More than Survival: A View of the Indo-Guyanese Contribution to Social Change (1988)
EDITORS’ NOTE: 35 years ago, Eusi Kwayana, the Pan Africanist and independent socialist from Guyana, took part in “The Genesis of a Nation:” a Conference on the 150th Anniversary of Indian Immigration to Guyana. This was not the first or last time he affirmed the Indian contribution to Guyana and Caribbean history, politics, and culture.
Kwayana has contributed to the democratization of post-colonial Guyana, been a fierce opponent of the Black political class, and those with capitalist and dictatorial aspirations of all kinds. He has been an ally and builder of multi-racial unity. Where he has taught a cultural revolution to Africans it was always with a deep respect for the search for identity and heritage of Indo-Guyanese and Amerindians. Clash! serializes this extensive analysis of the Indo-Guyanese historical, political, and cultural dynamics as a contribution to Caribbean unity in the spirit it was originally intended.
Amerindians and East Indians
When Indian migration began, the native Amerindian people of this country were posed with yet a new aspect of their loss of control of the country they were the earliest to occupy. First, the Amerindians had been alarmed at the Europeans who tried to settle in their territory. Then they were alarmed at the fact that a much stranger people were being brought in large numbers, the captive Africans. If they ever thought that the Chinese or Portuguese or smaller ethnic groups would outnumber them, they must have given up those fears as these streams were reduced to a trickle. The coming of African immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean after the end of slavery was not a new but a familiar dimension.
It is not the mere numbers that should have alarmed the Amerindians. So long as the right to vote was based on property and income qualifications, the people who had a historical claim to Guyana as their home was ruled out of any part in the choosing of representatives. Neither the African captives nor the Indian indentured laborers arranged things this way, or are at all responsible, up to a certain time, for this shutting out of the Amerindian. However, the very fact of the coming of Indians from Asia as a new major element of the population, especially when joined with the other previous major element, the Africans, if we were to work on racial terms, would in pure Westminster politics bar the Amerindians for all time from a share in the government of Guyana, and therefore, from true citizenship.
Removing the Possibility of Racial Outsiders, There Should Be No Outsiders At All
The lesson to be drawn…is that the major elements of the population, originating in Africa and India, can only break with the unwritten Apartheid against the Amerindian by developing political institutions which remove any possibility of racial outsiders existing within the borders of the country. Not only should there be no racial outsiders, but there should be no outsiders at all. This is perhaps the safest principle on which to build. There can be outsiders who are inside, as will happen if instead of fanning the flames of self-determination among Amerindians and allowing their own leadership to be known, parties engage in a policy of nomination of leaders from among the Amerindians and put these nominees forward as leaders or representatives of the Amerindian people.
Not the Indians of Guyana, who from 1917 will be seen as Indo-Guyanese, but Indian immigration as a policy, confronted the Amerindians with a greater likelihood of exclusion if politics were to proceed along racial lines. The same could happen if in spite of democratic declarations the end result should be largely one of ethnic dominance.
The Food Culture
In a survey of some of the settlements of former slaves in remote areas, it was found that a community of Africans was cultivating rice as one of their major crops in 1881. They also grew the more familiar ground provisions.
It goes without saying, though, that it is the immigrant workers from India who established rice as a crop of national importance. Lesley Potter has recorded that the East Indians first cultivated plots of rice on estate lands for their own use; and as they moved away from the plantations after their indentures ended, the scale of production increased. “During the 1870s the acreage slowly expanded with the increasing movement of East Indians away from the sugar estates. The extreme north and south of the Essequibo Cost were the most important districts, but there was also scattered acreages in Berbice and between the Mahaica and Abary Creeks.”
Potter’s work is useful because it shows that expanded rice cultivation in many places did not result from inborn talent or love for the cultivation of rice, but was closely connected with economic need. In those days, the other myth of Indian wealth, that is, that East Indians are all rich, had not yet been born.
Potter names Anna Regina, Essequibo as the place where “the most extensive experiment with estate rice cultivation” was tried. It had an “unlimited supply of irrigation water from a series of natural lakes lying a little way inland.” With good rainfall, three crops could be grown in one year “and adjustments made to suit the labor requirements of sugar. Rents were high at $23.04 per year. Those who worked paid half the rental. Potter records, “It was alleged however, that most people living nearby were not very interested in cultivating rice on the estate as long as wage rates were reasonable, they preferred wage work.”
This audience will readily note in this remark the kind of behavior usually seen as being typical of Africans of the second half of the twentieth century — the stereotype of the preference of Africans for wage labor.
From Sugar to Rice
Going to Berbice, the same author finds that as sugar estate wages declined in the 1890s to starvation level and as estates were abandoned, many East Indians “who in previous decades had preferred to mind cows to supplement their sugar earnings, rather than cultivate, were now forced to provide their own food. Where ever land was available, both on and off estates, they began to grow rice.”
