Muharram massacre of 1884: How Indians were killed for Hosay in Trinidad

• After the abolition of slavery in the early 19th century, the British took indentured labourers from India to fill the labour vacuum in other colonies
• The Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, and other European colonies soon saw the formation of Indian diasporas
• The first group of Indian indentured labourers landed in Trinidad in 1845
• In 1854, they started Hosay, an Indo-Caribbean way of commemorating the 10th day of Muharram
• The British witnessed interracial unity between Indian Hindus, Indian Muslims and African-descent Trinidadians during Hosay, and feared rebellion
• October 30, 1884: Indian labourers defied curfew to observe Hosay through processions involving drumming, chanting and stick fighting
• The British police opened fire on the crowd and killed 22 Indians, maiming over a 100 more
• In this podcast, revisiting the Hosay Massacre of 1884, one of the lesser-known instances of Indian martyrdom under British rule

October 30, 1884. Muharram processions were in full swing in the town of San Fernando, in the British colony of Trinidad. These were no ordinary processions. Granted, the parades would happen every year as part of Hosay, an annual Muharram event. But on that specific day, they were also an act of civil disobedience.

That year, the British government had banned these processions from entering the towns of San Fernando and Port of Spain. This ban violated the way Hosay was traditionally observed, mainly by the indentured Indian labourers who had moved to Trinidad to work. However, the curfew did not stop the festivities. As the parades poured down the streets of San Fernando, the police put up a blockade. Magistrate Arthur Child arrived on horseback, and read out The Riot Act loud, amid the drumming, chanting, singing, and stick-fighting of the parade.