, calypso, soca steelband, parang,
bongo, limbo, Better Village, belle air, stone feast (Cariacou), Saraka
(Grenada) and other art forms associated with the African descended
and mixed populations. These were the offerings that were put on
show at national or regional festivals. Even Caribbean cricket, that
game beloved by West Indians of all ethnicities, was seen by people like
CLR James in his Beyond the Boundary (1963), as having some rela
tionship to slavery and the calypso. Indo-West Indians firmly believe
that cricketers who are Indian descended are not given the same
opportunities to play for the West Indies, and many express their re
sentment by rooting for teams from India or Pakistan which visit the
region.
Indians in the Caribbean complain that creole elements in the
region do not treat them as bona-fide members of the Caribbean com
munity, people who have made a fundamental contribution to its de
velopment and transformation, not only in Trinidad and Tobago and
Guyana, but in other places where given their small numbers, they are
hardly visible. There have in fact been frequent complaints that Gov
ernments in Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean have adopted policies
which seek to marginalise them.
In recent years, Indians from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and
the Indian sub-continent have been migrating to these islands in search
of economic opportunity. Many have established curio shops and other
kinds of businesses in tourist enclaves and on the main streets of Car
ibbean urban centres, in the process stirring up bitter resentment among
indigenous businessmen of all ethnicities who are concerned by the
threat which they pose to their firms (Hanomansingh, 1994) This has
led to calls for stricter immigration controls and in some cases for the
expulsion of those deemed to have overstayed their stay or who had
entered illegally.
In his embittered pamphlet, Racism Against the Indians in the
Eastern Caribbean (1998,), Kamal Persad identified a number of press
reports which deal with anti-Indian campaigns in Grenada, St. Vincent,
Barbados and Antigua, some of which were provoked by comments
from elected politicians who charged, inter alia, that the presence of
large numbers of Indians either threatened the "social harmony* of the
islands or corrupted their political elites. It was also said that Indians,
the new visible minority, were taking over the commanding heights of
these imcro-economies and engage in "uncreole* behaviour, both in
terms of "unfair" business practices and in their tendency to employ

co-ethnics only. Persad believes that there was need to confront the
growing problem of race bashing and to take steps to prevent its occur
rence. As he declared:
It is now time that Indo-Caribbean peoples build organisations
throughout the Caribbean which could deal aggressively with situ
ations like these whenever they present themselves. With power
ful Indo-Caribbean organisations, supported by Indo-Caribbean
peoples, pressure could be exerted where necessary, lobbying could
be done for the security and advancement of all Indo-Caribbean
peoples. (1998:10)
Caribbean Indians have problems with the contemporary

characterisation of what constitutes the culture of the Caribbean, and
insist that the "geocentric" discourse about Caribbean history from
which this depiction is derived and constructed is a "myth" which must
now be fundamentally deconstructed, re-imagined and rescripted. The
complaint was that the only Indians who were regarded as bearers of
"Caribbean culture" were those who were prepared to erase from their
minds everything in the area of culture that their forefathers had died
to preserve. In the view of Indian cultural nationalists, the reality was
always quite different, especially if one abandoned the urban centres
where most of the Christianised cosmopolitan Indians who had ac
cepted the ideology of assimilation lived, and paid attention to what
was taking place behind the sugar cane and bamboo curtains in the
rural villages of the region. This was particularly so in Trinidad and
Guyana, but one can find echoes of this complaint in other Caribbean
islands. As Brinsley Samaroo observed:
There's a vast ignorance about the rural population ? the areas of
darkness are considerable. Indians have become convinced the
West has nothing superior to them, since 1845, they've waited
and they still feel they don't belong; so there's a resurgence of
Indian culture. It is an Indian culture which couldn't be found in
India: the caste system of extremely specific, occupational
specialisation has been simplified into a generalised prejudice
against dark-skinned, non-Brahmin Indians; Hindu and Muslim
differences, indeed many communal differences, so important in
India, are subsumed in Trinidad into a general Indianness; many
gods and goddesses have been abandoned. The Indian cornimi
nity is reshaping itself, just as the Africans did centuries

