Bihar resonates in PM Narendra Modi's Trinidad and Tobago speech

Talks of cultural connect, creating database for Girmitiya community

Bihar, which is due for Assembly elections by November this year, found frequent mentions during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day long visit to Trinidad and Tobago, which concluded on Friday with him leaving for Buenos Aires, the third stop of his five-nation tour.

 

The Prime Minister (PM) is scheduled to spend two days in Argentina, the first bilateral visit by a serving Indian PM in 57 years, and crucial for India’s search for critical minerals and energy sources. He will reach Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, on Monday to attend the Brics summit, followed by a visit to Brasilia, in Brazil, for a bilateral meeting with Brazilian President Lula da Silva.

 

 

Addressing an Indian diaspora event in Port of Spain on Friday, Modi said: “The ancestors of many people present here came from Bihar. The heritage of Bihar is the pride of not only India but the world as well.” He said that the ancestors of his Trinidad & Tobago counterpart, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, were from the eastern Indian state. 

 

Modi said the Trinidad Prime Minister had even visited the state, and people in India considered her the “daughter of Bihar”.

 

Modi’s X post about the cultural connect between the two countries was in English and Bhojpuri, spoken widely in Bihar and also by the Indian community in the Caribbean nation.

 

“Very happy to have witnessed a Bhojpuri Chautaal performance in Port of Spain. The connection between Trinidad & Tobago and India, especially parts of eastern UP and Bihar is noteworthy,” he said after watching a musical performance.

 

Indians from various parts of the country were sent to the West Indies and South Africa as indentured labour, which was not much different from slavery.

 

Modi also posted on X pictures from a dinner that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar hosted, serving food on a Sohari leaf. He said the Sohari leaf was of great cultural significance to the people of Trinidad & Tobago, especially those with Indian roots. Sohari is a Bhojpuri word.

 

In his address at the diaspora event, the PM said: “Be it democracy, politics, diplomacy, higher education ... Bihar had shown a new direction to the world in many such subjects centuries ago.” He said that new inspirations and new opportunities “will emerge from the land of Bihar for the 21st-century world”.

 

Modi’s was the first bilateral by an Indian PM to Trinidad and Tobago since 1999.

 

Modi said India was working on creating a comprehensive database of the Girmitiya community. It will support the deep and historical ties with “our brothers and sisters in Trinidad and Tobago as well”, he said. “Our decision on the sixth generation of the Indian diaspora in Trinidad & Tobago being issued OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India) cards will strengthen their connection to India and preserve our shared heritage for future generations,” the PM posted on X. 

 

Relations between India and Trinidad & Tobago go back to May 30, 1845, when the first ship, the Fatel Razack, carrying 225 Indian indentured workers reached the shores of Trinidad, then a British colony. Their numbers increased with subsequent arrival of more ships from India till 1917. The descendants of those indentured workers, now in their fifth or sixth generation, form 40-45 per cent of the population of 1.36 million (2024), constituting an integral part of the economic, political, and social fabric of the country. This year, the diaspora is celebrating 180 years of the arrival of the first group of their ancestors.

 

The PM’s visit to Argentina comes at a time when the country is undertaking major economic reforms somewhat similar to those India went through in the past, said the secretary (east) in the Ministry of External Affairs, P Kumaran, at a briefing in New Delhi on Monday.

 

Argentina holds the world's second-largest shale gas reserves and the fourth-largest shale oil reserves along with substantial conventional oil and gas deposits.

 

“It makes Argentina a potentially important energy partner for India in the future,” Kumaran said.

 

Argentina's rich reserves of critical minerals such as lithium, copper, and other rare-earth elements complement India's growing need for secure and sustainable supplies to these elements for its clean energy transition and industrial growth, he said.