By August 1834, slavery had been abolished in almost all parts of the British Empire. To replace the slaves working the plantations in the colonial Caribbean Islands, Guyana, Fiji etc, Britain introduced the system of indentured labor, recruiting people from their colonies. They would work more or less as slaves, but only for the term of their contract, after which they could decide either to go back to their home country, or stay and perhaps even get some land of their own to grow. Britain had no problem recruiting people to start a new life overseas.
This is the background for Indian Arrival Day. A holiday which is celebrated in various days in the nations of the Caribbean, Guyana, Fiji, and Mauritius. It commemorates the arrival of people from India, a commemoration started by Trinidad and Tobago as the East Indian Centenary on May 30, 1945.
In Guyana the holiday is celebrated each May 5th to commemorate the first arrival of Indians to Guyana on May 5, 1838. The video below tells the story of the very last witness of this British system in Guyana. An Indian-Guyanese woman in her nineties who came with her family to Guyana when she was three years old. The video is with subtitles as Guyanese English can be quite challenging:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4CIHXULdxw
By the time the indentured system ended in 1920, British Guiana had received 238,909 workers from India. Today their descendants comprise 44% of Guyana’s population of over 750,000.
Still, you could easily take another view of the Indian Arrival Day: why celebrate colonization - as Rajiv Mohabir asks, in so many words, in his brilliant article. It is a question many of us can identify with, but at the same time the celebration is just another way to feel and maintain unity among people with the same historical background. For to celebrate the day that your people started a new life on a new continent, however twisted the original, colonial plan was, is an opportunity to feel proud of your heritage.
So here’s to Indian Arrival Day! And why not make a feast of it by making some Guyanese dish, for example Veggie Bara:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwlbv1eA8Y