One signal achievement of the former indentured laborers was providing the raw material which led to the establishment of a rcie milling company and a rice mill in Georgetown which went into action in 1897. In 1915 the late Ramasroop Maraj became the first rice state landowner to erect a rice mill at Coffee Grove, Essequibo.
The modest efforts of a large number of people became something to excite merchant capital and rice processing became an important sector. This in itself was a major step away from full dependence on sugar. It was not the first step but it was a major one.
It was a combination of effort between the rural producers and the bourgeoisie of the city, some of them expatriate. It is enough to record that by 1906 descendants of rice growers owned mills and with 44 miles along the coast “rice exports reached a significant level for the first time, acreage having expanded to 26,569” in 1906. Thus the rice-growing activity of the Indo-Guyanese farmers had reached the stage of an export industry. Apart from providing an important part of the food supply of the country, it was a foreign exchange earner and in fact at first so attractive that sugar exporters took part in handling it. This is only one of the ways in which Indo-Guyanese, while being credited with the rescue of the plantation, also played a role in the commercial diversification of the economy away from sugar.
Tamarind to Tumeric; Roti to Bhaji
The immigrants from India also added to the food culture items such as butter, tamarind, tumeric, and garlic which they rated very highly. They must also be credited with the introduction of the Indian form of bread, roti, which in its various guises has proved a lasting and welcome addition to the food culture of Guyana.
In the sugar estates and rural areas, it is know that many women trained their sisters of other races in the making of roti, until the culture became fairly widely known. The training is still going on and the use is still spreading. As everyone knows, roti is a priority at any kind of function in Guyana.
It is likely, too, that the art of currying food came to Guyana from India, although Africans have forms of currying meals which are prepared with as much condiments including a abundant quantities of pepper.
The most important contribution of Indians to the food culture of Guyana, nutritionally speaking, is with the so-called greens — callaloo or bhaji and many others — sources of so many minerals and nutrients. Probably because of their duty of vegetarianism which has for some time been more neglected than practiced, the place of green vegetables in the Indian diet was always a major one. Considering the closeness to starvation levels at which many of the older families survived, each group found its own folk remedies for quick use and its own foods on which it was able to survive within its means.
The use of greens only gained official recognition in the 1940s when Dr. C.C. Nicholson, Schools’ Medical Officer, carried his gospel of the value of “green, leafy vegetables” throughout the country in schools and other places. Before those days it was an exceptional addition to the menu and other parts of the population. The information was known to the better type of medical doctor and would be used with his patients. Large numbers of Africans, however, lagged behind in the use of greens until Nicholson’s campaign raised this body of valuable foods to a place of respect in the food culture of Guyana. A parson’s wife remarked to this writer in the late 1940s something to the effect that “all the time we were laughing at the baboo man with this bhagee. Now we find that he was right…”
To close off this section, Indian sweetmeats desere a place. Sugar estates and nearby villages were besieged with the cries of the “mittai man” who woud come around on Sundays crying “jillabie, mittai, sweet bake, barra, peas ball, alu ball, channa, channa, channa.” These Indian sweetmeats, and hotmeats as well, have remained with the folk, enjoying varying levels of approval and demand, but have never been accepted commercially into the mainstream. They remain wayside and market goods. Rather, different is the fate od parsad, the sweetmeat served at Hindu ceremonies and enjoying approval in all circles. In this case, non-commercialization is testimony to the fact that it is regarded by all as sacred, as a kind of “communion food” or manna.
Cultural Spectacle
This section deals with what I choose to call “cultural spectacle.” This term is used to mean those aspects of culture which at a glance impress themselves on the observer.
From their survival, the clothing culture of the immigrants from India was sharply in contrast with what Guyanese had known before. The Africans of the slave period had made a contribution to the sum total of our cultural spectacle, but it was not given to them to bring with them or reproduce their headwear, bodywear, or footwear. Whatever came with them had a short life and could not be reproduced. This will be examined in more detail [in the near future]… For now, we shall look at the cultural spectacle which has been known in Guyana as a result of the Indian presence.
From Clothing to Jewelry
The present Indo-Guyanese introduced, kept alive under stress and in favorable conditions went back to embrace their Indian dress — the sari, orni, and dhoti with the kurta and fez joining the already acceptable trousers. For jewelery, as soon as it was possible they began to wear a series of rings — earings at times which encircled the lobe of the ear, noserings, and bracelets around the ankles, wrists, and forearms. To the forms of dress one should add the facial paintings and decorations and the wedding dress both of the man and the woman on their wedding day.
In an impressionistic world, this idea of cultural spectacle has some importance. Amerindians have contributed and still do to the cultural spectacle by the unique form of their material culture. The contribution of the European lives mostly in the area of architecture and technology. The African, Chinese, and Portuguese parts of the heritage do not rank today as highly visible and even that of the Indian is losing visibility in some areas. However, it will be admitted that the contribution of Indians to this aspect of multi-continental culture has been, when compared to others, durable.
Temples and Mosques
Apart from those aspects already mentioned, cultural spectacle lives on in the various styles of the temples and mosques which punctuate the countryside and city. These structures in themselves signal the European world that it cannot claim this culture even in its creolized form. As the specialists in this field have said, every foreign culture transplanted to this soil has experienced this process of creolization, or coming to terms with what it found. No one coming upon a ma[n]dir of whatever style or upon a mosque will leave with the impression of a world fully conquered by Euro-Christianity. The city temples or mandirs may not stand behind or beside their new Ganges. Karna Bahadur Singh, who wrote directly on these matters, finds that many mosques had lost their minarets and towers for summoning the faithful to prayer, but finds that these suffered less from creolization than the Hindu temples of the same period.
Other items of the cultural spectacle include the jhandi or sacred flags raised on bamboo poles. The cremation scenes are also worthy of listing in this section. Although, as in the case of Africans and Amerindians, much of the artistic talent of the Indian is derived from religious worship or belief, it is convenient to consider their art away from its origins in order to see it as at thing in itself.
Songs, Drama, Dance, and Drumming
The creativity of the Indian folk was, from the time they became a community, seen in their dances, songs, drama, drums and other musical instruments. The wedding house was always a place of display. The “dance man” was a familiar figure, and performing and dancing females of various modes were also a prominent feature of the performing arts. There were special shows and Indian singers, drummers and performers could be engaged to perform at village fairs and to multi-racial audiences and were always seen as adding to the cultural experience.
As an aside, it may be remarked that in times of peace in the past, the Indian wedding house has been a popular resort of young men from the other part of the village or the nearby Afro-Guyanese village, responding not only to the attractions of Indian dishes, but also, one would imagine, to the familiar yet strange musical idiom, then outstanding for its raptures of joy or pangs of agony in instrument and song.
Deepavali: The Festival of Lights
It would be an obvious omission to close this review of cultural spectacles without mention of the festival of lights Deepavali [also known as Diwali or Dipawali] which is of increasing importance. Although living in my early years on a sugar estate I was fully aware of the public processes of Holi or Phagwah, with its necessary abandon and relaxation of conduct, its drunkenness and laughter; I was not aware of Deepavali. Its flickering diyas do not flicker even in my childhood memories.
Yet, as times became more modern, with TV dishes, and videos, it seems that the festival of lights is gaining increasing prestige among all Guyanese. It is outstanding for spectacle, though nowadays the spectacle of diyas struggling with the dense darkness is often flooded out by vulgar electricity which destroys the meaning of the tradition, since electricity does not inspire the human spirit in the same way as the diyas do.
Muslim Taja: A Source of Unified Delight and Rebellion
But by far the most universally impressive cultural spectacle given to the West by Indian culture is the Taja, which Karna Singh notes as a “Muslim religious festival commemorating martyrdom of the descendants of the Holy Prophet Mohamed, Hassan and Hussain.” [Indo-Trinidadians call this Hosay.] It has been said that some Muslims do not recognize this festival, or find it offensive. Their reservations are respected by this writer. However, it is true to say that the Taja [also known as Tadja, Tajiya, Tazia, and Ta’zieh] a colorful and spectacular monument in the shape of a domed and well crafted tower moving on the public roads from place to place with the heavy Taja drums accompanying it, was a delight to the masses of people of all ages.
The unifying force of this event was beyond description. Few got near enough to understand the significance of what was celebrated, but it spoke to everyone through color and rhythm and the echo of the drumbeats in the memory of the soul. And the soul of the memory was a cherished gift of treasure for all who came within its range.
It was with a sense of justification that I discovered in the pages of a newspaper dated about 1897 that on the Essequibo Coast some African men wer charged along with Indian Muslims because they protested the action of the police in questioning where some Taja votaries had permission to have Taja. The African defender spoke like a human rights advocate of the second half of the twentieth century when he accused the police of interference with the freedom of religion.
Culture, Spectacle, and Sacrament
“Culture” in its most popular meaning includes cultural spectacle. It is not at all the whole of culture, In fact, it is a very limited aspect of it, and can be defended perhaps in the way Christians defend sacrament as the outward visible signs, and an inward, spiritual vigor, which may not be so readily grasped by the mere spectator.
The Indian presence has modified, diversified, and certainly enriched the experience of cultural spectacle of Guyana. Features of this spectacle, such as dress for example, are not ongoing features of daily life. Yet they create together with those donated by other cultures, a stock of resources.
Next Time: Part 2 — Indo-Guyanese in the historical formation of the Law and State, and their political search for equality and social integration
