Sat Ma­haraj

Dur­ing the life of the Race Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee, Prof Cud­joe and my­self dif­fered fun­da­men­tal­ly on sev­er­al is­sues of race, his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, ed­u­ca­tion, re­li­gion and cul­ture in T&T. How­ev­er, de­spite these dif­fer­ences we re­mained civ­il to each oth­er and we nev­er al­lowed our dif­fer­ent opin­ions to be­come per­son­alised. This ex­am­ple of our ma­tu­ri­ty as a peo­ple is not unique and is per­haps the on­ly rea­son why there has not been vi­o­lent racial con­flict in T&T as there has been in sim­i­lar so­ci­eties such as Fi­ji and Guy-ana. So while oth­ers are shocked that Prof Cud­joe asked me to de­liv­er the fea­ture ad­dress at the launch of his book ti­tled In­di­an Time Ah Come, oth­ers are equal­ly amazed that I ac­cept­ed. The ti­tle of the book is very de­cep­tive and may be mis­chie­vous­ly de­signed to in­cite racial ten­sions be­tween the In­di­an and African com­mu­ni­ties here in T&T. It is con­ceived to mo­bilise Prof Cud­joe's Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment African sup­port against the rul­ing Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. The ti­tle open­ly trum­pets the long-held African and PNM fear of an In­di­an-based po­lit­i­cal par­ty dom­i­na­tion of T&T. Yet since the mas­sive de­feat of the PNM on May 24, not a gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial, par­ty mem­ber, In­di­an-based or­gan­i­sa­tion or In­di­an spokesman or leader has ar­tic­u­lat­ed this sen­ti­ment of "In­di­an time now."

In­di­an Time Ah Come is not Tri­ni speak. We in Trinidad don't use "ah" in this way. Apart from what else might be wrong in the text, the ti­tle is cer­tain­ly for­eign as no doubt the mes­sage that it hopes to mo­bilise. The In­di­an spec­tre last sur­faced dur­ing the Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion (1995-2001) along sim­i­lar lines to mo­bilise fear in the Afro-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty against what was pro­ject­ed as an In­di­an and Hin­du-dom­i­nat­ed gov­ern­ment. This test­ed weapon is once again be­ing dust­ed off, oiled and greased to be de­ployed against Kam­la's Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. The first vol­ley ap­pears to be by Prof Cud­joe. I must com­mend Prof Cud­joe for fi­nal­ly find­ing his voice af­ter al­most a decade of be­ing deaf and mute dur­ing most of the reign of his po­lit­i­cal par­ty the PNM. Per­haps be­ing ap­point­ed by the PNM as a di­rec­tor of the Cen­tral Bank was enough to si­lence Prof Cud­joe for the greater part of a decade, save an an­nu­al eman­ci­pa­tion out­burst dur­ing a heav­i­ly state- fund­ed NEAP event. Prof Cud­joe's voice be­gins anew with his tried and test­ed clar­i­on calls of race and the colo­nial ste-reo­type of the In­di­an spec­tre.

This racial bo­gey of the In­do-Trinida­di­an op­er­at­ing the ap­pa­ra­tus of state con­tin­ues al­most un­bro­ken from the 2010 elec­tion where race was preached on many po­lit­i­cal plat­forms dur­ing the last elec­tions. On April 12, leader of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) re­vealed that the race card has been pulled out al­ready in To­ba­go by the PNM. Mr Jack re­vealed that TOP mem­bers were flood­ed with text mes­sages on their mo­bile phones say­ing that the In­di­ans should not be giv­en a chance at the Trea­sury. The Jack-led TOP was pre­sent­ing a strong chal­lenge to the PNM in To­ba­go and the PNM no doubt was of the view that by in­still­ing eth­nic fears among To­bag­o­ni­ans the TOP would be blocked from tak­ing the two To­ba­go seats. In St Au­gus­tine on April 13, Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning said: "But you know if this was a UNC plat­form, what you would have heard, my dear friends? You would have heard 'give me a Guin­ness and ah pun­cheon!'" In Plum Mi­tan, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert fol­lowed up on Man­ning's "Guin­ness and pun­cheon" by say­ing there are no rum drinkers or po­lit­i­cal con­men on the PNM slate of can­di­dates, "but I can't say the same for the UNC.'

Fac­ing the heat from an In­di­an back­lash on what some con­ceived as a racist state­ment, Man­ning at­tempt­ed to ex­plain it with­out suc­cess. It was how­ev­er left to Jack Warn­er to de­fend the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty. The UNC chair­man said Man­ning in­sult­ed every East In­di­an in the coun­try with that state­ment. At the St Au­gus­tine meet­ing of April 16, Warn­er as­sert­ed: "On Mon­day night Patrick Man­ning in­sult­ed In­di­ans in the coun­try...So what you are say­ing is that every In­di­an is an al­co­holic, every In­di­an is a drunk­ard?" Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning, at the PNM Cunu­pia meet­ing, stat­ed: "I want to know what port­fo­lio will be giv­en to Prakash Ra­mad­har, Anand Ram­lo­gan, De­vant Ma­haraj, Tim Gopeesingh, Su­ruj Ram­bachan, and Austin Jack Warn­er." This I read as an­oth­er cod­ed racial mes­sage when he iden­ti­fied these can­di­dates who in the past de­fend­ed the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty from the var­i­ous forms of PNM dis­crim­i­na­tion poli­cies. Mr Man­ning asked about the pos­si­ble ap­point­ments of these in­di­vid­u­als and not that of Ma-kan­dal Daa­ga and Er­rol McLeod, David Ab­du­lah, Ash­ford Jack, Wade Mark and oth­er Afro-Tri­nis on the uni­ty plat­form. In­stead, the likes of Mark, Daa­ga, and McLeod have been held out by the PNM for pub­lic ridicule and odi­um.

Part 3 next week

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the

sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha