Who is popular today?

Jerome Teelucksingh

THE EMERGENCE of Black Power in the US during the 1960s signified a struggle to reclaim authority, power, identity and respect. Black Power in the US was a response to many years of racism faced by African Americans and that turbulent era was marked by discontent with the “establishment” and rejection of conventional politics.
Next month is the 54th anniversary of the 1970 Black Power Revolution in TT.
The younger generation might ask: what is Black Power?
The term is subject to differing interpretations.
In 1970, Brinsley Samaroo, an Indo-Trinidadian and participant in Black Power, viewed it as “part of a worldwide struggle for awareness among black people, seeks to revive our folklore which the British banned as primitive, our art and our customs brought by our forefathers...It is seeking to make the black man aware of himself and of his capacities and thus enable him to take his future in his own hands and not trust it to people who still doubt that any black man has talent.”
During the late 1960s and 1970s, Black Power appealed to a wide cross-section of the public. In TT, the Black Power movement highlighted the economic problems, racism, and social crisis facing TT. This included removal of restrictions from certain jobs and reduction of the racial tension between Afro-Trinidadians and Indo-Trinidadians.
The presence of Indo-Trinidadians (East Indians) in the Black Power movement has generated considerable debate. Members of the public would be familiar with some participants as Chan Maharaj, Basdeo Panday and Winston Leonard. Dr Ken Parmasad, a former lecturer in the History Department at UWI, St Augustine, and one of the Indians involved in 1970, acknowledged the perception that whilst the demonstrations and platform speeches reflected a desire for unity between East Indians and Africans, “the cultural symbols which dominated the movement were black/African.”
In 1970, Samaroo noted that the majority of Indians did not want to be identified as "black." He also stated that the Indo-Trinidadian did not feel welcome in the Black Power movement because wearing the dashiki was associated with Africa and the symbol of the clenched fist was taken from the Black Panthers, an Afro-American group, in the US.
Shiva Naipaul, brother of VS Naipaul, in an interview in March 1970, contended that the role of the Indian within the Black Power movement was "vaguely defined."
Prof John La Guerre revealed that the Society for the Propagation of Indian Culture (SPIC) was formed in 1969 as a reaction to the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) and its promotion of African culture. La Guerre contended that the main objective of SPIC “…was to warn the ideologues of Black Power that their views of the Indian community should not be based on the small class of educated elites.
"The foreign-educated Indian intelligentsia, they argued, were marginal to the villages.” Parmasad, one of the young members of SPIC, identified the pivotal role of SPIC in ensuring the Caroni March was successful.
On March 12, 1970, the much anticipated Caroni March materialised, which covered 33 miles from Port of Spain in the north to Couva in central. These were minor but vital signs of unity, as fewer than 100 East Indians were present in an estimated crowd of 5,000-10,000. Prior to the march, there were rumours that it would result in robberies and rapes among Indians in Caroni.
During the first leg of the journey, the marchers passed in front of the home of Bhadase Sagan Maharaj, an Indo-Trinidadian, in Champs Fleurs, where he was seated in his garden with a rifle surrounded by security guards. Bhadase was the president general of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Union, and this march threatened his political and ethnic bases. Maharaj was also prominent in the Hindu community.
At the Curepe junction, some university students joined the marchers. The final phase occurred along the Southern Main Road toward Caroni. A pledge was taken by the marchers “not to harm our Indian brothers but to take positive action against all who we deem responsible.”
There were a few myths and rumours circulating in 1970 which contributed to the fears among both major races. Dr Walton Look Lai noted that two of the myths were that the Indo-Caribbean is financially better off than the Afro-Caribbean, and, secondly, that the Indo-Caribbean needed to abandon their culture and heritage if there was any possibility of racial unity and solidarity.
The post Indians and Black Power appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.