SURINAME - THE WEST INDIAN COUNTRY WHERE PEOPLE OF INDIAN ORIGIN WERE TAKEN TO WORK AS INDENTURED LABOURERS ON SUGAR PLANTATIONS

BY SUBRY GOVENDER During the recent visit of South Africa’s national cricket team to the West Indies – one would have noticed the number of Indian-origin spectators watching the matches along with their fellow black, white and mixed-race colleagues. The Indian-origin people are descendants of indentured labourers who were taken from various parts of India in the early 1800s to former colonies controlled by Britain, Holland and France. Some of the islands where Indian immigrants settled in large numbers are Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname. In 2009 I had the opportunity of talking to journalists from these countries and Mauritius, Malaysia and Fiji about the lives of Indian-origin people. I was part of a group of 19 Indian-origin journalists who attended a Pravasi Bharati Divas conference in Chennai in 2009. I have already done radio documentaries on Guyana, Fiji and Malaysia and in this episode, I have a prepared a radio documentary on the island of Suriname, which is a former Dutch colony. I spoke to journalist, Ms Indra Toelsie, who is a veteran journalist in the Suriname capital of Para Maribo, about Indian-origin people on the island.

(INDRA TOELSIE OF SURINAME IN BLACK SHORT AND PANTS WITH OTHER JOURNALISTS FROM THE INDIAN DIASPORA)