An inside story of how an Indian-origin PM traced her roots

In 1539, Mughal Emperor Humayun was defeated by Sher Shah Suri in the famous Battle of Buxar. The entire Mughal Army was destroyed in the bloodbath. But that’s now history.

Nearly five centuries later, Buxar is again making global headlines. This time not for war, but love and passion, which were being showered upon Kamla Persad Bissessar, the first woman Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Kamla’s forefathers stayed in Buxar, but later migrated to the Republican island nearly 122 years back.

Or to be more precise, it was on July 18, 1889 , when Ram Lakhan Mishra, a native of Bhelpur village in Buxar, boarded a Trinidad and Tobago-bound ship Volga, from Kolkata (then Calcutta).

However, during the three-month journey, 18 out of 555 co-passengers died on the way. Mishra was among those who survived and reached the Republican island on October 21, 1889. Mishra made Trinidad his home.

More than a century later, one of his descendants, Kamla Persad, is the Prime Minister of the Republic. The PM of Indian origin wanted to trace her roots. So she commissioned her country’s top genealogist Shamshuddin and assigned him the job. Shamshuddin poured over thousands of documents preserved in the national archives of Trinidad and Tobago and collated other data to pinpoint Bhelpur as the village which Mishra had left in 1889.

An important link was a Volga (ship) ticket (No 738), which Mishra had used for the journey.

For Shamshuddin, tracing Kamla’s ancestral place was really tough. But he employed scientific genealogical methodology and checked out the data on caste, area and arrival scenario in Trinidad and Tobago. Eventually, he could identify Bhelpur in Buxar as the village from where Kamla’s great grandfather had moved out in 1889.

Shamshuddin, who is also credited with tracing former Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Basudeo Pandey’s roots to Azamgarh (in Uttar Pradesh), had to work hard before arriving at this conclusion. “I came across more than 50 men named Ram Lakhan Mishra.

After searching records in Trinidad, one was singled out on the basis of the information such as the Volga passenger seat number and the area from where he had arrived,” Shamshuddin told one of Mishra’s descendants in Buxar.

The family tree

Mishra was unmarried when he arrived at Trinidad. He married a local girl and had a son Chauranji Persad. “Chauranji married to Sumitra Persad and gave birth to Lilraj Persad, who later became an owner of an oil company there. The present PM Kamla Persad is the daughter of Lilraj,” said a source from Buxar, who was familiar with her origin.

Kamla was good at studies and graduated in law before becoming the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago. Later, she was elected  Member of Parliament from Siparia in 1991.

“She was sworn in as the country’s first woman Prime Minister on May 26, 2010,” the source, who also happens to be a distant relative of Mishra’s kin, told Deccan Herald.

So when on January 11 this year, Kamla and her 25-member delegation, who also included her husband Gregory Bissessar and other relatives, descended on this nondescript village Bhelpur in two Indian Air Force  choppers, it was an emotionally-surcharged atmosphere there. Having finally reached the land of her ancestors, Kamla was in tears. And so were her hordes of kin who had heard a lot about her but had never seen her.

“Whatever I am today is because of the genetic make up and DNA from this place of Bihar. I am the Prime Minister of my country because of the blessings of this soil and this land of our ancestors,” she said while failing to control her emotions.

Her kin and locals showered her with silk saris, gold mangtika (head ornament), a silver crown and khoincha (a traditional parting gift containing coins and rice coloured in yellow) conventionally given to a daughter at the time of leaving her parents’ home after marriage.

Before winding up her memorable trip, Kamla had a word of advice for the villa­gers: “Education is the key to get rid of poverty. So educate your children, including daughters. This is what my ancestors did.”