Continuity and Change

Aug 22, 2010 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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The commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Arya Samaj movement is a reminder, not only of the continuous changes that all social groups undergo, but also that some of those changes are the result of directed action. The Hindus that arrived from India between 1838 and 1917 (86% of those immigrants) were snatched from an environment that had sustained their way of life within institutions that were literally all-encompassing. Seismic changes were engendered in their new locale.
On the sugar plantations of Guyana, the structure of logies catered for nuclear families rather than their familiar extended families; women worked in the fields and earned wages just as the men; communication now had to be in a new language, English – with all that implied for introducing new (and subverting old) concepts; with only one day off from work (Sunday) the familiar round of daily observances of the Hindu calendar had to be squeezed into that day; the congregational worship pattern of the Christians became the norm; the elaborate jati work specialization that undergirded the caste system was definitely undermined now that everyone laboured in the fields,.
But as the community gradually re-established itself – when more than three-quarters of the immigrants chose to remain in Guyana – there were inevitable forces that attempted to re-create the system that had existed back in India. While the overall caste system was definitely destabilised, the strong pressures to observe the obligatory life-cycle rituals – especially marriage and death – in addition to the traditional worship of Deities, ensured the survival of the priest or purohit.
Since it was those from the Brahmin caste that generally had knowledge (fragmentary as it might often be) of the sacred invocations (mantras) for these rituals, the hereditary aspect of this function quickly re-established itself. The dearth of women occasioned by the planters’ calculations on productive labour assisted in the perpetuation of child-marriage (even as it ensured widow re-marriage). The need for labour also facilitated the reluctance of Hindu parents to educate their children in general and their daughters in particular. And so on. Continuity and change.
Back in India, reacting to British/Christian criticism of the Hindu way of life, in 1875 Swami Dayanand had launched a movement – the Arya Samaj – in North India (from where most of the immigrants to Guyana originated). While some may complain that in addressing the Christian critique, he reformulated Hinduism in the image of Christianity – one book (the Vedas), one God (formless); no hereditary caste; no idol worship; etc – the social innovations he stressed in his 10 principles did at least address the grim reality into which India had plunged.
Just as importantly, the Arya Samaj, demonstrated that contrary to the Macaulay’s dismissal, India had a long and glorious history and that much of the social degradations that characterised the then India had been caused by foreign –especially British – invasions. The Swami was one of the first to demand “Swaraj” – Independence of India from British rule, and this stance characterised the early leadership of the Samaj.
It is thus not a coincidence that the occasion that is being commemorated as forming the beginning of the Arya Samaj in Guyana, was the visit of a prominent Indian freedom fighter – Bhai Parmanand in 1910. He had been imprisoned by the British for “subversive” activities and had staged a famous escape. While there must have been some immigrants that had been exposed to the views of the Samaj, Parmanand’s arrival sparked interest in the reforms – especially in the small group of educated Indians of the time. More organised work took off in 1929 under the tutelage of a Vedic missionary – Mehta Jaimini – who also visited Trinidad.
This work was carried to its zenith under the sustained efforts of another youthful and vigorous missionary, Professor Bhaskaranand MA, LLB, between 1936 and 1945. Bhaskaranand commuted between Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname and by the time he left (he was to return periodically in the fifties), the Arya Samaj was firmly established in each of those countries. V.S. Naipaul has famously written about the agitation in the Hindu community in Trinidad during the thirties – when among others, his father adopted the tenets of the Samaj.
In retrospect, the Samaj greatest contribution was to precipitate that great debate in the wider Hindu society about the fundamentals of its religious and social practices. Today there would scarce be a Hindu in the Caribbean that would deny the Samaj’s central claims, even as the latter have moved recently to validate their founder’s fundamental position that his intent was not to found a new religion but simply to remove inappropriate accretions. The first generation of Samajists (including my father) were famously argumentative – groomed as they were by Bhaskaranand, who had been trained (as was Swami Dayanand) in the ancient Indian Nayya mode of argumentation that enjoined “cavilling”. Today’s leaders, such as Dr Satish Prakash, are much more conciliatory as they seek to retool the Samaj for the 21st century.
The social and political awareness fostered by the Arya Samaj movement ensured that its members were in the forefront of the modern political struggle in Guyana, which was initiated in the late forties. The strongest early Arya groups were located on the East Coast of Demerara and it from this district that Dr. Cheddi Jagan was to secure some of his staunchest second tier of leadership. Pandit Sama Persaud from Buxton was one of the most prominent, and in 1953, he was made a PPP Senator for his contributions and his leadership. Dr. Jagan also acknowledged the contributions of the youthful Balram Singh Rai towards his election to Parliament in 1947. Rai, of course, was to famously become Minister of Education and the first Minister of Home Affairs in the PPP governments of 1957-1964. There were numerous other Samajists in the PPP, such as Pt Ramlall who was imprisoned at Sibley Hall in the ‘60s and Pt Budhram Mahadeo who headed the RPA between 1964-1992.
Today as Guyana, like every other society, faces the challenge posed by “modernity”, it is our hope that the Arya Samaj will continue to perform its vanguard role.

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