Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has used her In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage to ho­n­our the con­tri­bu­tions of In­do-Trinida­di­ans while rais­ing con­cerns of grow­ing threats to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE).

In a state­ment, Beck­les said In­di­an Ar­rival Day is a time for re­mem­brance, grat­i­tude and na­tion­al re­flec­tion.

She paid trib­ute to the thou­sands of In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers who jour­neyed across the kala pani un­der dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, not­ing that while in­den­ture­ship dif­fered from the sys­tem of African chat­tel slav­ery, it nev­er­the­less re­quired tremen­dous re­silience in the face of sep­a­ra­tion from fam­i­ly, un­fa­mil­iar con­di­tions and rigid labour arrange­ments.