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WHAT ARE 270,000 HINDUS DOING IN TRINIDAD?
HINDUISM TODAY September 1994
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Trinidad's Hindus
WHAT ARE 270,000 HINDUS DOING ON TRINIDAD ISLAND?
When Columbus anchored offshore this fecund island lying barely
seven miles off the northern coast of South America, 35,000
Amer-Indians inhabited Trinidad. The Portuguese captain -- and
subsequent colonizers -- enslaved them and worked them so
mercilessly, only 1,000 remained by 1798. Slaves were then
imported from Africa until the practice was replaced by
"indentureship." In 1845, a sailing ship from Calcutta unloaded
225 Indians-mostly laborers from Uttar Pradesh. By 1917 the
East Indian population swelled to 144,000.
The following report of how Hindus are faring there today is
from a young native of this exotic land.
By Vindra Harrypersad, Chaguanas, Trinidad
Looking back over the years, I find much has changed in my
country -- change in discipline, the way people think, lifestyles,
morality and adherence to religion. Although some changes are
good, others are retrograde. I remember as a little girl when
everyone lived as an extended family, mediocrity was
unacceptable, social values were high and, most importantly,
children were taught religion as a way of life. Growing up as
a little girl, I noticed we had a code of dressing and children
respected elders. It was a time when going to school to get an
education, played an intrinsic part of life. Parents took
special interest in children, making their growing years as
healthy and fruitful as possible. I feel very lucky to have
been raised in an orthodox Hindu family where even at a tender
age, religion was imbedded in me. I recall parents would
always spend quality time with their children, teaching most of
the necessary aspects of Hindu Dharma. It was also a time of
simple living.
Presently, we have an economy causing rising unemployment and a
high cost of living. Both parents have no alternative but to
go out and work. Because of this, children are left
unsupervised. As a result, drugs, alcoholism and delinquency
creep in slowly. Our Vedic Mission of Trinidad addresses this
problem squarely by imploring for better Hindu parenting:
"Cultural and religious education must not be left to external
agents (temple, state, television, school, etc.) but must be
undertaken by the family which exerts a more powerful influence
on the formative years of the individual. Children devoid of a
sense of religious awareness and ancestral culture are
invariably more disruptive and deviant."
This is really true. When I look around I see teenagers
exhibiting a dramatic decline in moral standards. In most
cases, parental guidance is completely ignored and a major
breakdown in communication exists. Materialistic tendencies
tend to outweigh spiritual and ethical values.
With our two major ethnic groups being East Indians (40%) and
Africans, we find that ethnic conflict is perpetually
prevalent. Still, many claim that the degree of racial harmony
in Trinidad and Tobago is unmatched if compared to other
multi-racial countries. University student Prakash doesn't
like this perennial undercurrent of racial tension. He says,
"We need a change in attitude, a different outlook in life for
Hindus and non-Hindus."
Drugs and Dub Music
More and more Hindu youth are lured by the glitter, tinsel and
titillation of imported Western ways. Nari, a youth, shares:
"Today young people are going after dub music drugs and
alcohol -- in most cases, copying the Western way of life and
completely discarding dharma. The nucleus of the problem is
the family." Vishnue, 24, feels, "The leaders in society, have
a major role to play in educating the younger. They are the
role models."
"Some Hindu youths in racially mixed communities are turning to
other churches due to a lack of temples and Hindu priests to
serve their spiritual needs," reflects Beedor Maraj, a teacher
at Hill View College.
On the Bright Side
In an effort to combat these and other problems like teenage
pregnancy and domestic violence, Hindu leaders are taking a
more active part in generating a renaissance of Indian culture,
music, dance and philosophy and reaching out to the younger
children, even adults. One example of this is big youth camps
where children are engaged in lecture discussions, workshops,
leadership classes, sex and family life education, drama,
poetry, music classes and much more. These youth camps, staged
annually, are increasingly popular.
Until recently, religious and cultural education was left
solely in the hands of our parents or the local pundits. Today
we are lucky to have many non-family agents contributing to the
spiritual education and social development of Hindus throughout
Trinidad. One such institution that has won recent popularity
is the new radio station 103 FM. Apart from providing
entertainment and information, this station is primarily geared
towards the East Indian community and strengthens the Hindu
population through its segments on Hindi language, music,
traditional Indian cooking, Hindu philosophy and customs.
