Indian Arrival Day in Suriname

 

On June 5, 1873, Lalla Rookh, a ship, landed on the shore of Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. On board the ship were 400 Indian indentured labourers, who became the first people of Indian origin to arrive in the then Dutch colony; the first of over 34000 that eventually arrived in Suriname between 1873 and 1916. The first 400, like the rest, were mostly poor, rural workers from modern day Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Tamil Nadu. These indentured labourers, brought on a contract, found themselves in gruelling conditions on sugarcane plantations thousands of miles away from home.

Descendants of these Indians now make up the single largest demographic in Suriname, accounting for 27.4% of the country’s population. These descendants of indentured labourers are no longer just that, as they now are politicians, artists, teachers, leaders, entrepreneurs, and more, having shaped Suriname’s national fabric. And hence, June 5, is etched into the cultural and emotional memory of the Indo-Surinamese population and is observed as Indian Arrival Day aka Prawas Din. Apart from Suriname, countries like Fiji (May 14), Grenada (May 1), Guyana (May 5), Jamaica (May 10), Mauritius (November 2), Saint Lucia (May 6), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (June 1), South Africa (November 16), Trinidad and Tobago (May 30), all have their own Indian Arrival Days.