Clevon Raphael

Race re­la­tions among the eth­nic groups in T&T are okay but there is room for im­prove­ment. Pun­dit Ut­tam Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent and dhar­ma­charya of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, stress­es this point as the coun­try gets ready to cel­e­brate an­oth­er In­di­an Ar­rival Day hol­i­day.

Pun­dit Ma­haraj, who says that every cit­i­zen must be treat­ed as a hu­man be­ing re­gard­less of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, has reser­va­tions about ac­cept­ing same-sex mar­riage as it goes against the Hin­du phi­los­o­phy of mar­riage.

Q: Pun­dit Ma­haraj, how sat­is­fied are you with the progress-so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and oth­er­wise of In­do-Tri­nis since their ar­rival in Trinidad in 1845?

A: (In the con­fer­ence room at Ra­dio Jagri­ti in Tu­na­puna, Thurs­day morn­ing) Like our African broth­ers and sis­ters they came with lit­tle else than their clothes on their backs...very few per­son­al pos­ses­sions. You could say they came here with noth­ing and had to start from scratch. By dint of hard work they have made progress but there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment.

Q: What par­tic­u­lar area or ar­eas are your re­fer­ring to?

Cer­tain­ly, for one thing, in ed­u­ca­tion there is al­ways room for mov­ing up­ward even though we have made great strides in that re­gard. In the be­gin­ning most of them who came here were termed il­lit­er­ate be­cause most of them could not read or write in Eng­lish, but many of them were lit­er­ate in Hin­di and could have read and write in that lan­guage. Of course many were un­let­tered in any lan­guage but they were able to com­mu­ni­cate ver­bal­ly.

Q: Pun­dit, do you agree that In­do-Tri­nis were or are be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against-even though you do not hear that charge to the ex­tent that it was voiced in the re­cent past-to­day?

It de­pends on the in­di­vid­ual or group to make their pres­ence felt and maybe in the be­gin­ning it was so but of late, In­di­ans are claim­ing their space and mak­ing their pres­ence felt, and in so do­ing they are al­so con­tribut­ing to the up­lift­ment of our coun­try as a whole. So I would think we have to con­tin­ue striv­ing to make our pres­ence felt in every stra­ta of the so­ci­ety.

There would al­ways be this per­cep­tion with any group who feel they are so af­fect­ed but as I al­ways say, the in­di­vid­ual has to show their qual­i­fi­ca­tions, let's say if they are look­ing for a job and the best per­son al­ways wins out in the end. We have to strive to get past this cry of dis­crim­i­na­tion and what not. Per­son­al­ly I have nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced racial dis­crim­i­na­tion even when I at­tend­ed high school, a Catholic school (I have al­ways been a Hin­du) and we nev­er had a prob­lem. I ap­pre­ci­at­ed the Catholics and they ap­pre­ci­at­ed me for who I was.

Q: Pun­dit Ma­haraj, some peo­ple are say­ing that in­stead of In­di­an Ar­rival Day and Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions it should be Ar­rival Day, pe­ri­od?

In­di­ans came here on May 30; the Africans would have come be­fore, right? Like­wise the oth­er eth­nic groups, so we are cel­e­brat­ing the ar­rival of In­di­an peo­ple here and we are hap­py for our broth­ers of oth­er eth­nic ori­gins as well, that they should cel­e­brate their com­ing here.

Q: There is a school of thought that says one is born a Hin­du and can­not be con­vert­ed in­to the re­li­gion?

Cer­tain­ly we are born Hin­dus but Hin­duism is a way of life, okay, and once we fol­low that way of life...this is what we call Sanatan Dhar­ma, this is not a re­li­gion that was found­ed by any in­di­vid­ual and we have Hin­dus of all eth­nic ori­gins.

Q: If I want to be­come a Hin­du to­mor­row morn­ing what is the pro­ce­dure?

(Slight smile) Okay...to be­come Hin­du in the morn­ing? (A strong chuck­le) Very well, that's fine...you learn about this way of life and you just fol­low, the kind of dis­ci­pline we fol­low that is what is im­por­tant.

Q: What about the ques­tion of race re­la­tions be­tween the var­i­ous eth­nic groups in Trinidad and To­ba­go, is it at the lev­el it ought to be?

There is al­ways room for im­prove- ment but I think gen­er­al­ly here in Trinidad every­one is hap­py with each oth­er. I grew up in Rousil­lac and that is a pre­dom­i­nant­ly East In­di­an vil­lage, but there are al­so peo­ple of African ori­gin and we are hap­py with each oth­er. We have re­spect for each oth­er so that there would be prob­lems which may come up from time to time but we ex­ist with each oth­er in a very har­mo­nious and pro­duc­tive man­ner.

Q: Are you con­tent with re­la­tions specif­i­cal­ly be­tween Afro-Trinida­di­ans and In­do-Tri­nis?

There is al­ways room for im­prove­ment and from my own ex­pe­ri­ence I am very hap­py, and some of my best friends are Afro-Tri­nis, one of them is Patrick Ed­wards our High Com­mis­sion­er in Ugan­da. There is a race is­sue but cer­tain­ly not a race prob­lem and in some ways things could be bet­ter.

Q: Ex­am­ple?

