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Jun 29, 2008 Features / Columnists, The Arts Forum
Today’s column brings you another Episode in an article by Professor Emeritus Kenneth Ramchand. The first Episode was published three Sundays ago.
Professor Ramchand first introduced the study of West Indian Literature to The University of the West Indies after his seminal doctoral thesis, The West Indian Novel and its Background (1970).
INDIAN EPISODES FOR ARRIVAL DAY
Professor Emeritus Kenneth Ramchand
EPISODE IV: Bechu the Bound-Coolie Radical
One strand of the lost literature of the West Indies that is twice lost is the writing in English of people of Indian origin before the emergence of Seepersad Naipaul.
There was in fact an Indian Press consisting of newspapers and magazines owned and run by Indians [in Trinidad] beginning with The Indian Koh-I-Noor Gazette that ran from 1898 to 1899 and The Spectator, one of the longest running and the most recent, edited and published from 1948 to 1965.
Between these two organs there were at least ten others that provided a platform for Indian self-expression in English [in Trinidad] and for the discussion of ideas in politics, culture, education and nationality.
A literary magazine, The Minerva Review, was taken notice of by intellectuals and artists of The Beacon with which it is contemporaneous.
In these publications can be traced the evolution of Trinidadian Indian consciousness and sensibility; the evolution of the journalism that produced a Chokolingo and Seepersad Naipaul; the creative writing in the newspapers that helped us to invent the tradition that produced Selvon and the Naipauls.
This lost, sometimes deliberately ignored, literature incidentally puts paid to the myth of the lack of Indian involvement in politics before the 1950s, and the slur in some of the history books that their interest was not nationalist.
Even before The Indian Koh-I-Noor, Indians were being written about and were writing for themselves in the established newspapers like The Port of Spain Gazette and The San Fernando Gazette.
What was happening in Trinidad was also happening in British Guiana (Guyana). There were many letters in the non-Indian press written by Indians who apparently could write English and who were concerned about their identity and the identities that were being ascribed to them. One such writer was the remarkable and controversial Bechu who was born in India around 1860. What we know about Bechu comes from a biography of the indentured Indian by Professor Clem Seecharan: Bechu – ‘Bound Coolie’ Radical in British Guiana 1894-1901 (1999).
In India, Bechu lived for 16 years in the home of a missionary lady who educated him, and apparently spent 18 years working with people like her.
He was one of the first Presbyterian Indians. How such an educated and literate person was persuaded to indenture himself it is difficult to work out. He himself says little more than that he fell on hard times. For whatever reasons, he came to British Guiana on the clipper ship Sheila in 1894.
There was not a sound from him till the 1896 shooting of Indian labourers at Plantation Non Pareil, near Enmore, on the east coast of Demerara, British Guiana.
Then began a series of letters to the colony’s newspapers, beginning December 22, in The Daily Chronicle. Every aspect of the indenture condition and every abuse were written about by Bechu — he was always putting people in the papers. He left for England presumably in 1901.
Bechu came to the attention of the planter class who wrote replies to him and even wondered if he was really an Indian. In the following extract, Bechu shows his literary skills, his power over the epistolary form, his wit, and his understanding and experience of the indenture system. He invented a dialogue with ‘Planter’ that ‘Planter’ would never have engaged in face to face.
Bechu to the Editor, The Daily Chronicle:
I am sorry to encroach on your valuable space again, but as no one is in a better position than myself, to answer ‘Planter’s’ queries, you will perhaps allow me to give him all the information he seeks.
Why ‘Planter’ should take such a deep interest in me ‘passeth knowledge’ but in the hope that he will manage to scrape up enough coin to buy up my time and pay my passage back to India, I gladly furnish him with the under-mentioned particulars, free! gratis!! and for nothing!!! I am, Sir, etc, BECHU, Indentured Immigrant, Sheila, 1894 Pln. Enmore, EC, 11th January 1897.
Planter: Who is Bechu?
Bechu: A queer looking specimen of – it is believed – the human race, (but evidently of the rarest description) because when I was (not many years ago) exhibited in the Calcutta ‘Zoo’, most people, naturalists included, were ready to swear, for true, that I was the ‘Missing Link,’ but since there was no Darwin to declare me to be the Simon pure, I unfortunately lost my chance of making a fortune. What would that eminent professor not have given, to have had, just one wee glimpse of me before he departed from these earthly scenes of his labours?
Planter: Is he really an indentured immigrant?
Bechu: Really, indeed, and unfortunately so.
Planter: What was his cost to Enmore?
Bechu: Nil. The colony I understand bore the entire cost of my introduction
Planter: Does he do any fieldwork?
Bechu: No, I am a domestic animal, but my bosses are gentlemen, and don’t treat me as if I were: ‘A little better than their dog. A little dearer than their horse.’
Planter: How do his earnings compare with his contract?
Bechu: Favourably. I get my just and lawful due, viz: one shilling per diem. (This circumstance does not, however, prevent me from crying for justice on behalf of my dumb-driven brethren, who, at times, being unable to plead their cause, foolishly take the law into their own hands.)
Planter: Where does he obtain files of English daily papers, and when time to read them?
Bechu: 1. Vide Daily Chronicle of 14th Dec last [in fact, the 15th], as to how I manage to get a squint at newspapers. (It is to be hoped ‘Planter’ has missed no copies from his files.)
2. Those who have a desire to improve themselves always make the time to do so, besides, why should I not have plenty of time to read, seeing I am an indentured immigrant, and am bound, by law, to serve only seven hours out of the 24.
Planter: If Bechu is a real live indentured coolie, it strikes me that he has had the agent in Calcutta on toast.
Bechu: It is a positive fact that I am a real, live animal. And what is more surprising, I am allowed to go unchained. For a reply to the latter part of this question, I beg to refer ‘Planter’ to the veteran Agent in India, who doubtless, will be better able to answer it than I.
Planter: He is far better educated than most of us are, at all events, in some respects.
Bechu: I don’t know about being far better educated, but the little I know is due to my having taken advantage of my opportunities when young. If it is possible to educate monkeys why should not the ‘connecting link’ between man and him be taught as well? If ‘Planter’ is death on education he should lose no time to shut up schools and do away with Education Commissions, else, in course of time, he will find ‘too much educated coolymans’ in this colony, it strikes me.
Planter: What the dickens has he come here for?
Bechu: For the same reason ‘Planter’ and other colonists have come, viz, to earn my living.
Planter: The kindest thing that could be done for him would be to ship him back to India, where his talents might be more appreciated.
Bechu: If I could get the chance of getting back to India now, I dare say after all I have seen in this colony, I could be of more service there, to my brethren, than I ever will be here, If ‘Planter’ has more money than brains, and would be so kind as to buy up my time, and pay my passage back to Calcutta, I promise faithfully to return by the next mail, and he may depend upon it, that, till my dying day, I shall, without fail, pray for his health, wealth, long life and prosperity.
The full length of this essay appears in The Arts Journal Volume 4 Numbers 1 & 2 to be released shortly
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