The Indian Arrival Day is a holiday celebrated on various days in the nations of the Caribbean and the island nation of Mauritius, usually commemorating the arrival of people from the Indian subcontinent to that nation as indentured labour brought by British colonial authorities and their agents.
In Guyana, the holiday is celebrated on May 5 commemorating the first arrival of indentured labourers from India to the country, on May 8, 1838. On this day, the workers arrived in Guyana to work in sugar plantations. Their descendants today comprise 44 percent of Guyana’s population of over 750,000.
In Mauritius, the holiday is celebrated on November 2 to commemorate the arrival of Indian labourers. In Trinidad and Tobago, the holiday is celebrated on May 30 each year since the 1990s. Suriname celebrates June 5 as Indian Arrival Day. Jamaica, an island country celebrates the Indian Arrival Day or Landing Day celebrations on May 8.
May 14 is marked as Indian Arrival Day in Fiji as well as Girmit Day. On 14 May 1879, a ship called the “Leonidas” arrived in Fiji carrying the first wave of indentured laborers from India. The system of bringing people as indentured laborers came to be widely known as ‘Girmit’ which is actually a mispronunciation of the word ‘agreement’ by the non-English speaking Indian laborers.
Indians celebrate Indian Arrival Day on May 5. It is to remember the arrival of the first two indentured Indian cargo ships to the New World, the Whitby and the Hesperus in 1838.
A huge number of the Indian population was shipped to various parts of the world as indentured labor by powerful European authorities. As a result, various countries have a sizable chunk of their population attributed to Indians even to this day. Since its establishment in Trinidad, Indian Arrival Day has given rise to similar celebrations in various countries.
Source: The Hans India
