Indian Arrival Day

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Indian Arrival Day is a holiday celebrated on May 30 in Trinidad and Tobago each year since the 1990s. It commemorates the first arrivals from India to Trinidad, on May 30 1845, on the ship Fath Al Razak (Victory to Allah the Sustainer- it is commonly called Fatel Razack) or Fatel Rozack. The many versions of the spelling for this historic ship "Fatel Rozack" reflects the difficulties of pronunciation and transliteration of foreign and East Indian names in Trinidad (as with the street festival of "Muhurram" or "Hosay" and "Hussay"). There is less disagreement that 30 May 1945 represents East Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad, and that the ship which brought them over was their equivalent of the Mayflower (of North American and Massachusetts Colony fame).^[1]

Indian Arrival Day was first celebrated in Skinner Park, San Fernando, as the East Indian Centenary on May 30, 1945(1) which marked the hundredth anniversary of the coming of Indians to Trinidad.

By the 1950s, the East Indians who followed the Fatel Rozack as immigrants to Trinidad were brought over not free immigrants and farmers, but as "coolies." Indentured labourers

After the 1945 Centenary extravaganza, however, the celebration of the anniversary of May 30 gradually declined. By the early seventies only the Hindu group the Divine Life Society of Chaguanas was staging an annual procession and ceremony under the name Indian Emigration Day.

By 1977 when even the Divine Life Society's annual march had been discontinued, an Indian activist group called the Indian Revival and Reform Association (IRRA) set up a small committee to revive the event.

The next year 1979, the IRRA committee moved to expand the celebration. It decided to contact existing Indian organizations for support and started with the nearest, the largest Hindu group, the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS), which was headquartered in St. Augustine. The Maha Sabha agreed to host a large public celebration on May 30, 1979 at its headquarters, with the committee providing publicity and promotion. During discussions between the committee and the Maha Sabha the point was made that Indians were no longer emigrants to Trinidad, and the name Indian Emigration Day was no longer valid. It was changed to Indian Arrival Day to show that it referred to the anniversary date of the coming of Indians to Trinidad. The committee changed its name to the Indian Arrival Day Committee.

On the 150th anniversary of Indian arrival, then Prime Minister Patrick Manning declared it a one time national holiday, but decided to call it Arrival Day,leaving out the word Indian. The government's position was that the holiday should celebrate the arrival of all ethnic groups in the country and not Indians alone. This caused considerable anger in the Indian community and most of the Indian organizations continued to celebrate Indian Arrival Day in 1995. Indian commentators argued that Indian Arrival Day had been a community festival for many years, and that the government had no authority to change the name. The controversy was short lived, for soon afterwards the new prime minister Basdeo Panday made May 30 a permanent public holiday as Indian Arrival Day. Some elements in Trinidad have continued to make attempts to revert to Arrival Day but without much success.

Since its establishment in Trinidad, Indian Arrival Day has given rise to similar celebrations in Guyana, Jamaica, Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia.