JAMAICAN INDIANS
Indian contributions to Jamaican culture are legion. Indian jewellery designs have made their mark especially in the form of intricately wrought thin, gold bangles. The tradition goes back to the 1860s when plantation workers began to create these pieces and organized traveling salesmen to peddle them island-wide. It was the Indians who first managed to grow rice in Jamaica, establishing the island's first successful rice mill in the 1890s. They also dominated the island's vegetable production until well into the 1940s.
Old animosities forgotten, elements of traditional Indian dress can be found in Jonkonnu processions and many African-Jamaicans participate alongside their Indian-Jamaican brothers and sisters in the Indian inspired cultural celebrations of Hosay and Divali. Hosay is a muslim festival that re-enacts a war between Mohammed's sons, their death and burial. It lasts for 9 nights and on the tenth day the tazia (a paper and bamboo replica of a tomb) is taken to the streets in a large, colourful procession led by a Tasa drummer and followed by stick and horse dancers.
In the past, every plantation in each parish celebrated Hosay. Today it has been called an Indian carnival and is perhaps most well known in Clarendon where it is celebrated each August. Divali, a Hindu festival linked with the reaping of grain, the return of Prince Rama after 14 years in exile, and the victory of good over evil, is celebrated late October to early November on the darkest night of the year. Houses are cleaned and brightly lit and everyone is in high spirits.
Today there is an estimated number of close to 70,000 Indians living in Jamaica. They maintain their own cultural organizations, aspiring to keep links to their roots whilst still managing to assimilate into the national scene. This is perhaps well illustrated by the fact that traditional Indian foods such as curry goat, roti and callaloo have become part of the national cuisine. Caste is not a significant issue and arranged marriages are no longer common. Descendants of the immigrant workers have influenced the fields of farming, medicine, politics and even horse-racing. Names such as Chatani, Chulani, Tewani, Mahtani, Daswani, Vaswani and Chandiram have become synonymous with manufacturing, wholesale, retail and in-bond businesses providing employment for thousands of Jamaicans.