Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Sat­narayan Ma­haraj de­nies the ac­cu­sa­tions lev­elled against his or­gan­i­sa­tion by prin­ci­pal of the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School Si­ta Ga­jad­hars­ingh Nan­ga. Ma­haraj said yes­ter­day that he nev­er told the prin­ci­pal that black pupils should not be ad­mit­ted to the pri­ma­ry school. He pre­sent­ed copies of the An­nu­al Sta­tis­ti­cal Re­turn 2010-2011, Ed­u­ca­tion­al Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, to the me­dia to jus­ti­fy his po­si­tion dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the school lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way and Pasea Ex­ten­sion in Tu­na­puna. Ac­cord­ing to the en­rol­ment by eth­nic group­ing and sex, of the 516 pupils at­tend­ing the school, there are 22 Africans; 456 In­di­ans; one Cau­casian; 36 Mixed and one Oth­er.

The school has 394 Hin­dus (Sanatanists); 45 Ro­man Catholics; 22 Pen­te­costals, 15 Mus­lims (AS­JA); nine Mus­lims (TML); sev­en Pres­by­te­ri­ans; six An­gli­cans; five Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tists; four Je­ho­vah Wit­ness­es; four Bap­tist (Spir­i­tu­al); three Oth­er; one Mus­lim (TIA) and one Open Bible. On Wednes­day, MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh spoke at great length about the con­tro­ver­sy at the school in­volv­ing the re­cent bar­ring of Ga­jad­hars­ingh Nan­ga on the school com­pound. McIn­tosh, who was speak­ing in the Par­lia­ment, quot­ed from a let­ter writ­ten by Ga­jad­hars­ingh Nan­ga to the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, list­ing her rea­sons for a re­quest for trans­fer.

The prin­ci­pal wrote: "(Ma­haraj) told me in no un­cer­tain terms that I must not ad­mit black chil­dren in­to the school and ad­mis­sion lists for both pri­ma­ry and pre-school are be­ing scru­ti­nised to as­cer­tain whether I am fol­low­ing in­struc­tions." How­ev­er, a vo­cif­er­ous Ma­haraj said Ga­jad­hars­ingh Nan­ga's ac­cu­sa­tions were "to­tal­ly false." Ma­haraj al­so pre­sent­ed two let­ters of com­plaints is­sued to the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion about the prin­ci­pal; cor­re­spon­dence from the PTA to the prin­ci­pal and sev­er­al oth­er doc­u­ments. In a let­ter signed by Ma­haraj to the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, dat­ed Au­gust 10, he stat­ed Ga­jad­hars­ingh Nan­ga's be­hav­iour was dis­rup­tive and that par­ents had ex­pressed con­cern "and we fear that there could be con­fronta­tion in the new aca­d­e­m­ic year."

In an­oth­er let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 10, in re­sponse to the com­mis­sion about the rea­sons why a trans­fer was be­ing sought by the prin­ci­pal, Ma­haraj stat­ed Ga­jad­hars­ingh Nan­ga did not in­sti­tute a pro­gramme for in­fants to learn the re­li­gious prayers; re­moved the dress code sign; at­tempt­ed to frus­trate ef­forts of the com­ple­tion of a tem­ple on the school com­pound and failed to ful­fil the oral oblig­a­tions to the school and the board. Ma­haraj said the school was for­mal­ly opened on Spetem­ber 2, 1952, and that the first pupil to be reg­is­tered was an African called Ernest Smith. He said: "There was nev­er any talk about peo­ple are kept out be­cause of race or re­li­gion and again I want to re­mind you, if you go to Laven­tille you will not see an In­di­an child in a pri­ma­ry school there" "Why?" he asked. "Be­cause they don't live there."