May­or of Ari­ma, Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, has urged cit­i­zens to em­brace uni­ty as Trinidad and To­ba­go marks the 181st an­niver­sary of In­di­an Ar­rival Day.

In a state­ment, Ma­haraj re­flect­ed on the courage and re­silience of the In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers who crossed the Kala Pani to build new lives in the Caribbean.

He high­light­ed the con­tri­bu­tions of those ear­ly mi­grants, not­ing that they car­ried seeds, spices, sa­cred texts, and tra­di­tions that be­came in­te­gral to the na­tion’s iden­ti­ty. Ma­haraj ref­er­enced the schol­ar­ship of the late Pro­fes­sor Brins­ley Sama­roo, whose work traced the ori­gins of many labour­ers to Ut­tar Pradesh, In­dia’s agri­cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al heart­land.