Historian and scholar Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh emphasizes that Indian Arrival Day should not be viewed merely as an occasion for liming and celebration.
Rather, he says it is a time for meaningful reflection on the legacy of indentureship and the contributions, development, and achievements of the East Indian community in Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr. Teelucksingh was speaking with the Tv6 Morning Edition.
00:00According to Dr. Jerome Tilaksing, the future of the East Indian community in Trinidad and Tobago is a positive one.
00:08He highlights the presence of various institutions that honour and preserve Indian heritage,
00:15such as the National Council for Indian Culture and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Cultural Cooperation.
00:22Dr. Tilaksing says, while there are challenges, he also underscores the significant role that the East Indians have played in the development of Trinidad and Tobago across various sectors of society.
00:36Right now in Trinidad and Tobago, we have a Prime Minister and a President of Indian descent,
00:43and we have other persons of renown in judiciary, sport, religion, culture, all serving.
00:50So I think that there has been a sense of achievement, but there's one shortcoming that I have seen and some others have noticed,
00:58is that there's still a lot of divisions within the Indo-Trindadian community.
01:04You might have heard the expression, crabs in a barrel, there's still a lot of rivalry, jealousy, animosity.
01:11He says funding remains a key obstacle to the successful hosting of cultural events.
01:18It seems divisive, especially when the issue of funding comes in.
01:23Other times over the years I've heard debates about groups criticizing the government for how much funding they receive for their cultural activities.
01:32So it's divisive in that way.
01:33It's divisive when sometimes maybe a group might honour somebody and somebody might say,
01:38well, that person is biased or that person practices discrimination.
01:42So that is where the vision comes in, in terms of funding and who we see as our heroes and heroines.
01:50Dr. Tilak Singh also weighs in on the suggestion to rename the holiday simply as Arrival Day,
01:57stressing the importance of preserving the term Indian to fully acknowledge the historical and cultural significance of the occasion.
02:05This is what, you know, people have been trying to conceptualise about how we could have one day to include everybody.
02:14But it's very difficult to do that because, remember, it's like saying Emancipation Day means the ending of a dentistry,
02:24the freedom of everybody.
02:25So I think, you know, we tend to want to look at holidays connected to ethnic groups,
02:33like Spiritual Baptist Day connected to religion.
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