In­tol­er­ance, ar­ro­gance, in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty and ig­no­rance con­sti­tute a re­al­ly bad clus­ter of per­son­al at­trib­ut­es. In the case of an as­pir­ing or sit­ting leader, it is just not ac­cept­able. Each cul­ture has its own man­i­fes­ta­tions of cul­tur­al prac­tices, ges­tures and fa­cial ex­pres­sions. In west­ern cul­ture, sit­ting on chairs or couch­es is the norm. Asians gen­er­al­ly, even now, still feel more com­fort­able sit­ting on the floor, in one or more of the yo­ga-based crossed-legs pos­es; whether they still live in the land of their an­ces­tors or in the Di­as­po­ra. Is the act of sit­ting on a chair su­pe­ri­or to that of sit­ting on a mat or a peer­ha?

The Japan­ese greet each oth­er by bow­ing from the waist. In fact, in the do­jo, be­fore the start of the train­ing ses­sion, from a kneel­ing po­si­tion, the karate­ka or ju­do­ka would bow very deeply with the head touch­ing the back of the open palms which rest on the floor. So when the Japan­ese mar­tial arts mas­ters come to Trinidad to grade the lo­cals and the prop­er pro­to­col is fol­lowed, would it be sen­si­ble to say that we are kiss­ing the dust of the feet of the Japan­ese? The pope and in­deed priests of the Catholic Church, on a year­ly ba­sis, would kneel be­fore 12 peo­ple and wash their feet. The touch­ing, wash­ing and dry­ing of the feet are con­sid­ered to be a great act of hu­mil­i­ty. Curt­sey­ing to roy­al­ty, which is in ef­fect bow­ing by bend­ing the knees, is stan­dard prac­tice and is re­flec­tive of tra­di­tion, pro­to­col and just plain good man­ners. Would the gen­tle­man rant and rave about kow­tow­ing to the queen?

The prac­tice of touch­ing the feet of par­ents, el­ders and gu­rus con­sti­tutes a many-thou­sand-year-old prac­tice in Hin­du and In­di­an cul­ture. It is re­flec­tive and in­dica­tive of re­spect and hu­mil­i­ty on the part of the do­er. Hu­mil­i­ty and re­spect are es­sen­tial at­trib­ut­es and core val­ues of any civilised so­ci­ety. While the ex­ter­nal man­i­fes­ta­tions of these val­ues may take var­i­ous forms, they do ex­ist in all civil­i­sa­tions. It is thus par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gret­table that the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion chose to de­scribe the touch­ing the feet of the el­der­ly Pres­i­dent of In­dia by the Prime Min­is­ter of T&T as "kiss­ing the feet." This de­scrip­tion is loaded with in­sin­u­a­tions and in­nu­en­does, none pleas­ant. No doubt he was play­ing to the gallery but in so do­ing did he ex­pose how he felt about Hin­du cul­tur­al prac­tices?

It would be­hove the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion to tell the Hin­dus of this coun­try if he thinks that touch­ing the feet of an el­der is not an ac­cept­able prac­tice. He should al­so in­di­cate which oth­er Hin­du prac­tices he finds un­ac­cept­able. Fur­ther, he should ar­tic­u­late for the na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties whether he would ex­pect peo­ple of the Hin­du per­sua­sion hold­ing of­fice un­der his regime, should his par­ty win a fu­ture elec­tion, to dis­pense with their re­li­gious du­ties and cul­tur­al norms. All gov­ern­ments must be held re­spon­si­ble and ac­count­able for pub­lic monies spent. So there can be no ar­gu­ment about the right to ques­tion the size of the del­e­ga­tion and the val­ue of the out­comes. The crit­i­cis­ing of what was clear­ly a spon­ta­neous act of tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion and the tone of the crit­i­cism make one rather un­com­fort­able; made more so by the fact that we are a plur­al so­ci­ety, one in which the Con­sti­tu­tion which he is sworn to up­hold bold­ly de­clares that all creeds and races find an equal place.

Lead­ers must demon­strate a high­er lev­el of hu­man­i­ty, hu­mil­i­ty and cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty. The present episode is ex­ceed­ing­ly dis­taste­ful and has served to add fu­el to the fires that threat­en the co­he­sion of our di­verse so­ci­ety. One ex­pects lead­ers to seek to strength­en, not weak­en, the bonds of in­ter-so­cial har­mo­nious re­la­tions. The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion should take the lead from his for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader and apol­o­gise to the na­tion for this un­ac­cept­able re­mark. He should se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er a pro­gramme of med­i­ta­tive and re­flec­tive prac­tice as he comes across as a par­tic­u­lar­ly an­gry in­di­vid­ual. Hin­dus feel of­fend­ed by the re­marks made by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion He should with­draw them and apol­o­gise to the na­tion.

• Prakash Per­sad is the di­rec­tor of Swa­ha Inc