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Author : Professor Angelo Bissessarsingh ( HMG) Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago, (Published by Patricia Bissessarsingh, Nov 7, 2023)
In the first chapter of this three-part series we looked at the religious awakenings of Hinduism under indentureship among the Indo Trinidadians of the 19th century. This consciousness of self and personal doctrine was largely due to the formation of small villages as Sir Louis De Verteuil noted in 1884:
“Many have already availed themselves of the offer, and have thus become permanent settlers. At first they were granted 10 acres of land, worth £10, considered as equivalent to the passage-money. As a rule, a locality is selected, surveyed in lots of five acres, and a settlement is thus formed of Indian immigrants only; and an Indian name is given to the settlement. Thus we have the Calcutta, the Madras, the Barrackpoor, and the Fyzabad settlements. The immigrants are thus encouraged to form small communities, speaking the same language, and having the same habits and ways.”
In these settlements, village life went on much the same way as it had in India for thousands of years. The community council of the panchayat was revived and festivals observed regularly. Divali was not initially foremost among these. It began as largely a family affair among the immigrants since its celebration as a neighbourhood occasion is not mentioned anywhere in the writings of the 19thcentury. The all-important deya was most likely moulded from the earth of the dooryard of the homesteads formed by the Indians in their villages and filled with coconut oil made by themselves from nuts grown on their own land. Phagwa was a much larger concern since its riot of colours and very nature made it a village event.
Divali truly emerged as a large-scale festival in the 20th century, about a decade or so after the end of indentureship in 1917. It began to take on an elaborate dimension with bamboo being split into fantastic scaffoldings wherein thousands of deyas would be placed to shine forth . The sound of bursting bamboo is still something which breaks on the ear and heralds the Divali season and it is a pastime indulged in by all the youths of the community regardless of colour or creed. Deyas were also being mass produced by potters, especially along the Southern Main Road from Chase Village to Chaguanas where they still ply their ancestral trades today. Along the main road and Cacandee Road in Felicity is where the first large community Divali displays began to occur in the 1950s. Anthropologist Morton Klass lived for a while in the area whilst observing the villagers and noted:
“This is a festival of lights said to be in honour of both the goddess Lakshmi and of Lord Rama’s return from the forest. It falls on the thirteenth day of the first half of the month of Kartik or around November, and is one of the most happily and eagerly anticipated of holidays . Every house is cleaned , fresh curtains are hung and special delicacies are prepared. Around each house a display of deyas is set out. During Divali the maximum number of deyas that the family can afford is displayed. The deyas are lighted at sunset and mos of the children and old people remain at home to keep them refilled and burning. There is a service in the Siwala in the evening but few except the most religious attend and most of these for a short time. Most of the younger adults set out and lighted their own deyas go walking through the community to see the display of others.”
Stay tuned for the final installment of this series to find out how Divali emerged from its enclave in the Indo Trinidadian villages to achieve national holiday status and its continued evolution.
Painting courtesy Rudolph Bissessarsingh

​In the first chapter of this three-part series written by historian Angelo Bissessarsingh we are given an insight into the religious awakenings of Hinduism under indentureship among the Indo-Trinidadians of the 19th century.
CHAPTER 1
Hinduism’s Arrival in the West Indies.
Author : Angelo Bissessarsingh.
As a historian and erstwhile anthropologist it never ceases to amaze me at how religious and cultural tolerance manifests itself in Trinidad and Tobago. Almost every schoolchild can recite a basic understanding of the annual Hindu festival of Lights, Divali. They know the elements of the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, bits of the sacred Ramayana and the welcoming of the goddess Lakshmi into the home to ensure a year of prosperity for the family.
There are few communities here where in the Hindu calendar month of Kartik (although the earlier month of Ashvin sometimes encompasses the festival) where the firefly lights of tiny clay deyas do not shine forth on the night of the festival, upholding ancient traditions deeply rooted in our ancestry.
To fully understand the portent of Divali (Deepaavali as the celebration is known in India) one must take a brief look at the roots of Hinduism in Trinidad and Tobago. In 1845 a group of indentured immigrants arrived from India aboard the Fatel Razack as the first of thousands who would flock hither to found a new society in an alien land. With them to the west came the ancient ways of their motherland and Hinduism had arrived. Initially there was no provision for any cultural or religious freedom since the colonial authorities merely envisioned the presence of the Indians as an easily-replenished source of labour bound to fixed contracts. It was only when the eminent suitability of these people for sugar estate work became apparent then financial and land incentives were offered between 1860 and 1880 which resulted in the formation of a permanent peasant class.
It is with this firm establishment that itinerant babajis or pundits began to appear in the villages of their people alongside quaint mandirs with mud walls and carat-thatched roofs. A few of these holy men were real Brahmins but these were in the minority with a large number merely being elevated to piety by having a considerable knowledge of the epics of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Although most of the indentured immigrants were from agrarian classes were from rural stock and formerly bound by the fetters of the caste system, it was noted in 1887 by J.H Collens (in a rather myopic account) that a widespread knowledge of the epics was apparent and this of course was the local origin of the Ramayana readings and Ramleela plays which have characterized Indo -Trinidadian Hinduism ever since:
“It must be acknowledged that the Puranas are a mass of contradiction, extravagance, and idolatry, though couched in highly poetical language. It is, nevertheless, astonishing how familiar the Trinidadian coolies are with them ; even amongst the humble labourers who till our fields there is a considerable knowledge of them, and you may often in the evening, work being done, see and hear a group of coolies crouching down in a semicircle, chanting whole stanzas of the epic poems, Ramayan etc. In the preface of the Ramayan it is stated that he who constantly hears and sings this poem will obtain the highest bliss hereafter, and become as one of the gods.”
It is this spiritual awakening which inevitably led to the introduction of Divali and other Hindu festivals to Trinidad. In the next chapter of this series, we will look at how deyas punctuated the darkness in rural Trinidad as Divali emerged as a national phenomenon.
Photo :Three babas or pundits in Trinidad circa 1894. The permanent settlement of formerly indentured immigrants paved the way for a cultural and religious expansion of their identities hitherto suppressed by the colonial plantocracy.
​(Source:  Patricia Bissessarsingh, Oct 15, 2022)

Congratulations to Ms.Doolarie Ramdath of Rio Claro for her accomplishment in being 1 of the 3 samples from T&T earning a place among the top 50 samples of the World at the 2023 Cocoa of Excellence Competition in Paris.
222 samples were submitted and 3 samples from T&T were successful thus far.
Making Rio Claro proud in 2017 and now 2023.
Best wishes to all winners as we await another stage of judging in early 2024. (Source NewsSauce, Facebook_

BUSINESSWOMAN extraordinaire and recipient of the 2011 Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (ORTT) Helen Bhagwansingh has died.
Bhagwansingh died on Monday morning at 83. She had been ailing for some time.
In a statement, her family confirmed her death and said all stores in the Bhagwansingh’s Group will be closed on Monday.
In 2000 Bhagwansingh was named “Woman of the Millennium” by the TT Chamber of Energy and was the first woman to be inducted into the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce’s Business Hall of Fame.
Bhagwansingh was the widow of Hubert Bhagwansingh, who died in 2019, and with whom she opened their first hardware store in Port of Spain, followed by many other enterprises in the ensuing years.
Expressions of condolences have been coming in for the astute businesswoman who was fondly called “Mrs B.”
Minister in the Ministry of Education and MP for D’Abadie/O’Meara Lisa Morris-Julian described her as a woman of compassion and steely determination.
Opposition MPs Dinesh Rambally and Barry Padarath expressed condolences on her passing.
Rambally, Chaguanas West MP, said she was a prominent and respected businesswoman and that her contributions and legacy in the business world will be remembered and celebrated for years to come.
Princes Town MP Padarath said the country is poorer with the loss of this business magnate and humanitarian.
Well known for her contributions to many charitable causes, the deeply spiritual Bhagwansingh donated $5 million to establish a trust for diabetes education, research and prevention, after learning that the incidence of diabetes in Trinidad and Tobago was approaching epidemic proportions.
Bhagwansingh, who was born in San Fernando, was revered as one of the most successful businesswomen in TT.
At 11 she left school to join her family’s business, Ramoutarsingh Hardware. She was put in charge of running the bicycle repair department.
In 1969,she and her husband bought the Kay Donna drive-in cinema, Valsayn, which she ran successfully until selling it in 1977.
A call by her father to fill in for a sick employee at a small branch of Ramoutarsingh’s Hardware at Sea Lots paved the way for her to start the Bhagwansingh’s empire.
Within two years, Bhagwansingh and her husband were able to transform the premises, surrounded by a mangrove swamp in an area referred to as the “La Basse,” into a successful business. She then acquired the business from her father, Daniel, and renamed it Bhagwansingh’s Hardware.
This led to an expansion of the business into Chaguanas, Marabella and Trincity.
In 1996 Bhagwansingh’s acquired Dansteel and in 1998 Centrin, turning Bhagwansingh’s into an empire that today employs over 1,200 people, including her four children.
Bhagwansingh was also responsible for the Christmas stars erected on the Laventille and San Fernando Hills. (source: Newsday October 30, 2023)

​Prime Minister Dr the Hon Keith Rowley is greeted by Prime Minister of Canada
​the Hon Justin Trudeau, at the opening of the Canada-CARICOM Summit in Ottawa this morning.
The summit is co-chaired by Prime Minister Trudeau and the current Chair of CARICOM, Prime Minister of Dominica, the Hon Roosevelt Skerrit.
Climate change and resilience, access to finance and global financial architecture reform, Haiti, regional security, as well as trade and investment are among the issues that will form part of the summit’s agenda. (Source: Office of the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago). 