We have to re­spect each oth­er more for who we are and not to look at each oth­er with eth­nic blink­ers.

Q: Pun­dit, I know you re­li­gious peo­ple don't like to pub­licly dis­cuss pol­i­tics (in­ter­ject­ing with a big laugh and a wave of his hands) we be­long to every­one.

There is talk of a Hin­du ca­bal in the Cab­i­net that is run­ning the coun­try, as the spir­i­tu­al leader of the largest Hin­du group in Trinidad To­ba­go how do you view that al­le­ga­tion? (Clear­ing his throat with hands out­stretched on the ta­ble) This is pol­i­tics, the Gov­ern­ment is in­volved in run­ning the coun­try and I don't see why re­li­gion should be com­ing up in this con­text.

Mr Raphael, I am sure you are aware that there was a time when there was ab­solute­ly not a sin­gle Hin­du in the Cab­i­net for 30 years. Not even a Bha­gavad Gi­ta at Pres­i­dent's House. Do you re­mem­ber when then Pres­i­dent House had to run and look for the Hin­du holy book to swear in Bas­deo Pan­day as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter in 1986?

No one raised a hue and cry then. To­day by dint of hard work Hin­dus have found their place in the high­est lev­els of the so­ci­ety, they are just do­ing the job as those of oth­er re­li­gious per­sua­sion have been dong, right? So if there are Hin­dus in the Cab­i­net now why should there be any com­plaints? What we should be look­ing at is how they are per­form­ing; are they do­ing what they are sup­posed to be do­ing in an ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient man­ner; that is what we should be look­ing at...not what is their re­li­gious back­ground.

Q: Pun­dit Ma­haraj, in spite of our strong re­li­gious his­to­ry this coun­try is reel­ing un­der the ef­fects of an out of con­trol crime sit­u­a­tion. Do you think Dhar­ma­charya, that re­li­gion has failed the peo­ple?

Re­li­gious lead­ers have been do­ing their part but par­ents, guardians, mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty have a part to play. This is not a prob­lem that arose overnight, it has been fes­ter­ing for a long time and less and less peo­ple are pay­ing at­ten­tion to the pos­i­tive val­ues. Moth­ers and fa­thers should be there for their chil­dren, look­ing af­ter them, mon­i­tor­ing them close­ly, en­sur­ing they are on the right path and so on.

How many of us check our chil­dren's school bags to see what is con­tained in them?

Q: That used to be done in the past didn't it?

Yes. Of course. And are we con­don­ing their lit­tle bad habits which have a way of grow­ing and catch­ing up with us? This is what has been hap­pen­ing with­in re­cent years-bro­ken homes, sin­gle par­ents, ab­sen­tee fa­thers, a child who is not re­ceiv­ing at­ten­tion at home, who is in­se­cure in their home en­vi­ron­ment, he or she tends to go astray, right?

Q: Is there any­thing in the Hin­du doc­trine that speaks specif­i­cal­ly to curb­ing crime at the lev­el we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in this coun­try to­day?

Any one of any re­li­gious per­sua­sion would have the same so­lu­tions in that we have to teach our chil­dren from very ear­ly the pos­i­tive val­ues; do not wait un­til...it has to start from day one. The home en­vi­ron­ment must be one of pos­i­tive val­ues. Chil­dren learn by ex­am­ple and our chil­dren's friends should al­so be the par­ents' friends, okay?

And when we no­tice they are keep­ing the wrong type of com­pa­ny we must nip it in the bud so we can­not blame the re­li­gious lead­ers for that. We try to keep them on the right path, that is as much as we can do. We can­not hold them on a leash and pull them in, we can on­ly en­cour­age them to do the right thing every time. We can mo­ti­vate you, en­cour­age you, but the change has to come from the per­son who wants to change for the pos­i­tive.

Q: To deal with an is­sue back on the na­tion­al agen­da-ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty. What is the Hin­du po­si­tion on same-sex mar­riage?

(A slight­ly un­com­fort­able coun­te­nance which quick­ly soft­ened) We have all kinds of peo­ple in our so­ci­ety who are all hu­man be­ings and must be treat­ed as such but when it comes to mar­riage well, I am not so sure be­cause ac­cord­ing to our sys­tem, the mar­riage cer­e­mo­ny has al­ways been be­tween a man and a woman. I do not know of any mar­riage where two peo­ple of the same sex could be joined to­geth­er, right?

I can­not agree with it be­cause ac­cord­ing to our Hin­du thought, man is in­com­plete with­out a wife and a wife is al­ways re­ferred to as a woman and one of the func­tions of mar­riage is for pro­cre­ation, I can­not see that hap­pen­ing in a same sex mar­riage. In­di­vid­u­als have the right to en­joy all the priv­i­leges af­ford­ed by the so­ci­ety but I do have reser­va­tions with that same-sex mar­riage mat­ter.

Q: Fi­nal­ly Pun­dit Ma­haraj, as the coun­try gets ready to cel­e­brate an­oth­er Ar­rival Day what is your most fer­vent wish at this time?

I would wish that we con­tin­ue to try to make our coun­try a bet­ter place and do all to en­sure that there is har­mo­ny in the coun­try be­tween each and every one; love for each oth­er and that we con­tin­ue to grow as a na­tion to­geth­er.