Country Profile: The Caribbean: Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Central and South America

The Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin American counties numbers over 1.1 million, the former accounting for around 1 million.

The Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin American counties numbers over 1.1 million, the former accounting for around 1 million. The main island countries of settlement in the Caribbean were the former British colonies of Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana and the Dutch colony of Suriname, where today they constitute over 40%, 51% and 35% of the total populations respectively.

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France also recruited or smuggled Indian labour to the French West Indies in the colonial period. The few PIOs in the rest of Central and Latin America have acculturated and inter-married, retaining only symbolic attachments to their Indian origin.

Most of the migrants in the Caribbean however have retained significant elements of their cultural heritage, having resisted attempts at conversion to Christianity at considerable economic and social cost to themselves. Originally inducted as indentured labourers, after more than a century of hard toil and struggle in a hostile and discriminatory environment, they have attained both economic status and political eminence.

However their social exclusivity and aloofness has set them apart from the indigenous populations, except in Jamaica where inter-racial marriages have taken place. They have built a large number of temples and mosques and set up their own cultural and religious associations.