Suriname: Creoles Vs. Indians

Suriname is Country Of The Week here at Booker Rising, so I've highlighted the South American country. Today's spotlight is on the often contentious race relations between the country's two main racial groups: East Indians and the Creoles. East Indians are 37% of the population, and are descendants of 19th-century contract workers from northeast India. The Dutch planned for Asian immigrants would return to their homelands as soon as their contracts had expired, but most remained in the country. Creoles are 31% of the population, and are the descendants of West African slaves, and Dutch colonialists or other white groups.

Mohan K. Gautam discusses the East Indians in Suriname, after Holland granted more autonomy to colonies in 1942 and universal suffrage in Suriname in 1948: "After the end of Second World War Indians in Surinam witnessed a few very unusual movements. With the policies of Governor Kielstra the Creole got an impression that Surinam will become an Asian colony and the Creole will be an outcaste. They became alarmed. With the demographical growth of Indians, the fear of Indian domination became visible. In order to combat this fear the Creole established an elite cultural organisation 'Unie Suriname' (US, the Union of Surinam). In the beginning the Board of the Committee had two members from the Indian community, one from the Chinese community and one from the Javanese community. The organisation advocated autonomy of Surinam and indirectly warned Creole people from the possible domination of Asians. The slogan of the society was 'baas in eigen huis' (boss in one's own house) with an idea not to grant a universal suffrage to Asians. In 1946 the US was given the name as the National Party of Surinam (NPS) of which J. Pengal in 50s and 60s became the leader. In reaction to the manifesto of the US, Asians also started forming their political parties. The conflict which was latent during the plantation period became an open challenge and the political apparatus was used to express power of the group."

Simon Sanches, the leader of the Creole Army Veterans stated in 1947: "We Surinamese aren't advancing, the number of Chinese and British Indians is greater than the number of Creoles...No longer must we tolerate this. Though it costs us our lives, it has to happen. As long as no blood is shed in Surinam no change shall come. Mr. Gautam writes that the formation of the ethnic political parties created stereotypes with the Indians' image "about the Creole was that they have 'aggressive behaviour' and are 'authoritarian , lazy and parasitic dependent people', while the attitude of the Creole towards the Indians was that they are 'economically offensive and refuse to assimilate' into the mainstream of Surinam."

Apparently the 1950s was a watershed time for the development of Creole cultural aspirations in Suriname. Sranan Tongo - an English-based Creole language with African, Dutch, and Portuguese elements - became the communicative language and was given the status of Suriname's national language.

Countries And Their Cultures website writes: "The position of the light-skinned Creole elite was challenged by the so-called fraternization policy, which involved political cooperation among nonelite Creoles and Hindostani. Creole nationalism later led to Hindostani opposition. Despite the strong resistance of the Hindostani party and the fact that the cabinet had only small majority in the parliament, a Creole-Javanese coalition led the nation to independence on 25 November 1975."