New Delhi, Oct 14 Fiji’s High Commissioner to India Jagnnath Sami on Wednesday urged the Indian government to consider seeking a UNESCO World Heritage tag for Kolkata port and two other ports in south India to commemorate the historic oceanic journeys of ‘girmityas’.
‘Girmityas’ is a folklore term used for Indian people who were taken to work as indentured labourers in plantations of countries such as Fiji, Suriname, Maldives and Mauritius. Their songs still preserve historic accounts of their long, perilous ship journeys.
Speaking at an international conference on India’s civilisational heritage hosted at Vigyan Bhawan here, Sami pitched for cultural institutions of the two countries to join hands to preserve archives and document their shared heritage.
The envoy laid emphasis on the historic ties between the two countries and said the shared historical ties can be translated into meaningful cooperation.
He spoke of the arduous journeys taken by several Indians in the last two centuries, when they were sent out to work in various countries as ‘girmityas’.
Describing himself as a descendant of a ‘girmitya’, the Fiji High Commissioner to India said his ancestor had moved from south India to Fiji in the 1900s.
“Fiji is my janmabhoomi, and India is my matrubhoomi,” he said.
He further said, “I request the Ministry of Culture, the Government of India, to consider declaring the ports of Kolkata, Visakhapatnam and Madras as UNESCO heritage sites to commemorate the departure of ‘girmityas’ from these ports (in the past).”
Madras was renamed Chennai a few decades ago.
A country must send a nomination for any property or site to UNESCO before it can be evaluated for recognition as a World Heritage Site.
The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) under the Ministry of Culture is hosting the mega conference from October 14-16 in Delhi, themed on India’s cultural legacy and its wider civilisational heritage beyond borders.
The “Brihattar Bharat: International Conference on Bharat’s Cultural Connections Across the Globe” brings delegates, ambassadors and scholars from several countries to deliberate on India’s historical and contemporary cultural connections with the wider world.
Sami underlined the importance of preserving the past that links the two countries, and said “cultural memories can endure across oceans”.
In his address, he also cited a few lines from poems that capture both the pain and pathos of the ‘girmityas’.
Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat attended the inaugural session, during which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message was read out by Union Culture Secretary Vivek Aggarwal.
Later, on the sidelines, when asked about the appeal made by the envoy of Fiji for seeking a UNESCO tag for the three old ports, the Union minister told PTI, “We are working on it.”
He, however, did not elaborate on the comments.
Suriname’s Ambassador to India Hanisha Jairam also addressed the gathering. Speaking in Hindi, she underlined the ‘girmitya’ legacy that connects her country and India.
An exhibition, ‘Common Cultural Heritage of Asia’, has also been put up at Vigyan Bhawan as part of the conference, highlighting the shared heritage and historical cultural connections between India and other Asian countries.
A segment, ‘The Indian Diaspora’, also displays images of some archival documents related to the system of indentured labour, as well as the photo of Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis, Mauritius — a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“Between 1834 and 1920, almost half a million indentured labourers arrived from India at Aapravasi Ghat to work in the sugar plantations of Mauritius, or to be transferred to Reunion Island, Australia, southern and eastern Africa or the Caribbean.
The buildings of Aapravasi Ghat are among the earliest explicit manifestations of what was to become a global economic system and one of the greatest migrations in history,” according to the UNESCO website.
(PTI News)