At first sight, Port of Spain and St Catharines, Ontario, couldn’t be more different.
About 4,000 kms north of Port of Spain, St Catharines is frozen during winter, and even as the eighth largest urban area in the province of Ontario, dwarfs its “twin city” in area and population.
What the two cities have in common, Philip Atteck – the Trinidadian responsible for twinning the two cities – once said, are the warmth and vibrancy of their people.
St Catharines (frequently misspelt and wrongly given an apostrophe), is in the Niagara Region and is one of its least populous with about 140,000 residents. A sizeable minority include Caribbean migrants and generational migrants, who have found comfort in one of Canada’s many welcoming cities.
The flag of Port of Spain was recently hoisted by St Catharines mayor Mat Siscoe, at St Catharines City Hall, to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the twinning, an arrangement formalised in 1968.
Twinning began after World War II when Japan, led by survivors of the catastrophic Hiroshima bombings, reached out to several European countries and cities, and approached the UN with an idea to “mundialise,” (from the word French word mondial, meaning "global”), with an end goal to prevent such human-caused tragedies from recurring.
About two decades later, in 1965, Richard Hilker, a manager at Air Canada, asked Atteck, sales manager for Radio Guardian, to tour Canada to promote the Caribbean as a tourist destination for Canadians. Atteck travelled across the country, and with the support of donations and promotional materials, led a successful campaign to boost the Caribbean’s visibility as a tourist destination.


During his tour, Atteck visited St Catharines, and the idea of twinning St Catharines and Port of Spain was conceived. Twinning committees were formed, and the cities officially twinned in 1968, embracing the UN Charter of Human Rights.
The arrangement was formalised in August, 1968 when Hamilton Holder, shortly after becoming mayor of Port of Spain, officially declared Port of Spain a “mundialised city.” St Catharines mayor Mackenzie Chown was in Trinidad for the ceremony and declared his support for the newly twinned cities.
Holder pledged on behalf of Port of Spain residents to “observe and uphold the universal declaration of human rights by the UN,” and “to join the rest of the world in the pursuit of peace, justice and friendly co-operation.”
From there, the St Catharines Twinning Association was established.
Atteck, who has been credited as the inspiration for the popular tourist attraction Festival of Lights in Niagara Falls, and served as honorary chairman of the association, died in 2009.
The twinning arrangement led to a number of benefits, including free surgical treatment for Trinidadian children in Toronto, and the Rotary Club of St Catharines outfitting an operating theatre in Port of Spain. Medical collaboration also occurred, with Canadian doctors working in Trinidad.
The twinning fostered cultural exchanges, as people visited each other's cities and citizens from Port of Spain travelled to St Catharines for educational opportunities. Brock University facilitated field trips to Trinidad, and a scholarship was established in 1993 for a Trinidadian student at Brock. In 2008, Brock University established a full-tuition Twinning Scholarship for Trinidadian students, with several recipients graduating. A memorial for Atteck was placed at Brock University's International Building.
Newsday spoke with the association’s president Dave Peters, who said although annual activities have been affected in the past few years because of the covid19 pandemic, they have returned in full swing to bring the best of Port of Spain culture to St Catharines to commemorate the 55th anniversary.
Peters said there have been documented benefits of the linkage between the two cities. He referred to a letter written by a Canadian policeman, who visited and worked in Port of Spain for a month during the 1970s. The policeman wrote that he had learnt more about cultural sensitivity in race relations in one month in Port of Spain than he could ever be taught in any classroom.
“So that was such a powerful experience to have that exchange and to be able to understand how the police in Port of Spain were handling the multicultural aspects (of the community)...”
St Catharines is regarded as particularly significant in terms of Afro-Canadian history.

American abolitionist Harriet Tubman lived there in the late 1850s, having led her family to a community of formerly enslaved people, including some of her other relatives. Tubman led many enslaved people to a church called Salem Chapel in St Catharines after the passing of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed for the capture and return of enslaved people to their “masters” within US territories. The church still stands and has been designated a historical landmark by the Canadian government.
Today, the city and the wider region are regarded as particularly open to migration and diversity, and are home to a significant Caribbean minority.
Apart from the more formal arrangements, the association and its members routinely organise social events, such as cultural shows, pop-up markets and seasonal events.
It only has some 65 formal members, but includes many non-members in its activities. Peters said the association is always open to new members.
High on the agenda is its Parang in Niagara 2023, scheduled for December, a mini-festival of music, food, shopping and other activities. (Source:  Newsday, October 17, 2023)