– Indo-Caribbean Diaspora given insightful view of indentureship system
THE subject of colonial emigration and Indian indentureship has long been one of focal areas of researchers worldwide, who have utilized the texts of historians and archivists to fully portray a comprehensible picture of the early indentureship labour system and a clearer understanding of why our Indian ancestors migrated to live in various parts of the world as indentured servants.
Prominent on this list of historians is Indian entrepreneur Mrs Leela Sarup, a colonial emigration researcher in Indian Indentureship, who visited New York from the period June 15-18, 2011, following her three-country tour of Trinidad, Suriname and Guyana. Mrs Sarup’s almost two decades of dedicated research work puts Indian Indentureship history in its rightful position in the global context, and has preserved vital records pertaining to the millions of Indian Diasporas who finds a connect back to India.
Mrs Sarup was the featured speaker at a public lecture hosted by the Vihara Foundation (VF), a partnering organization with the Global Indo-Diaspora Heritage Society (GIDHS) (an Indian registered Society of which Mrs Sarup is President) held on June 16 at the Starlite Pavilion, Richmond Hill, New York.
The audience included mainly persons from the New York Tri-State Indo Diaspora and other communities with special interest on the subject matter of colonial emigration and Indian Indentureship, and as such, Mrs Sarup’s lecture gave an insightful view of the history of the era and the conditions and lives of the Indians once they were recruited into becoming labourers.
Mr. Andre Sattaur, who hails from New Amsterdam, Berbice, and who represented the Vihara Foundation at the lecture in New York, also made an address.
He pointed out that eradicating poverty in India and around the world is one of the main aims of the foundation, which works alongside Mrs Sarup’s society in the attainment of this goal.
Mr Sattaur stated that: “Every human being deserves the right to have access to clean water, food, affordable healthcare and the right to fair wages to help them uplift themselves from poverty and sustain themselves and their families.  We, as the human race, have achieved greatly but yet have fallen below the way side when it comes to eradicating poverty around the world. We, as one of many foundations, cannot do this alone, but collectively we all can help eradicate poverty around the world. I ask of the people of the Indo Diaspora to ask their respective elected officials of their home countries to help in eradicating poverty around the world instead of wasteful spending on weapons of mass destruction. As the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy said in 1961, “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few that are rich.”
However, in an invited comment, Mr Sattaur expressed disappointment at the poor turnout in New York, opinionating that this is an indication of the lack of interest by people of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in NYC to preserve their heritage and/or history of their ancestors.
Mrs Sarup also donated fifteen volumes of historic research publications (which will be housed at the New York City Central Library). These donations were also made to governments of all Indo Diaspora countries globally free of cost, including Guyana.
The dynamic Mrs Sarup estimates that the entire collection will eventually come to some twenty eight or thirty volumes.
The collection stands in three distinct sets: The Acts (1837- 1932), Proceedings (1825-1913) and Annual Reports from the Port of Calcutta (1842-1932). The Acts look at the Colonial Emigration Acts in detail. It tracks the legislation that shaped the lives of hundreds of thousands of Indians from 1837 to 1932. Proceedings is a ten volume set that lets the reader relive some of the history of the era as it chronicles the conditions and lives of the labourers once they were recruited into becoming labourers.
Mrs. Sarup said she was grateful for the large outpouring of interest by the Indo Caribbean people on her visits to Trinidad, Suriname and Guyana.
The Global Indo-Diaspora Heritage Society is undertaking the building of a museum in Kolkota, India in preserving the history of the Indian Indentureship and the Vihara Foundations is urging the collective co-operation of the former colonial countries in setting up chapters and museums about the Indian Indentureship in their respective countries.
The Vihara Foundation is working for the cause of poverty alleviation and development of Bihar/Uttar Pradesh – one of the most poverty stricken regions of the world and ancestral lands of Global Indian Indentured Diasporas. Its project, the Vihar Project, is endorsed by GIDHS as a Diaspora related initiative, helping the present descendent relatives of Indo Diasporas to achieve poverty alleviation and development.
The foundation assisted and coordinated Mrs. Sarup’s visit to New York.
Leela Sarup is a highly respected and regarded Indian national recognized by the International Diaspora community for her close to two decades of continuous and dedicated intensive historic research into the colonial emigration systems of Indian Indentureship (British, Dutch, French and Danish). Her work has uprooted rare records (from deep inside the abyss of several Indian national archives – Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai) the injustice perpetrated by colonialization onto a mass Indian society.  Throughout her research career, she has published (so far as in 2011) fifteen volumes of historical records, including the famed best seller “Trial of Mandal Pandey.”
Sarup was instrumental in proposing a historic memorial on the banks of the Hooghly River, Calcutta, in honor of all Indian Indenturers who suffered immense deprivation and passed on the legacy of Indianness to their descendants – inaugurated on January 11, 2011 (173 years after the first recorded shipments of Indenturers left for Mauritius and British Guiana).