It's Indian Arrival Day. We have every other day to "celebrate" Indian culture. Indian arrival day should be used to show the torment and pain indentured labourers experienced in their journey. The lies and death. The violence and rape. Stop invisibilizing that experience.

While some volunteered many were coerced, manipulated and decepted (especially women). Officials were paid more to recruit women so they used all means possible to get women.

They labelled women with sexual autonomy as "loose" and immoral to justify violence against them

Married women(in minority) came with their husbands. These "women" were actually children (child marriage). THESE WERE CHILDREN that were coming to work as indentured labourers

Because there was a shortage of women, they were able to choose which man they wanted when they arrived. If women were unhappy they would leave them for another man. This made Indian men angry and led to "wife murders" by cutlass.

On the journey women were physically and sexually assaulted by the captains and ship workers. They were forced to spend nights with them. If they didnt their lives were threatened.

These examples are just a selected few. The indentureship experience was TERRIBLE and HORRIFIC. It wasn't a easy breezy arrival like people make it out to be. It was brutal and gruesome. Tassa drums wasnt playing and Indian dancers weren't dancing on arrival.

If I had to recommend one book for further reading it would be Bahadur's Coolie Woman.

Let us also never compare indentureship to slavery and vice versa. THEY ARE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS. Pinning both against each other erases specific experiences of both Indo and Afro people.
Focus that energy on the real issue.
Our colonizers who oppressed and exploited us.