Presently 20% of the East Indian population tunes into this
station.
Swaha Inc. of Trinidad, consisting of pundits along with other
Hindu organizations, recently mobilized thousands of youth as
well as senior citizens in a huge Kartic celebration in
November, 1993, at the Manzanilla beach. Also a television
program called Swaha focuses on various aspects of Hinduism and
dedicates a large percentage of its programming to children.
Though it is now in the hands of my generation to keep alive
and pass on this great religion to the next generation, this is
not such an easy task in our mutli-cultural, multi-ethnic and
multi-religious society. Making it even more difficult with
the heavy influence of Western non-culture. But if we keep
defining Hindu needs, airing honestly our problems and then are
willing to try out and implement solutions, maybe children
today will experience the real joys of religious life I did
while growing up and still do now.
Sidebar
Festival Time!
Trinis," are serious merriers. Its an indigenous benign virus
that infects all who visit or reside. No paralyzing sobriety,
anesthetizing propriety is allowed to reign in this humid
equatorial realm. In the worst of economic climes and
hurricane times there is laughter, music, rhythm. Fifteen
national holidays and two major festival seasons that climax in
the Bacchanalian, two-day fete called Carnival guard well the
island's joi de vie. Even the characteristically more reserved
East Indian population can't resist Carnival magnetism and
gladly joins this national parade/party -- a wild, but still
discernible expression of racial friendship.
The rest of the year, Hindus stage their own stream of
grandiose religious festivals -- Shivratri, Holi (called Phagwa),
Ramleela and Divali (a national holiday) with clearly much more
devotion than Carnival's emotion. For Ramleela, it is a must
that all players fast in a prescribed way and abstain from meat
and alcohol. One of the most sublime religious events is
Kartic Nahan when devotees rise before dawn, pilgrimage to
river or sea and worship Goddess Ganga, setting small boats of
lit camphor afloat in the water as the sun rises.
Sidebar
Bastions of Bhakti: Temple Memories
By Usha Param
Being mostly from North India, Hindus here worship Rama and
Sita, Shiva, Krishna, Hanuman, Lakshmi and Duruga. "Sita/Ram,"
not Namaste, is the most popular greeting. Devotees generally
worship all the Deities. If you tell someone that you are a
Shaivite or Vaishnavite of a particular sect, they don't
understand. Almost no one wears saris or dhotis to the temple
unless you are having a samskara performed. Traveling around
the island, you see flags flying everywhere on bamboo poles in
the yards of homes and temples. They indicate which Deities
are worshiped there. White is for Vishnu (Ram/Sita too);
yellow, Duruga; blue or green, Shiva; pink is for Lakshmi and
red is for Hanumanji. Few temples have a daily schedule of
pujas or a full-time pujari. Often a man or woman in the
neighborhood comes daily to light a deepa, offer flowers,
incense and ring a bell. There used to be more pujaris.
Pundits, however, are well cared for and are the main religious
leaders. They get called to go from place to place to do
ceremonies. Often the temples have benches like in Christian
churches. Usually the sanctum sanctorum is open to anyone to
do their own puja. Puja items are right there and available.
Lord Shiva is very popular with the women and most temples have
a Sivalingam in it. At one old Shiva temple I met a sadhu with
eyes of fire who lives and sleeps a few feet from the lingam.
One lady I met converted the corner of her home into a temple
and has a Siva lingam with a hole beneath it where a cobra
lives. She keeps a deepam lit there and a bowl of milk there
for him. She moves with energy as she talks of visions of
Shiva and snakes. I visited a new Krishna Balarama temple
where they had a large tv screen on the altar with all the
Deities so they could watch Indian movies too. It has two
meditation chambers. Another Shiva shrine (below) came about
after a man struck a stone when cutlashing and said milk came
out. A tiny shrine was built and now thousands now converge at
this remote highland site each Shivaratri for nightlong vigil
and bhajans.
Sidebar
Island Murti Makers
Nowhere in the world will you find images of the Deities so
distinct, so human-like, so expressive and made out of
materials so oddly unorthodox -- fibre glass, auto body filler,
concrete, ceramic and clay. Though they might make an Agamic
stapathi (temple and icon master) wince, Trinidadians are
proud of their novel murthis and matchless murthi makers.
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HINDUISM TODAY September 1994
Copyright 1994, Himalayan Academy, All Rights Reserved. The
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