INDIAN DIASPORA OVER THE MOON

ON August 23, 1913, a total of 422 Indian migrants arrived in Trinidad and Tobago to work as contracted indentured labourers.

The workers travelled 14,000 miles on the SS Dewa.

Exactly 110 years later, descendants of the labourers would have been able to celebrate the dramatic landing on the moon of a spacecraft from the land of their birth.

Those offspring are among the estimated 32 million non-resident Indians and people of Indian origin who live in various countries around the world.

The historic landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon’s south pole region – making India the first country to do so – has lit up the diaspora as much as the 1.4 billion people in the home country.

As expected, the extraordinary event is a source of great pride for anyone who identifies with India, its ambitious space and scientific programme and its many other developmental goals and targets.

A triumphant Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the lunar landing “belongs to all of humanity.”

He exulted: “I am confident that all countries in the world, including those in the global south, are capable of capturing success.

“We can all aspire to the moon and beyond.”

Across the diaspora, there was nervous anticipation before the soft landing, and this evolved into glorious excitement, expressed in various manners, including prayer sessions.

Reports from around the world, including the Caribbean, revealed delight that India has proven its global leadership in such an emphatic manner in a multifaceted field.

One Caribbean commentator wrote that “tears and cheers followed the landing…”

He said the event “lifted the spirits of Indians everywhere, making them proud of who they are as a people.”

Indian-born, United States-based physicist Sandeep Daga said the successful mission “is really a shot in the arm for the Indian space programme and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation.

“It will propel India as a global leader in space technology and inspire millions of kids to take up science, physics, and astronomy as their area of pursuit.”

Diaspora organisations, like the Federation of Indian Association of New York, issued public statements hailing the accomplishment.

In Greece, as in many other countries, Indian-origin residents celebrated as they viewed the momentous event on television.

“It is a proud moment,” an animated Athens man told an interviewer.

Family and work gatherings around the world heralded the development and acknowledged it as a significant scientific happening and a fulfilling feat by India.

Girija Pande, a business leader in Singapore, captured the universal feeling, saying the occurrence “will make all Indians proud” and that “it was so exciting to watch this complex, cooperative effort come to fruition.”

The indentured labourers who landed in Trinidad and Tobago 110 years earlier would never have anticipated such a conquest.