Hindi Dictionary Updated in Trinidad and Tobago And A Criticism of Caribbean Media.

A lot of people outside the Caribbean, when they think of the Caribbean, think of Carnival, of beaches and of calypso and reggae. All of these are a part of the Caribbean, and form a majority of the Caribbean.

But there's some culture from India mixed in as well. When the indentured labourers came to the Caribbean, they brought with them many things - from Hinduism to Islam to curry - and they brought with them language. In particular, Hindi. This is one of the ICT in the region focuses on through CARDICIS, which I am involved in.

The Trinidad Express ran an article today, 'Hindi dictionary updated', which while indicative of more exposure of Indian culture in Trinidad and Tobago as well as Guyana (where the Indian descendant populations are largest), wasn't as informative as it could be. Because the article, in my opinion, was poorly written - I had to seek out Kumar Mahabir and the Hindi Dictionary.

Thus the search began. First stop was here, where I found the name of the publishing house from a letter written to the editor by Dr. Kumar Mahabir. Chakra Publishing House - and finally came across the book itself here. It's sad to see a Geocities website hosting so many books that probably require wire transfers or mailed cheques/checks to purchase. Welcome to the Caribbean, where banks choke businesses by not allowing acceptance of credit cards on websites for Caribbean accounts.

And here, banks are also serving to stifle culture.

Critique of the Article

It should also be noted that something else in the Trinidad Express article is wrong: The credits for the book on the Chakra Publishing Website indicate that it was compiled by Kumar Mahabir and Sita Mahabir. Things like that are important. Facts are important. Nowhere did the journalist write who published the book - where it was available... Why did they even write the article?

And worse - this got past someone with the title of 'Editor'. Last time I checked, the duty of the media was to inform. Maybe the Editor should remember that. If this was the only time I had seen such reporting in a Caribbean newspaper, I would not have criticized this heavily - but alarmingly, this is the norm. And it will remain the norm until more pressure is applied to the media. Maybe I should do this more often... Maybe a few of us should criticize the Caribbean media more often - and fairly.