2Lgo.(Sunday Express, May 16, 1993)
Being "creole" is however no longer the awful and polluting thing
it was once seen to be by Caribbean Indians and some have now begun
to attach the label "creole" to some of their cultural contributions. In
part, this is due to the fact that the things which they bring to the
cultural pot are seen by some to be "oriental" and not indigenous and
born of struggle as are carnival, calypso, steetband, reggae, bongo, limbo
or the various versions of the Baptist religion. As Earl Lovelace (1988:
340) had argued:
... it is the Africans who have laid the groundwork of a Caribbean
culture ? those Africans who struggled against enslavement and
continued their struggle against colonialism ? and the reason that
they did so is that they had to. They had no choice but to become
Caribbean and address the Caribbean landscape and reality. No
other group had to. The Europeans didn't have to. Whether in
the Caribbean they were adventurers or ? plantation owners or
indentured servants themselves, they retained their king, their
parliament, their pope and bishops, their architecture, their laws,
their form of clothing, their games. They retained their culture.
They couldn't change it because it was through their institutions
at home that they were culturally and politically empowered. In
fact what they did was to impose their institutions upon the coun
tries they had subdued. The Indians also were tied to their culture
because in this new land where they were strangers, it gave them
a sense of being. They had their pundits and Divali and Hosay
and their weddings and teeluck and had no reason to want to
change them. Their religion gave them a hold on self in a situation
where without it they would have been purely economic animals,
and quite naturally they held to it. There has been, so far, nothing
dignified to put in its place. Whether those old forms are going to
endure in the midst of modernity and with the fact of their in
creasing political power, which should demand a greater national
concern instead of a sectional one, is a question now being de
bated.
Commenting further on the difference between Indians and

Africans in the creation of Caribbean culture, novelist Earl Lovelace
observed that:
The East Indians had no need initially to produce any civilisation

here, because they saw themselves as being indentured for a pe
riod of time at the end of which they would go back home. Those
who were forced to create a new world, a new civilisation, were
the Africans. They were quite willing to go back home too, or
produce an African civilisation here. The first possibility was closed
to them They had to create here; they didn't have the option to
do otherwise. It is their struggle against dehumanisation implicit
in enslavement and colonialism that caused them to create for all
races who now live here the basis of a Caribbean culture. When
we point to the Steelband and Calypso, to the Spiritual Baptists
and to carnival, we are pointing not simply to artifacts that people
of African race have created, but things that also express the stub
born creative potential of the Caribbean people. (Guardian, Sep
tember 18, 1987)
In response, Indians now say that their songs, food, drum rhythms
and various dance forms which they brought with them to the Carib
bean from India, did not only survive, but have been drastically trans
formed by the Caribbean environment In short, they have been creolised
and indigenized. Religious festivals or cultural events like Divali, Hosay,
Phagwa, Ram Leela, Kartik Nahaan and Ramadan, even though of
Hindu or Islamic provenance, have now been thoroughly Caribbeanised,
and in the case of festivals like Phagwa, Hosay, or the redramatisation
of the Ramayana epic (Ramleela), have been carnivalised" and "con
taminated,* much to the chagrin of purists who are now seeking to
delink them from art forms which are associated with the Afro-creole
fragment of the society. Some also claim that creole cultural forms
now being held aloft as autochthonous, have an African ancestry. Why
then should Indian derived art forms not be deemed "creole"? As John
La Guerre (1993) wrote in his "Dilemmas of a Cultural Policy in
Trinidad and Tobago":
... there was a process of creativity no less compelling than was
the case with the African; for adaptation, creation and recreation
began as soon as the recruiter took his prize to the depot and from
there to the port of Calcutta. In the depot, and during the Middle
Passage, the Indian was also forced to adapt to new castes, mores
and standards and values. All cultures ? including European, In
dian and African ? were forced to adapt and recreate in the
Caribbean. Given the fact of European dominance in the political
and economic sphere, it was not surprising that European norms,

