Kowsilla, Guyanese Labor Activist Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice

Rajkumari Singh, Guyanese Cultural Heroine

[RE-POSTED FROM WRITING THE LINES OF OUR HANDS BLOG--This blog was created to chronicle the publication progress of Writing the Lines of Our Hands: An Anthology of South Asian American Poetry, to provide a forum for conversation and support among the authors of this anthology, and to facilitate conversations about writing by South Asian Americans.] 


Sasha Kamini Parmasad was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, began writing poetry as a child, and was actively involved in the performing arts on a national scale from the age of six. She lived with her family in New Delhi, India, between 1988-1992. She received her B.A. in English Literature and Studio Art at Williams College, Massachusetts, in 2002, and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Columbia University, New York, in 2008. Her first novel, Ink and Sugar, which is a work in progress, won third place in the long fiction category in the First Words Literary Contest for South Asian Writers in Washington D. C. in 2003. In April 2008 her paintings were exhibited at the second annual Indo-Caribbean Women’s Empowerment Summit in Queens, New York, co-sponsored by Sakhi for South Asian Women and Jahajee Sisters: Empowering Indo-Caribbean Women. One of her poems was the winner of the 2008 Poetry International competition, and will be published in the next issue of Poetry International. At present she lives in New York City where she teaches a Creative Writing Workshop to undergraduates at Columbia University.

Q: Name one collection of poetry that you wish you had written and why.

Somewhere in Caroni, Central Trinidad: an overgrown hunk of land on which, at one time, stood a wooden shed that concealed a crude underground room. Secreted in this room, the story goes, a manual printing press used to publish clandestine papers distributed among workers and farmers engaged in struggle throughout Trinidad. The world as text, and action as writing, this is the book I would have liked to have written.
But the boundaries of this plot of land are no longer clear; the underground room has, perhaps, long filled with water and caved in.

Q: Describe the place/physical location where you write most regularly.

A room in our apartment. My husband, Mandip, moved in when I was in Trinidad, set up my desk here because I like to write in spaces that crow with direct morning light. Paradoxically, I keep the curtains and shades mostly drawn so that grey days don’t dampen, or bright days blot out the world at my fingertips. I face my desk away from the windows for the same reason. But I like to know, especially in winter, that there is light at my back; to watch it brush my computer screen, smear the wall in front me.

On that wall, a picture of my parents, sister, myself taken in 1988, as we prepared to leave Trinidad for India—my father was on his way to study cultural history at Jawaharlal Nehru University and we would live on that campus for four years. It was a staggering journey—back to the land from which our ancestors had been taken one hundred and forty-three years before, which generations before us had never seen. Beside this picture, a copy of The 23rd Psalm gifted me by my maternal grandmother, Soobratan, who in part raised me; observing her I learnt, to my especial delight as a child, Spanish, patois and Bhojpuri swear words, how to kill and clean a chicken, eat rice and dal with my fingers. Descending from a long Muslim line, she declares herself a Khan, is a member of the choir of the Presbyterian Church she has belonged to for more than three decades, and prays to Shiva alongside her Hindu grandchildren. Beside this, the fragment of an Indian-Trinidadian Bhojpuri song written and performed by my paternal grandfather, Ramsaran, in the 1930s, in honor of Uriah Butler, a labour leader of that time: Uriah Butler garibo ke khaatir, apne praan ko khelgayaa.

Beneath these images, binders that contain, like the file cabinets lining the adjacent wall, material relevant to my teaching and ongoing writing projects: my notes on literary texts; writing exercises; historical material accessed through archives, libraries, museums, cultural organizations; clippings from Trinidadian and American newspapers; academic essays; information relating to the Indian diaspora, particularly the old plantation diaspora; interviews with elders in the village of sugarcane workers and farmers in which I grew up; drafts of pieces of writing; video footage from a rapidly changing Trinidad that I hope, at some point, to edit, compose – in the vein of my earlier video-work – into sequences of visual poems.

I have not yet been able to unlearn the idiosyncratic method of typing I developed at college (I didn’t know how to type when I left Trinidad), so we’ve had a wooden stand constructed for my laptop which has saved me from many a neck crick. Tucked beneath this, books I’ve been jumping between: Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power, Hugh Tinker’s A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1830-1920, Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners, Michael Ondaatje, Grace Paley, Nikolai Leskov, Charles Simic, an anthology of Caribbean short stories. More books and material of current interest on either side of the stand, piled atop the file cabinets, beside a corner shelf reserved for Caribbean literature, texts about Trinidad and Tobago.

On the desk, apart from books: cups of pens, a lamp—unspecial, but familiar. Up into the cubby-holes: journals I jot ideas in, literary magazines, junky things I resist discarding. The post-it notes stuck to the edge of the desk guide my writing like that broken line down the centre of the road. Higher up, a printer, speakers for music, folders, books: a collection of postwar Polish poetry edited by Milosz, poetry by Muriel Rukeyser, Jeremy Cronin, Dennis Brutus, Lorna Goodison, Martin Carter, Mahadai Das, Wislawa Szymborska, my father—Kenneth Parmasad, fiction by Tagore, Harold Sonny Ladoo; a dictionary, thesaurus, a brass murti of Saraswati I acquired on what I remember to be my first visit to an Indian-Caribbean temple in Queens, old bangles, photographs. It’s been over a year since I assessed the items on these upper shelves; they are footprints in dried mud.

I didn’t develop the practice of writing at a desk, in a closed room, facing a wall, until I left Trinidad to attend college. When I visit Trinidad I still like to write outside, by hand, or drag my small desk, if it’s not raining, into the upstairs porch with its view of the Northern mountain range, this Tanty watering her plants, that one sweeping the gap in front ofher house, the boys playing cricket in the road. I am not sensitive to shifts in light there.

Q: What South Asian themes are you interested in exploring in your work?

Cities of the Dead, according to its author, Joseph Roach, “shows how the memories of some particular times and places have become embodied in the through performances.” Roach further states: “…the voices of the dead may speak freely now only through the bodies of the living.”

In the Caribbean, Indian indentureship ended decades ago.

Sugarcane plantations are no more.

The government of Trinidad and Tobago announced last January that 2007 would mark the end of the sugarcane industry in the island—a watershed period in Trinidad’s history and, particularly, the history of the Indian community in Trinidad for, since 1845, when Indian indentured labourers were brought to the island to toil in conditions of bondage on plantations, the lives of masses of Indians, sugarcane workers and farmers, have been intimately tied to and dependent on the fortunes of sugar.

So much has changed, and yet, so much remains the same.

Though Indian-Trinidadians constitute half the population of Trinidad and have shaped and given their lives to that place for almost two hundred years, they are still called “East Indian” in that context—the same term used to describe them in colonial documents; it appears beside that other acceptable colonial designation, “coolie” (a derogatory term comparable to “nigger”). Many Indian-Trinidadians have also come to refer to themselves as “East Indian”. In Trinidad, I might be called an East Indian, West Indian. Here, in the United States, filling out official forms in different contexts, I have often had to choose between the categories: South Asian, Black/Caribbean. When, in one instance, I chose Black/Caribbean, the officer behind the desk took one look at me and said that I had to identify myself as South Asian. When I told her that I was both Indian and Caribbean – that my ancestors had lived in Trinidad for almost two hundred years – she shrugged. “You’re not black,” she said. Interestingly, the Black/Caribbean or Black/West Indian equation is also present in much American social scientific writing.

When I write, I think of these things—of the indelible marks left on us by history—how the voices of the dead continue to speak through the bodies of the living. I think of the contestation that exists between humankind and history: how we strive to be makers of history as history simultaneously makes us. I think of a Trinidadian sugarcane farmer – I will call her, Radha – who, in the political struggle waged by small sugarcane farmers in the 1970s to repeal an oppressive piece of Trinidadian legislation, pushed a policeman’s gun out of her face and asked: “Why you pointing a gun at me for? This is a peaceful struggle we having here.” I think of the Guyanese sugarcane worker and political organizer, Kowsilla (aka Alice), who became a martyr in 1964 when an estate scab drove a tractor through her, severing her body in two. I think of an Indian-Jamaican friend of mine, the descendant of indentured laborers, who walks into a room at a Massachusetts college where her friends (whose parents hark from South Asia) are sharing “Indian-Indian” food, hears the word, “aloo”, and bursts into an excited torrent of questions. What does the word mean, she asks urgently, what does it mean; for her grandmother in Jamaica used to use it, but the old woman is now dead and that word, dead with her, so what does it mean? Her friends, laughing incredulously, tell her: potato. She, clutching the word, fills with tears. Around the word, aloo, lit on a stage, I picture a space so dark with eroded sound, image, that the absence seems to shriek.

On May 26th, we [Sakhi for South Asian Women] co-sponsored the Indo-Caribbean Women’s Empowerment Summit in Richmond Hill, Queens as part of our Communities Taking Charge campaign. Over 50 women from the Richmond Hill community came together to share their stories and explore patriarchy, domestic violence and how to take action against injustice. The following is an article written by a community member who attended the event.

