Preservation of Indian culture deemed 'saga of courage'
by Sharon Lall
THE preservation of Indian culture has been a "saga of courage", largely due to those various strands of culture being combined to produce a people that are resilient, productive and progressive, said Information Minister, Moses Nagamootoo. It is a truism, 161 years after the arrival of East Indians to Guyana's shores, he said speaking at a Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO) symposium, that Indian culture has contributed significantly to the socioeconomic development of this country. The afternoon's discourse, held last Friday, at the Park Hotel, Georgetown, evolved around the theme `The Role of Indian Culture in Guyana's Socioeconomic Development', to commemorate the 161st anniversary of the arrival of East Indians in Guyana. Dr Prem Misir, Editor-in-Chief of the New York-published, Caribbean Journal; historian and lecturer at the University of Guyana, Mr Pat Dyal and Dr Frank Anthony, First Secretary at the PYO, were others who made fitting contributions as well. "Culture is the total way of life," Minister Nagamootoo posited, "It is everything in a particular society - values, norms and institutions that is passed on from generation to generation." The root of Indian culture in Guyana is in India. And, most of it is as religious in background as India, where Buddhism and Hinduism were born. Minister Nagamootoo observed that in Guyana, Indian culture is visible in traditions of music, dance, symbols and even gestures. People even claim to be able to decipher who is a Guyanese Indian, simply by the way that person moves his/her head or hands. Indian culture is also reflected in local cuisines - the peppery hot food of Andhra Pradesh and the coconut-based curries of Kerala, the marriage customs, death rites, modes of rearing children, treatment of elders and thrift culture. "Some today speak derisively about the culture of Indian thrift, and try to make out that Indians in Guyana are the oppressors, or the cause of the oppression of other races," the Minister said. He cited the book, `The History of East Indian Resistance on the Guyana Sugar Estates: 1869-1948', which speaks about objections to the Indian disposition "to melt down silver coins to make jewellery with which they bedecked their wives and children". W.A. Patton in his book `Down the Islands. A Voyage to the Caribees', had also noted how Indian women were decorated with earrings, necklaces and a "mass of bracelets, bangles and circlets". In that way, three or four pounds of sterling silver had been permanently withdrawn from circulation to be beaten and moulded for the ornamentation and adornment of Indian women. The recourse to attacks on `Indian wealth' has been exploited as a cover for all sorts of oppression of Indians here and wider afield, the Minister stated. It was exploited in expulsion of Indians from Uganda and Kenya, in the expropriation of Indian property in Burma and in their exile. Minister Nagamootoo explained that throughout the period of indentureship and afterwards, Indians lived under appalling poverty and survived by withdrawing into their culture. According to him, this was a form of resistance by Indians everywhere, to the subjugation of India by the British imperialist and, of the descendents of Indians in the Diaspora by alien cultures. "This resistance is still within our being. It has become the Indian influence on our Guyanese personality. For we can never discount or discard the emotional/cultural ties between our foreparents and their motherland, even while we recognise that the centre of our being lies here in this Guyana mudflat." Minister Nagamootoo said that to date, the Guyanese Indian Diaspora in New York and Toronto hankers to share the traditions, festivities, music, dance, gaff and good humour of Guyana. "Out there, they are part of the Guyanese Diaspora. Thus, our `Indianness' and our nationality co-exist in a common personality that is distinctly Guyanese, of which Indian culture is a significant and vibrant component. "In many ways, in our spheres of labour, business acumen, family values, education and leadership potentials, Indian culture has been a driving force in Guyana's development". 
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