With PM Modi in Trinidad & Tobago, Congress recalls Indira Gandhi's 1968 visit

New Delhi: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Trinidad and Tobago, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday recalled Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's 1968 visit to the twin-island republic which was the first by an Indian PM.

Ramesh also shared on X the link to a video film on Gandhi's visit that the hosts had produced.

In the video, Gandhi is seen being welcomed at the airport by then Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Eric Williams, being given a guard of honour and people lining up on the streets to greet her.

Ramesh also shared facts about cricketing links and Indian legacy in Trinidad and Tobago.

"The Super Premium Frequent Flier PM will be in Trinidad & Tobago today. Trinidad and Tobago is a small twin-island republic that has produced a number of world figures. We in India know it as one of the places to which the British took thousands of indentured labour in the 19th century," Ramesh said in his post.

"Some of their descendants have distinguished themselves in politics, like Basdeo Pandey who was the PM during 1995-2001, and the present PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar; in literature like V.S. Naipaul, who won the Nobel Prize in 2001, and his brother Shiva Naipaul; and in cricket like the spinner Sonny Ramadhin, immortalised in the fabulous Victory Calypso composed after the West Indies had defeated England at Lords for the first time in June 1950," he said.

But there is much more to the gloriously multi-racial Trinidad and Tobago than just the connection to India, he said.

Williams, the first prime minister and the pre-eminent leader of the freedom movement there, was a brilliant historian whose book 'Capitalism and Slavery', first published in 1944, has remained a classic, he said.

Indira Gandhi had a longish conversation with him on this subject when they had met in Port of Spain in October 1968, Ramesh said and added that the hosts produced a lovely film on her visit.

Ramesh further said CLR James was an extraordinary Marxist scholar and activist whose path-breaking works on history, politics, sociology, as well as on cricket, are still read and analysed.

"More than anybody else, he was responsible for the West Indies to have its first black captain in 1960 in the hugely inspirational and still revered Frank Worrell," Ramesh said.

George Padmore was an indefatigable campaigner and organiser against British colonialism and he and VK Krishna Menon were comrades in London in the late 1930s especially, the Congress leader pointed out.

"Trinidad and Tobago has produced some of the greatest cricketers of all times like Learie Constantine and Brian Lara. One of India's finest leg-spinners Subhash Gupte settled down there in the early sixties and raised a family," he noted.

Two and a half decades later, the Trinidadian linguist Peggy Ramesar Mohan was to settle down in India and subsequently come out with educative and engaging books like 'Wanderers. Kings. Merchants: The Story of India through its Languages (2021)' and 'Father Tongue, Mother Land: The Birth of Language in South Asia (2025)', he said.

Along with the link of the film on Gandhi's visit, Ramesh also shared Sonny Ramadhin's victory Calypso composed after the West Indies had defeated England in 1950.

Prime Minister Modi arrived in Port of Spain on the second leg of his five-nation tour, during which he will hold talks with the top leadership of Trinidad and Tobago to further strengthen the bilateral relationship.

Modi was received by his counterpart Kamla Persad-Bissessar at Piarco International Airport, where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome and a guard of honour. Several Cabinet ministers and senators were also present to greet the prime minister.

In the third leg of his visit, Modi will visit Argentina from July 4 to 5.

After that, Modi will travel to Brazil to attend the 17th BRICS Summit followed by a state visit. In the final leg of his visit, Modi will travel to Namibia.