It is an interesting coincidence that on the day the nation took a holiday to commemorate Emancipation Day we were hearing about the possibility of Indians being encouraged to leave their homeland and come to Trinidad and Tobago to develop the country’s ‘mega-farms'.A report in the Times of India alerted the local media to the story, which was confirmed by the Indian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Jagjit Singh Sapra, who pointed out that there is no firm proposal yet.
But it might. And that’s why this story is worth noting.
At first glance it seems like a good idea since Indians are an agrarian people. They created India’s green revolution and they rescued the dying plantation economy in Trinidad in the post-emancipation period. So perhaps they can do it again.
But times have changed.
The Indians who saved agriculture in the 19th century remained in Trinidad and made the British colony their home. And their descendants have gone on to keep agriculture alive for more than 150 years.
The nation has an able and willing agricultural work force, so why does the Manning administration want to bring Indians to Trinidad and Tobago to run mega farms?
In the 19th century after Britain set the slaves free the plantations suffered a dramatic decline because of the absence of a reliable source of cheap, effective labour.
Slaves refused to work for their former masters for good reason – the plantations symbolized degradation, abuse and servitude. Slavery lacked any measure of humanity and was the worst injustice “civilized” society inflicted on fellow humans. And indentureship was no better.
In fact, according to Lord John Russell, British Secretary of State for the West Indian colonies, indentureship was “a new system of slavery.” He was not exaggerating the issue.
Indians were treated like leased animals, herded into plantations and jailed if they strayed from their designated places of work. They were abused, flogged and treated as new slaves. Many were murdered.
Their children were denied an education. This is how one planter justified it to a committee of the Legislative Council:
“This is an agricultural country. Unless you put their (Indian) children to working in the field when they are very young, you will never get them to do so later. If you train them to work in the fields you’ll never have any difficulty…if you decide to educate the whole mass (of Indians)…you will be deliberately ruining the country.”
It took the efforts of Canadian Missionary Dr John Morton to free the children from forced bondage by setting up Canadian Mission Indian schools alongside Presbyterian churches.
That was the beginning of the upward mobility of the Indians and their first step to move from the periphery to the centre of society.
This digression in history is important.
In the 19th century Indian labour brought the plantations out of decline and Indians remained close to the land for generations. And their commitment to agriculture is what has kept the markets supplied. And it continues today.
So going back to India might give agriculture the boost it needs, but why go to India when you have a strong agriculture-based work force in the country today clamouring for farmland so they could feed themselves and their families?
What about the mass of Indians who are citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who have spent their lives feeding the nation? Why can’t they run the mega farms and develop agriculture? Why can’t the government give local Indian businessmen leases to land under the same terms that would be offered to Indians from India?
The answer is this: it’s bad for Manning’s politics.
He closed the sugar industry and put 10,000 families on the breadline, calling it the best decision he ever made.
That was a political decision aimed at destroying the opposition base. It’s been more than six years since he promised the former sugar workers small farms to develop agriculture as part of their severance agreement. In spite of a court ruling ordering the Government to hand out the farms the former Caroni workers are still waiting.
Yet we keep hearing about the need to develop agriculture. We hear about investing in Guyana; we hear the Cubans are coming. And now the Indians might be coming.
For generations the local farming community, dominated by descendants of the Indentured Indians, has suffered neglect from every government of Trinidad and Tobago.
Manning cannot give the farms to locals because he might offend his “constituency” while strengthening a voting block that has traditionally supported the opposition. He fears that former sugar workers might become a powerful army of agriculturalists and vote him out of office.
He cannot take that risk.
He told me in 1999 – and has said the same thing publicly – that his greatest mistake in his first administration (1991-1995) was that he didn’t take care of his people.
When I asked him what he meant he explained that “his people” were those who had been loyal to him and his party, not necessarily people of any one ethnic group. It amounts to the same thing.
He is determined to take care his “tribe”, which comprises people from the two founding groups. Political tribalism is not race-based but built on blind loyalty. That’s the constituency Manning can’t offend. They might pull back their support for him.
So he cannot and would not employ the ready, willing and able agricultural work force to create his mega farms. Instead he must keep them down. It’s a matter of political expediency. They are not from his “tribe”.
Manning has done everything to frustrate efforts of the farming community, including the mass of sugar workers who lost their jobs in his first strategic move after taking office following the 2002 general election.
And in the 2007 general election while the opposition campaigned to re-open the sugar industry as the base for a major agro-Industrial thrust, Manning said the industry would only be revived “over my dead body”.
He justified it by saying that the sugar industry would keep the children of sugar workers in servitude, that his vision is for them to move out of the agricultural sector and improve their lives.
Where does Manning live?
The Indians who slaved on the plantations worked hard to free their children from that scourge. Their children and children's children are the judges, lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, farmers and fishermen; they are the leaders and role models in every facet of national life.
They did it while their parents lived off the land, feeding them and the nation.
Perhaps somebody needs to tell Manning that Basdeo Panday, Noor Hassanali and Satnarine Sharma are products of the sugar and agriculture.
Manning's false notion that the plantations would condemn the children to “slavery” is bogus and dishonest.
In fact when he closed the sugar industry he was working hard at creating a community of dispossessed people. He was robbing them of their self-respect, their independence and their pride. And that is why he will not give them the land that is rightfully theirs.
And now he talks about importing Indians to do the same thing that nationals can do and are willing to do. It’s hypocrisy!
He’s doing it because expatriate Indians are not rooted in the community; they don’t have political allegiances and they are transients. They would have to live according to contractual rules and go home when they are no longer needed.
Why do you need a foreign work force and entrepreneurship class when you have them at home? It sounds like indentureship all over again. And it feels like history is repeating itself – first the Chinese, now the Indians.
Here are some questions that people must ask:
- Will Manning import individuals or families?
- Where are they going to live?
- Will their children go to school or be condemned to live like those who arrived in Trinidad under indentureship?
- How would you deal with the language barrier?
- What happens to them when they have toiled and created a vibrant agricultural sector?
- Who will inherit the farms they would build and nurture?
Manning probably knows the answer to all these already but he’s not going to tell you.
Perhaps you could look to Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe for some of the answers.
When Mugabe took charge as a populist former freedom fighter, he inherited a nation that was the breadbasket of the region. He allowed the white farmers to develop their holdings and create food stability.
Then he moved against them. He took their farms and handed them to his supporters, “his people”.
His shortsighted political strategy destroyed agriculture and the economy. Today Zimbabweans are starving; eight in every 10 people have no work. The economy has collapsed and inflation at more than one million per cent is the highest in the world.
I am often puzzled by the complacency of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and the silence of the politicians and other primary definers of society on critical national issues such as this one. But perhaps I am wrong. Or maybe "we like it so".
Jai Parasram | Toronto, Canada, Aug 02, 2008
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