Escaping the Shackles of Caste: The Unspoken Advantage of the Indian Caribbean Diaspora

Brian Sankarsingh thinks about caste and the Indian diaspora

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Recently, I launched a book in Trinidad called Decolonizing the Trinidadian Mind. When I was researching that book, something dawned on me. While caste played a small part in island life the lines that were drawn, we never as ingrained as they were in India. Yes, some people tried to protect their “Brahmanical” roots as would be expected, but the vast majority from my own generation, and subsequent generations thereafter, did not carry those same ideals. So, let’s look to history to understand the impact and importance of this change.

In the 19th century, as the British Empire expanded its colonial reach, and with the abolition of slavery, it turned to India as a source of cheap labour. Between 1838 and 1917, over half a million Indian indentured labourers were shipped across the oceans to work in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean—in countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, and Jamaica. These migrants, torn from the rigid social fabric of their homeland, unwittingly embarked on a journey that would not only sever them from the caste system that governed their lives but would also grant their descendants an extraordinary social freedom still elusive in modern India.

The caste system in India is an ancient and deeply ingrained social hierarchy, rooted in birth and occupation, which has shaped Indian society for thousands of years. Despite constitutional bans and progressive laws, caste-based discrimination and violence remain pervasive. In contrast, the descendants of Indian indentured labourers in the Caribbean found themselves in an unfamiliar but liberating social landscape where caste lost much of its relevance and power.

In the Caribbean, the urgent demands of plantation life did not allow for the maintenance of strict caste divisions. Brahmins, traditionally considered the priestly upper caste, found themselves working shoulder-to-shoulder with Dalits, historically marginalized as "untouchables." Possibly the commonality of hardship, combined with the absence of a dominant caste structure or the need to uphold rigid rituals, forced a collapse of caste boundaries. What seems apparent is that being separated from their Motherland, community identity, forged in suffering and solidarity, quickly superseded caste identity.

Freed from the inherited status markers of caste, Indo-Caribbean communities developed identities based more on shared cultural traditions such as language, food, music, and religion rather than on hierarchical social divisions. Temples and religious practices adapted to the new context, becoming more inclusive and less orthodox. The absence of caste priests meant that anyone could perform rituals, democratizing religious life in a way that may be seen as radical by Indian standards.

This flattening of social hierarchy allowed for more social mobility. In the Caribbean, education and economic advancement became more directly tied to individual effort than to inherited status. Indo-Caribbean people, despite systemic racism and colonial legacies, were not held back by an internal caste hierarchy. Over time, they entered politics, education, the arts, and business in significant numbers, contributing meaningfully to the multicultural fabric of their nations.

The escape from caste did not only benefit the diaspora economically or socially. It also offered psychological liberation that cannot be overstated. In India, the caste system is not just a matter of public policy or village dynamics, it is a deeply internalized worldview. For many in the Caribbean diaspora, being free from this mental and cultural bondage has allowed for the flourishing of identities based on merit, creativity, and human potential, rather than predetermined birth.

Of course, not everything was left behind. Echoes of caste have persisted subtly—often in marriage preferences or lingering family stories. But without the institutional backing or daily enforcement found in India, they have withered over generations. And as the Indo-Caribbean diaspora continues to reconnect with India through globalization, cultural exchange, and ancestry tourism, it does so with a unique lens: one that values Indian heritage but rejects the “casteist” structures embedded in it.

The challenge going forward is to continue nurturing cultural pride without reviving the discriminatory practices of the past. In this, the Indo-Caribbean diaspora can serve as a model, not just for other diasporas, but for India itself, The diaspora, once so reviled because they “chose to be separated from the Ganges and the Motherland,” are showing what is possible when a society chooses equity, resilience, and unity over hierarchy and division.

The Indian indentured labourers who arrived in the Caribbean came with little but the burdens of a deeply stratified society. Their descendants, however, have gained something profoundly valuable in their freedom from the caste system. It is an inheritance of liberation, forged in adversity, which continues to shape a diaspora unbound by the social constraints of its past. In this, the Indo-Caribbean experience offers a powerful lesson: that identity and dignity can flourish best not in division, but in equality.

Unshackled Salt

We crossed the kala pani’s endless rush
Not kings, not priests, just hands and hush
Torn from a soil where names held weight
Where birth was bond, and caste was fate
They marked our backs with numbers, not lines
Of varna's script or temple signs
The cane fields cared not what we were called
Only how deep we bent, how long we hauled
In that hard sun, the old names bled
No Brahmin’s thread, no Chamar dread
Just sweat and breath and broken bread
And dreams of children walking ahead
No priests to tell us where to stand
No sacred fire, no purest hand
We lit our own with matchstick grace
Made mandirs bloom in every place
In this new world of sugar and rain
Caste lost its grip and forgot its chain
We found in each other not in rank, but kin
A place where the soul could finally begin
And though old echoes sometimes return
In whispers at weddings, or lessons unlearned
We bear no burden of that ancient brand
We built our worth with different sand
So here we are, of India’s womb
Yet unbound by its silent doom
Not less, but more than what we fled
Not just survivors but lives ahead
O children of ships, of toil and tide
Hold high your names with unsplit pride
For you are the ones who broke the mold
Who made new gods from stories old
And when they ask of caste and creed
Say: we were forged from want, not greed
Not marked by class but by the cost
Of all we gained from what was lost

Bio: BRIAN SANKARSINGH is a two-time award-winning poet and author. He is a Trinidadian-born Canadian immigrant who has published several books of poetry on a wide range of social and historical themes including racism, colonialism, and enslavement. Sankarsingh artfully blends prose and poetry into his storytelling creating an eclectic mix with both genres. This unique approach is sure to provide something for everyone.

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