culture and values for substantial sections of the community, be
came the object of striving; but equally important is the fact that
a great deal of what has been described as "African" or "Indian"
culture, involved a process of adaptation, recreation and syncre
tism, (mimeo)
Lovelace did recognize that there were Indians who wished to

bring their own offerings to the cultural mainstream rather than give
up everything of their own in the quest for cultural acceptance. The
dilemma facing the Indo-Trinidadian, particularly those who lived in
urban cities was well captured by Lovelace in the novel, The Dragon
Can't Dance in which Pariag, who had taken up residence in the core
Afro Trinidadian settlement of Laventille, expressed regret that he did
not do what he always longed to do, i.e. introduce Indian musical in
struments such as the sitar and the flute to the steelband when the
latter was being created. To quote Pariag:
... I wish I did walk with a flute or a sitar, an walk in right there in
the middle of the steelband yard where they was making new
drums, new sounds, a new music from rubbish tins and bits of
steel and oil drums, bending the iron over fire, chiseling our new
notes. New Notes. I wish I would go in there where they was
making their life anew in fire with chisel and hammer, and sit
down with my sitar on my knee and say: Fellars, this is me, from
New Lands. Gimme the key! Give me the Do Re Mi. Run over
the scale. Leh We Fa Sol La! Gimme the beat, lemme beat!
Listen to these strings. And let his music cry too, and join in the
crying. Let it scream too. Let it sing *bout Dolly in the old
ramshackle house in Tabaquite.
We note that this blending of the sitar and the steelband as well
as chutney and soca and chutney and pan is now currently taking place
in Trinidad and Tobago.
Controversy also exists over the term that should be used to
categorise Indians in the Caribbean. Some Indians expressed resent
ment at what they saw as an attempt to define them as "black." The
President of the Hindu Women's Organisation of Trinidad and To
bago, Indrani Rampersad, noted that the term "black" was used in
America and Europe to define persons of African ancestry whereas
the term "Asian" was used to define Indians.
We, the Indians in the Caribbean, object to being called

'East Indian' (though a minority continue to use the defini
tion). We are West Indians of Indian descent, or we are
Indo-Trinidadian or Indo-Caribbean people. We certainly
do not call ourselves 'Asians' either.... It is wrong to want to
portray the whole of the Caribbean as being black. This is
hypocrisy and an underhand method of enforcing the wrong
perception that Trinidad and Tobago is African in racial
and cultural content. (Trinidad Express, May 16, 1993)
Rampersad noted that just as Africans resent the use of the word
"Negro" which Americans and Europeans once used to define them,
just so Indians resented the use of the term "black" to classify them.
The African Association of Trinidad and Tobago took objection to
these assertions, noting that some of the blackest people in the world
were to be found in Southern India and that many of their descen
dants lived in Trinidad. Other blacks took the view that the term
"black" was not an anthropological or racial term, but a political one
which described all non-white peoples and peoples of the third world
in terms of their relationship with the white world. In their view Trinidad
was a "black" country just as Britain and the United States, which also
had non-white minorities, nevertheless defined themselves as "white"
(cf. Ryan 1999: 48-49).
Frustration with being excluded from the mainstream and from
what Lloyd Best has described as the "West Indian Party" has given
rise in some parts of the region to a demand for the creation of an
Indian homeland in the Caribbean. In Trinidad and Tobago a small
but vocal group calling itself the Indian Review Committee endorsed
the demand, noting that "it is an old issue which refuses to die." One
spokesman of the group, Kamal Persad (1993: 115-119), noted that
the issue had been raised in Trinidad by HP Singh in 1956 in his
pamphlet, Hour of Decision. Persad noted further that the call for an
Indian homeland had in fact antedated Singh, and had been on the
agenda once Indians decided that they would make the Caribbean their
new home.
Two other groups, the Equality Editorial Committee and the
Indian Arrival Committee, called for the urgent creation in the
Americas of an Indian homeland consisting of parts of the South

