Mapping Migration, Gender, Culture and Politics in the Indian Diaspora-Commemorating Indian Arrival in Trinidad

in the Indian Diaspora Commemorating Indian Arrival in Trinidad Kalpana Kannabiran Literature suggests that Indian women came to Trinidad as already independent women who made a conscious decision to move out of the difficult social situations which confronted them in India. These included deserted women, practising prostitutes and brahmin widows. But soon enough they were constrained to accept the androcentric ideal of Indianness which was coterminus with subordination. The image of the Trinidadian Hindu woman is therefore far from empowering. The renewal of Hindu energy in specific forms and in specific contexts has not only meant grappling with the erosion of political space in a racially polarised polity and reclaiming it but also confronting the derogatory images of the community that are based on the institutionalised derogation of women's rights within the community.