:: By Suzanne Persard, Attendee ::

Purpose of the Summit

Resilience. Strength. Change. These are just a few of the words that echoed throughout Richmond Hill Library on April 26, 2008 at the second annual 2008 Indo-Caribbean Women’s Empowerment Summit. The event was co-sponsored by Sakhi for South Asian Women and the budding Indo-Caribbean Women’s Group. Four generations of women gathered to participate in a series of discussions and workshops addressing issues affecting Indo-Caribbean women, particularly engaging in conversations about institutionalization of patriarchy and domestic violence.

In the Caribbean community, Indians have endured a history of being marginalized; within this marginalization, women have been further relegated to inhabiting a space of silence. This year’s summit was an endeavor to sever this history of oppression within our communities, to make those voices that have been silenced heard, and to transform this cycle of oppression into a collective strength of empowerment for women to exercise within their own lives.

A Tribute

The summit featured a tribute to poet, artist, and political activist Rajkumari Singh (1923-1979), whose efforts have made an indelible contribution to Indo-Caribbean culture. Diagnosed with polio at age 6, Singh’s commitment to both the artistic and political spheres in Guyana bolstered her position as a prominent figure in the country, as she prevailed over traditional gender roles to become one of the country’s first published poets and female activists. To honor her legacy, her daughter, Pritha Singh, and granddaughter, Sharda Shakti Singh, performed creative dialogues invoking different moments in the elder Singh’s life. Also in tribute to Rajkumari, Kavita Tajeshwar performed a classical Kathak dance invocation and Simone Jhingoor shared a very moving poem.

Organization and Message

The event was primarily led and organized by Simone Jhingoor, Sakhi Volunteer Coordinator Shivana Jorawar, and Taij Kumarie Moteelall, with vital support from Sasha Parmasad and Sakhi volunteers Jacqueline Latif and Shabana Sharif. Shivana and Sakhi Domestic Violence Program Advocate Fatma Zahra led a workshop on domestic violence which entailed breaking participants into groups and asking them for examples of various types of abuse. A workshop on deconstructing patriarchy was led by Simone, who asked attendees to describe the male-dominated power system. Within workshop discussions, dialogues ensued about the manipulation of religion to oppress women, the role of immigration status in influencing a women’s decision to report abuse to authorities (immigration status has no bearing on the right to access safety), and the stigma associated with domestic violence survivors and their families.

Purvi Shah, Executive Director at Sakhi, spoke about Sakhi’s mission as an organization committed to ending domestic violence within the South Asian and South Asian diasporic communities. Purvi remarked upon the fact that the Indo-Caribbean diaspora was a demographic within the scope of Sakhi’s programming, adding that Sakhi would like to see continued involvement from Indo-Caribbean community. She also stated that reports of domestic violence to Sakhi have more than tripled in the past six years, a factor the organization attributes to the increase in reported domestic violence incidents by survivors and their loved ones, rather than an increase in the number of incidences themselves.

Dialogue Across Generations

The summit included two inter-generational panels, consisting of a representative from each of the four generations of women present, which discussed progressive women’s issues and the extent to which they have evolved within a contemporary climate. Women who came of age decades earlier expressed their struggle to access education in eras when it was regarded as superfluous for women. Gender inequalities that have remained in a patriarchal system continue to promote the intellectual authority of men over women. Women were also vocal about the expectations many families have once women are married, notably that they must choose to be subservient wives, bear the responsibility of heading their households, and ultimately forsake their independence for the sake of their husbands and children. A number of women recounted narratives of experiencing domestic violence in their own families or in the lives of their friends, while others shared stories about their personal experiences with having to rise up against patriarchal powers.

Yet these stories evoked anything but hopelessness or yielding to the status quo; instead, women collaborated about ways to transform the stigmas associated with domestic violence in the Indo-Caribbean community and society-at-large, providing advice to their fellow sisters about how to combat the perpetuation of patriarchal oppression that has overshadowed our culture. Many women were vocal about their personal refusal to accept domestic violence as an acknowledged cultural concession, affirming their own stance against even the possibility of domestic violence within their own marriages. Among the ideas suggested for social transformation within the community were conducting a summit for Indo-Caribbean men and conducting more summit-like meetings for Indo-Caribbean women. Women in attendance affirmed that while ousting the historical presence of patriarchy was vital to the social evolution of the community, supplanting it with a matriarchy was not necessarily the answer to combating oppression; instead, gender equality would provide an opportunity to cultivate more stable households, and consequently, more stable communities.

Spirit of Solidarity

Packets distributed to attendees included inspirational poems, historical information about the migration of Indians to the Caribbean, and worksheets for fostering self-empowerment. Taij closed the ceremony with words of encouragement and solidarity, challenging the women in attendance to leave for the day with an introspective reevaluation of their lives and their place in the Indo-Caribbean community. She was joined by Sasha, who led the women in a chant resonating throughout the summit’s walls: “Warrior woman, raise your fist up high, liberation is a state of mind!”