American States of Guyana and Suriname, and of Trinidad and
Tobago. The proposed name of the new state was Bharatiyadesh/
Industan, and was to be the "realisation of a long deferred dream, a
longing and a vision." The demand was to form a "fundamental and
central element in the ideological and philosophical system of Apanjhat"
Those Indians who refused to support this demand or the validity
of the identification with mother India were accused of being
nemakharams, of being ungrateful to their ancestral motherland.
Most Indo-Trinidadians were of the view that the demand for
Indesh or Bharatiyadesh/Industan made no practical sense. Nor was
it deemed desirable. Pundit Indrani Rampersad spoke for many when
she indicated her opposition to the proposal, though she did not con
sider the matter frivolous as many were wont to do. "It is serious, not
because there is any real threat of physically dividing an already emo
tionally divided Trinidad and Tobago, but because it points to more
division of our nation, be it physical or emotional." Rampersad agreed
that the demand was linked to "Indian feelings of political powerless
ness." The exclusion from the corridors of power "engineered under
PNM rule led to a whole people going into internal exile [asj doors
remained shut as the institutionalised exclusion by the state consoli
dated with time." This exclusion was not only evidenced in state insti
tutions, but in the Caribbean media as well which "contrived to ignore
the fact that there is a vibrant ethnic presence in the Caribbean" (Ryan
1999:49).
Indians are now demanding full incorporation in the society that
had traditionally rejected them. "There is a traditionally unheard voice
that jars the national nerve much as the women's choice for equality
did male dominance." Rampersad however felt that refugee status in
Canada or the demand for Indesh was "escapist." Indians, in her view,
had to fight for a secure place "right here.* (Trinidad Express, May 16,
1993)
Another perspective on the issue however came from Professor
Ken Ramchand who addressed the problem in the context of the vexed
issue as to whether the arrival of the Indians in Trinidad and Tobago
in 1845 should be celebrated as a national holiday to celebrate the
arrival of Indians only or of all immigrant groups. Ramchand argued

that Indians should not celebrate their "arrival" in the Caribbean as a
unique historical event, but as part of the general arrival process of all
immigrants. "Arrival" for him meant developing a sense of self as a
Trinidadian or Caribbean person, a process that of necessity excluded
any demand for a separate territory that would cradle whatever it is
Indians wished to preserve. Ramchand saw no contradiction between
feeling pride in one's cultural antecedents and in being part of some
thing else called Trinidadian or Caribbean.
The necessity people feel to find themselves first as Indian or
African or Chinese cannot be dismissed as tribalism. But it would
be tribalism, and it could lead to calamity if it wasn't seen as a
component for the Trinidadian, or as an intermediate stage on the
way to making him up. There is no necessary contradiction be
tween recognising one's ancestral heritage, and being a Trinidadian.
You can be Hindu, Muslim, Roman Catholic, or devotee of the
Orisha and still be a Trinidadian. (Trinidad Guardian, May 23,
1993)
Ramchand's cosmopolitanism was not welcomed by cultural na
tionalists who saw in his recommendation an anxiety to minimise the
real differences which exist between Indians and other groups in the
society. As Trevor Sudama observed,
... such a suggestion probably springs from a desire to eliminate
what is regarded as uncomfortable distinctions between our peoples
which were wrought by history and circumstance. It is again an
attempt to create another Procustean bed, this time to accommo
date all comers. (Express May 30, 1993)
An interesting question raised by Lloyd Best was whether the

