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Her ancestors boarded a ship to the West Indies from Calcutta in the late 19th or early 20th Century. More than 150 years later, Kamla Persad Bissessar, the first woman Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, is eager to retrace the journey when she visits the city next Wednesday.
Bissessar believes her ancestors were kalkatiyas ' indentured labourers shipped to the West Indies from Calcutta to work in sugarcane plantations. More than 1,47,000 labourers, mostly from Bihar and eastern UP, made the journey to Nelson Island between 1845 and 1917. Those who left from Calcutta were called kalkatiyas while those who boarded ships from Chennai were named madrasis.
Bissessar, who landed in New Delhi on Thursday, is on a 10-day state visit to India. She will be the chief guest at this year's Pravasi Bharatiya Divas from January 7 to 9. But apart from meeting Indian leaders and attending conferences organised by industry chambers, Bissessar will make a journey to trace her roots.
The 60-year-old politician is eager to visit the port from where indentured labourers or girmitiyas were shipped. She will visit the Calcutta Memorial for indentured labourers on Wednesday, officials said.
Bissessar will also visit her relatives in her ancestral village Bhelupur in Buxar, Bihar. In Calcutta, she will also visit the Missionaries of Charity and Rabindra Bharati University.
The first ship to set sail for Trinidad with indentured labourers was the Fatel Razack or Fath Al Razack, meaning Victory of Allah the Provider, in February 1845. The ship was owned by an Indian merchant from Mumbai as British ship owners did not wish to be involved in slave trade after slavery was banned in 1834.
The ship reached Trinidad in May 1845. Even today, May 30 is observed as Indian Arrival Day ' a national holiday in Trinidad since 1994. A memorial has been built on Nelson Island in Trinidad. About 42 per cent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago comprises people of Indian origin.
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