Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er and his­to­ri­an Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh says Trinidad and To­ba­go’s strong tra­di­tion of re­li­gious tol­er­ance was forged through the shared strug­gles, suf­fer­ing and re­sis­tance of en­slaved Africans and in­den­tured In­di­ans un­der colo­nial rule.

Speak­ing at the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety’s In­di­an Ar­rival Day lec­ture at the Ram­bert Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Mon­day, Dr Teelucks­ingh said the Caribbean’s har­mo­ny among Hin­dus, Mus­lims and Chris­tians re­mains one of the re­gion’s most re­mark­able achieve­ments.

“Since in­den­ture­ship, the Hin­dus, Mus­lims and Chris­tians in the Caribbean have lived in har­mo­ny. This high lev­el of tol­er­ance is a re­mark­able fea­ture of the re­gion that must be ac­knowl­edged,” he said.