Paras Ra­moutar

In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Shri Malay Mishra has hailed T&T's mul­ti­cul­tur­al and plur­al val­ues as they have brought great sta­bil­i­ty in the so­ci­ety.

He said that this val­ue sys­tem could: "...help wipe out the vi­o­lence and trans­gres­sions in the world so­ci­ety. No coun­try or no so­ci­ety is im­mune to the wide­spread rage of vi­o­lence which has stalked al­most every coun­try or so­ci­ety in the world, but a sound val­ue sys­tem can un­der­mine its growth. "T&T's mul­ti­cul­tur­al, plur­al and mul­ti-eth­nic struc­ture has helped to pro­mote a val­ue sys­tem of which all of us are proud and which must be safe­guard­ed, de­vel­oped and main­tained at all times," he told more than 200 devo­tees at the an­nu­al Kar­tik-ke-Na­han cel­e­bra­tions at the beach house of Boodram, Kam­la Ra­moutar and their daugh­ter Ri­ana at Ma­yaro last Sun­day morn­ing. A cul­tur­al pro­gramme en­sued af­ter the prayers, which in­clud­ed songs and dances by mem­bers of the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute of Cul­tur­al Co-op­er­a­tion, tas­sa drum­ming and mu­sic and songs by Us­tad Suresh Ti­wari Or­ches­tra.

The Ra­moutar clan has been host­ing the an­nu­al re­li­gious fes­ti­val for more than ten years, and does so now joint­ly with the Ed­in­burgh Hin­du Tem­ple, led by its spir­i­tu­al leader, Pun­dit Ramesh Ti­wari. Kar­tik-ke-Na­han is a pe­ri­od in Oc­to­ber-No­vem­ber when Hin­dus con­duct Moth­er Gan­ga (God­dess of Wa­ter) Pu­ja and of­fer obei­sance to the Ocean. He said that when the East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers came here be­tween 1845 and 1917 from Ut­tar Pradesh and Bi­har, prin­ci­pal­ly, they brought with them the rich cul­tur­al, moral and re­li­gious ar­chi­tec­ture of the Moth­er­land In­dia. "They were im­pris­oned in pover­ty in In­dia and they were brought here to con­tribute to the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of T&T, and by so do­ing they were able to im­prove their own eco­nom­ic con­di­tion, and their hu­man val­ue sys­tem was a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor as well." Mishra said that "the seed for this so­cial struc­ture has been sown more than 160 years ago, and there­fore, it must be pro­tect­ed. If the foun­da­tion of the ed­i­fice is not strength­ened it would be­come weak and vul­ner­a­ble to col­lapse."

"The Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty in T&T con­tin­ues to ob­serve the many deep re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions and this aug­ments well for the pro­mo­tion of the spir­it of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. This process has been able to bring all peo­ples to­geth­er," the diplo­mat said. Mishra said that cel­e­bra­tions and ob­ser­vances such as Kar­tik-ke-Na­han are the cor­ner­stone of Hin­duism. He spoke of the deep re­li­gious and moral and spir­i­tu­al teach­ings en­shrined in the scores of Hin­du re­li­gious texts. These deep re­li­gious texts are charged with very deep spir­i­tu­al and philo­soph­i­cal di­rec­tions not on­ly for Hin­dus, but for all. Mishra said that the cel­e­bra­tion of Kar­tik-Ke-Na­han has, "an unique mean­ing and sym­bol­ism as In­di­ans give sev­er­al in­ter­pre­ta­tions to it, in­clu­sive of busi­ness, eco­nom­ic, trade, re­li­gious and spir­i­tu­al. "It is cel­e­brat­ed in In­dia with great fer­vour."