T&T: Creole nationalism and Hindi

Read the whole. Much worth it.

The death of Indian languages here coincides with Independence, not with colonialism. Up to the 1940s, for instance, the colonial government in Trinidad regularly employed Hindi, Tamil, and French Creole translators for the courts. Many people in Trinidad up to that time were not comfortable speaking in English.

The Wood Commission Report of 1922 observed that Indians in Trinidad spoke no less than five Indian languages. But many people of all races were able to speak French Creole (patois), Spanish, Bhojpuri Hindi, and Trinidad English, if not also Portuguese, French, Arabic, Hakka, and Cantonese. This, of course, includes blacks speaking Hindi, and Indians speaking Spanish and patois. Calypsos were sung in patois.

Yet just a decade or so later, the situation was much different.

I locate the change in my parents' generation, most likely with the introduction of mass schooling in English in the 1950s. At that time operated a great Trinidad paradox: the less educated one was, the more languages one knew; the more educated you were, the less languages you knew.

This was related to the Afro-Saxon drive (shared by all groups, except perhaps the Anglo-Saxon and perhaps the French Creoles) for social mobility through mastery of British (and later, American) culture. If one admitted to knowing Hindi, one would be ostracised for being "coolie"; if one admitted to knowing French, as a "country bookie" or "small islander"; Spanish, a "cocoa payol"; and so forth.

This process would have intensified after Eric Williams came to power in 1956, as he denied Hindu and Muslim bodies permission to build any more schools, where the languages would have acquired more space and room to grow.

Williams personified the rise of Creole Nationalism, whose inclination was toward an ostensibly "Trinidadian culture", seeing ancestral cultures (Indian, African, and other) as alien. So things Indian (and African) were treated with a certain contempt in the official discourse. Ancestral cultures in general were seen as being backward, shameful, and a hindrance to progress. Trinidadians became obsessed with being "modern" and "up to date", like America. The Indian-based parties that challenged this idea were woefully inadequate, and thereby supported the prevailing prejudices. This legacy remains.