sense of alienation felt by Indians in the Caribbean was due to some
thing which was done to them by the creole elements who came before
them or whether it was simply due to the facts of geography and
history. As Best wrote:
Indians in the Caribbean are indeed in an unequal existential
situation compared with Africans. This is not because we wish it
so or only (or even mainly) because of the differences in numbers
but because there is no way we can escape paying our dues to the
logic of history - to the imperatives of timing and sequencing and
placing in human affairs. There is such a thing as an Afro-Saxon
(which is merely an African in America compelled by his historic

location to practice European institutions). What nowhere exists
is an Indo-Saxon. The interculturation into which the Indians were
inducted at the moment of their entry was by then not even three
sided. By then it had become many-sided (so much so that the
one thing it could not be was many splendoured). So it is that
even if there were no other people in Trinidad and Tobago save
Indians, their predicament in the Caribbean, in the Atlantic, and
in America would, I suspect, scarcely be different. (Trinidad
Express, Oct 6, 1993)
Whatever the source of the problem, there is no mistaking the

fact that Indians in the Caribbean are becoming more assertive and are
demanding that they be accorded the respect to which they are due as
one of the foundation communities of Caribbean society. As Trinidad
cultural activist Ravi-ji put it recently when referring to various festi
vals which are observed by the Hindu community in Trinidad and
Tobago:
...most of these activities may go unnoticed in the wider commu
nity because a Caribbean calendar which reflects the cultural and
historical reality of the Caribbean has not yet been developed.
The Government of the newly-independent Trinidad and Tobago
did not really address the issue of... decolonisation and the
r?gularisation of the culture of the people. Divali and Eid were
the token gestures of the day. African traditions were blanked.
The whole gamut of cultural and religious life of non-Christians
was excommunicated to a subterranean existence and a seal was
put on future expectations a la "no Mother India, no Mother
Africa.9 In spite of this, Divali has become a good study of accom
modation within the Caribbean. From here, it becomes a matter
of the people becoming conscious of these spheres which provide
the opportunity for sharing, (sic) (Trinidad Guardian, July 34,
1993)
CONCLUSION
This paper has sought to identify the attitudes and concerns which
informed the approaches which Indians in the Caribbean have taken
to the Caribbean unity project from 1947 to the present in its political
and cultural dimensions. It also sought to indicate the way in which
creole elements in Caribbean societies have responded to these ap

proaches. Creoles have generally accepted it as given that the Carib
bean is essentially an Afro-European preserve in which they enjoy
paramountcy. In their view, the economy of the Caribbean was built by
their enslaved ancestors; its political freedoms and its cultural forms
were also the by product of struggles waged by their forebears. It was
therefore up to later arriving "minorities" to convert to creoledom. As
David Lowenthal (1972: 144-177) correctly noted, cre?les "take for
granted that East Indians should become West Indian by adopting
creole ways, never the reverse." Kusha Haraksingh believes that this
assumption probably explains why so little attention was given to
Indian cultural forms. To quote Haraksingh:
There was no need to analyse Indian issues since all these would
disappear in the long run. It was enough to prophesy that assimi
lation was inevitable and irrelevant to explore under what terms
and in what conditions a cultural fusion could take place. Any
attempt to explore the Indian experience or to promote a better
understanding of Indian culture bordered on the subversive as
obstructions to the process of assimilation. (1974:69)
The late Lloyd Braithwaite was also critical of creole society for
its unwillingness to recognise that the assimilationist paradigm was
not working and had to be revised. As he advised, there is need to
achieve a form of integration which allows people to assert their racial
as well as their national identity. "... If we merely put out slogans
proclaiming equality, and do not realise people feel very deeply about
certain things, the official doctrine soon comes into question.... We
deny the existence of this racial consciousness at our own peril. It
exists, it is a very powerful forte... because it is basic to the self-conception
of nearly every individual in society..." (1974:64)1
Political unification of the English speaking Caribbean is no longer
on the front burner of Caribbean politics. The concern in the wider
1 Braithwaite was of the view that using ethnic categories to record persons in censuses was ill
advised in that the categories were not only meaningless but encouraged racial and separatist
thinking. He preferred to use denominational categories which were still required for grants
to schools. I am not however sure that this device gets around the problem of separatist
thinking identified by Braithwaite.
Caribbean area is to find ways to cooperate functionally in an effort to

