YESTERDAY, Arrival Day was commemorated. Arrival Day is one of the significant days in the Holidays Calendar in that it marks the building of a greater Guyanese nation.
Plantation slavery, though officially ended in 1834, in fact, continued with the Apprenticeship System until 1838. In 1838, the African freedmen were permitted to leave the plantations which they did in increasing numbers. With this movement from the plantations grew the Village Movement whereby African freedmen and women purchased abandoned sugar estates and established villages such as Buxton, Victoria and Queenstown in Essequibo.

To meet the labour shortage which occurred with Emancipation and the exodus away from the plantations by the African freedmen, the planters scouted the world to find a regular and able labour supply. They brought indentured immigrant workers from Malta, Madeira, the islands of the Caribbean, from India and China.
Of these, the Indians were found to be the most suitable and so the planters concentrated on importing Indians who came to be the main workers on the plantations. Approximately 240,000 Indians were imported. About one-third of them died before they could return to their homeland, one-third returned to India under their indenture contracts and about one-third of them remained in the colony on the plantations. Indian indentureship ended in 1917.

The basic characteristics of the Indenture System which continued for approximately 80 years were that a worker was recruited for five years to work on the sugar plantations with the promise of an agreed wage. They were to be given housing and were to be transported from Calcutta to Guyana and returned at the end of their indentures, except they wished to re-indenture. But the terms of their indenture were never respected by the planters and the immigrants found themselves entrapped in a situation little better than slavery. Indeed, the early indentured immigrants were treated almost exactly like the slaves before them.
The life of the indentured workers was not a happy one. The workers on the sugar plantations were the lowest paid in the colony. They worked from sunrise to sunset, the logies in which they lived were the same ones which formerly housed the slaves, their food was of poor quality, there were no recreational facilities, no proper hygienic facilities or drinking water. There were no educational facilities for children who were forced to be engaged in child labour. Their culture and religions were regarded as inferior and treated with contempt.

From 1872 onwards there were continuous labour disputes erupting in eight major ones, the last of these being at Enmore on the East Coast Demerara and the first being at Devonshire Castle estate in Essequibo in 1872. Owing to the resoluteness and commitment of the workers, the planters felt they could not negotiate settlements in their favour and had the colonial authorities declare these labour disputes “riots” so that they could be suppressed by military means with some workers being killed. The reasons which precipitated these labour disputes were only taken cognisance of after the police violence and loss of life.

Despite their harsh living and working conditions, a good percentage of the sugar estate populations evinced the entrepreneurial spirit and economic creativity as well as development of their cultural and religious life.
The immediate economic impact the indentured workers made was that in a few years after their arrival, they were able to quadruple sugar production from the base year of 1838 and this trend was maintained.

And the same trend was seen in their other contributions to the economic advancement of the country, especially in agriculture: They established a viable rice industry which helped to give Guyana food security and a steady foreign exchange income. The coconut industry was established with numbers of profitable coconut estates resulting, among other benefits, of the country being self-sufficient in cooking oil. They established a dairy industry and for most of the 19th and 20th century supplied the country with fresh milk until powdered milk replaced fresh milk. They also became producers of ground provisions, bananas and plantains, and other market garden produce, contributing to a more plentiful and affordable food supply. And from the latter half of the 20th century, the indentured servants and their descendants went into industry, increasing the wealth and employment of Guyana. The economic contribution made by these indentured workers and their descendants is immeasurable.

Guyanese cultural life has also been greatly enrichened by these indentured immigrants. Indian cooking and recipes have been integrated into the general Guyanese cooking; dhal-puri, for instance, has become one of the most common, nutritious and affordable snack foods. And Indian dress has become part of the female fashion world. Indian music is much heard and has become part of the corpus of Guyanese music, and so is it with the performing arts in general.

The Indian arrivals had introduced Hinduism and Islam as organised religions to Guyana and to-day Guyana is unique in having the three great world religions, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity living side by side in the greatest amity. And unlike in other countries, members of these world Faiths have no difficulty in supporting each other and even participating in their activities. Indeed, there are quiet and unconscious religious exchanges taking place among these world Faiths which are found nowhere else in the world. One such is the important belief among most Guyanese people is that all religious paths lead to God.

Indian Arrival Day therefore not only marks the first arrival of Indian indentures but it commemorates the beginning of the evolution of a greater Guyanese nation.