Paras Ra­moutar

The con­struc­tion of a Hin­du mandir in To­ba­go will en­hance the con­cept of re­li­gious and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty in the na­tion state of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­cord­ing to Rayan Ra­moutar, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Hin­du So­ci­ety. Ra­moutar un­der­scored this point in an ad­dress at a re­li­gious ser­vice con­duct­ed by by Pun­dit Satyanand� Ma­haraj of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha at the Es­p­lande, Scar­bor­ough ear­li­er this month. "We must move to­wards a new ori­en­ta­tion build­ing�se­ri­ous re­li­gious and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty in T&T. The ar­rival of our broth­ers and sis­ters from the African con­ti­nent, fol­lowed by Eu­ro­peans, and Asians from both Chi­na and In­dia have con­tributed to the large stock of peo­ples, and to which to­day we can proud­ly boast that our land is a mul­ti­cul­tur­al comi­ty of peo­ple," Ra­moutar said.

She said in this con­text, she hailed the es­tab­lish­ment of the Min­istry of Arts and� Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment as an in­sti­tu­tion which�would blos­som, fos­ter and en­richen the spir­it of true mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism which has es­caped oth­er minds in past lead­er­ships. "Hin­dus in To­ba­go, and the num­bers keep sprawl­ing, need a place of wor­ship, and for too long we have been de­nied such a fa­cil­i­ty. This fa­cil­i­ty would not on­ly be used for re­li­gious pur­pos­es, but for the teach­ing of tass-drum­ming, In­di­an dances, yo­ga, aryuvedic med­i­cine, and Hin­di."