come to terms with new global economic realities. The issues that led
to the break up of the Federation are however still with us, and con
tinue to inform political debate at the national level where concern is
about the need to create national unity. In Guyana and Trinidad and
Tobago, race and culture still dominate debate. Indeed, one can talk
about a veritable clash of cultures and ethnicities in the two communi
ties (Ryan 1999). Hopefully, in time, the terms East Indian and West
Indian will cease to have the meanings they currently have, and in
their place will emerge a Caribbean which lives up to its reputation as
being one of the great melting pots of the world.
REFERENCES
Allanar, Anton, Tunku Varadarajan. 1994. "Differential Creolization: East In
dians in Trinidad and Guyana." Indo-Caribbean Review, Vol. 1, No. 2.
Braithwaite, Lloyd. 1974. "Problems of Race and Colour in the Caribbean" in

Caribbean Issues Vol. 1 No. 1, (April).
Burnham, Forbes. 1970. A Destiny to Mould, London, Longman. Caribbean.
Great Britain Colonial Office. 1956. Report of the British Caribbean Federal
Capital Commission London. H.M.S.O.
Jagan, Cheddi. 1983. The West on Trial, London, Michael Joseph.
James, C.L.R.. (.) Beyond the Boundary.
_. 1995. "Multiculturalism in Guyana" in Indo-Caribbean Review,
Vol. 2, No. 1.
Haraksingh, Kusha. 1974. "Calcutta to Caroni." Book Review in Caribbean
Issues, Vol. 1, No. 1 (April).
Karran, Kampta. 1995. Bridging the Racial Divide in Guyana, Georgetown.
Lewis, Gordon. 1968. The Growth of the Modem West Indies, New York.
La Guerre, John. 1974. "Afro-Indian Relations in Trinidad and Tobago," in

Caribbean bsues, Vol. 1. No. 1. April 1974.
Lowenthal, David (ed.). 1961. The West Indies Federation New York, Colum
bia University Press.
Manley, Robert. 1979. Guyana Emergent: The Post Independence Struggle for
Non-dependent Development, Boston, GK. Hall and Co. Ltd.
Persad, Kamal. 1988. Racism Against the Indians in the Eastern Caribbean.
Indian Review Committee, Carapichaima, Trinidad.
_. 1997. Hindu Raj in the Caribbean, Indian Review Commit

tee, Couva, Trinidad
^ Proctor, Jesse. 1961. "East Indians and the Federation of the West Indies."
India Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4, Oct.-Dec.
Ryan, Selwyn. 1966. "The Struggle for Afro-Indian Solidarity" Index Vol. 1,
No. 4, (September).
Ryan, Selwyn. 1972. Race and Nationalism in Trinidad and Tobago, Toronto,
University of Toronto Press.
_. 1997. "The Clash of Cultures in Post-Creole Trinidad and
Tobago." Caribbean Dialogue, Vol. 3, No. 2 (June).
_. 1999. The Jhandi and the Cross: The Clash of Cultures in Post
Creole Trinidad and Tobago, ISES., U.W.I., St. Augustine, Trinidad.
Samaroo, Brinsley; David Dabydeen (eds.) 1996. Across the Dark Waters. -
Ethnicity and Indian Identity in the Caribbean, London, Macmillan.
Singh, H.P., 1993. The Indian Struggle For Justice and Equality Against Black
Racism in Trinidad and Tobago 1956-1962. Indian Review Press, Couva.
Siewah, Samaroo (ed.), 1994. Lotus and the Dagger, Freeport, Chakra Pub
lishing House.
Singh, I. J. Bahadur. 1987. Indians in the Caribbean, New Delhi, Sterling

Publishers Ltd.
Spinner Jr., Thomas. 1984. A Political and Social History of Guyana, 1945
1983 Boulder, Westview Press.
Williams, Eric. 1962. History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago, Praeger.

East Indians, West Indians and The Quest For Caribbean Political Unity

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

East Indians, West Indians and The Quest For Caribbean Political Unity

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

EAST INDIANS, WEST INDIANS AND THE QUEST FOR CARIBBEAN POLITICAL UNITY

Author(s): Selwyn Ryan

EAST INDIANS, WEST INDIANS AND

If a man engages in an occupation which is ritually impure, he

When Negroes are looked at in this way, as an Indian caste ? as

II Indo-Guyanese and the Federal Idea

Caribbean leaders in social, economic, political and religious af

foster greater regional cooperation, if not unity. (95-1)

in the Legislative Council as early as 1948, Jagan expressed concern

Jagan had a historic responsibility to enter the Federation and to try

Jagan's ambivalence towards the Federation was also informed by his

1945, prominent Guyanese and West Indian leaders had partici

no doubt the workers would regard it as a betrayal of trust and

The attitude of Jagan and the Indo-Guyanese provoked angry reactions

There was however no significant effort among a majority of

Burnham's 'opportunism', for the dual charisma of Jagan-Burnham

despite every concession made to them, to ask, like Oliver Twist,

The Robertson Commission, which visited Guyana following the dis

Unlike Jagan, but like most Afro-Guyanese, Forbes Burnham believed

Guyana, he said, was prepared to compromise its sovereignty in the

Burnham denied that his interest in Caribbean political union

Burnham believed that the survival and economic viability and

It is also clear that Burnham appreciated the importance of the Carib

IV Indo-Trinidadians, Creoles and the Federation

There was a great deal of hostility among cre?les in the insular

British Guyana was no longer particularly concerned about trade

Indo-Trinidadians believed, and had good reason to so believe,

Colonial Office (cf. Ryan 1972:100). Interestingly enough, Indian po

When the recommendations of the Montego Bay conference were

It was seized upon by the members of the opposition in the Trinidad

The Indo-Trinidadian community was however not unanimous

But creole politicians refused to accept these protestations at face

Trinidadian community. Williams' fear was that a Federal union would

having no effective economic power over the territories that

It was an implausible argument and made no sense whatsoever.

Williams had nightmares about the emergence of a Federal Gov

The Premier of Barbados, Errol Barrow, who had offered to work

V We are all Creoles, now!

terms of "unfair" business practices and in their tendency to employ

Caribbean Indians have problems with the contemporary

nity is reshaping itself, just as the Africans did centuries

Commenting further on the difference between Indians and

The East Indians had no need initially to produce any civilisation

and economic sphere, it was not surprising that European norms,

Lovelace did recognize that there were Indians who wished to

We, the Indians in the Caribbean, object to being called

Americas of an Indian homeland consisting of parts of the South

arrival of Indians only or of all immigrant groups. Ramchand argued

An interesting question raised by Lloyd Best was whether the

(which is merely an African in America compelled by his historic

Whatever the source of the problem, there is no mistaking the

creole elements in Caribbean societies have responded to these ap

Caribbean area is to find ways to cooperate functionally in an effort to

Braithwaite, Lloyd. 1974. "Problems of Race and Colour in the Caribbean" in

Burnham, Forbes. 1970. A Destiny to Mould, London, Longman. Caribbean.

La Guerre, John. 1974. "Afro-Indian Relations in Trinidad and Tobago," in

_. 1997. Hindu Raj in the Caribbean, Indian Review Commit

Singh, I. J. Bahadur. 1987. Indians in the Caribbean, New Delhi, Sterling

You might also like