Clevon Raphael

At the 10th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of T&T's In­de­pen­dence the for­mer gov­ern­ment se­cret­ly gave the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) $10,000 to car­ry out its events, with the promise not to make this fact pub­lic. The rea­son?Ac­cord­ing to pres­i­dent of the NCIC, De­ok­ien­anan Shar­ma, a 76-year-old civ­il en­gi­neer, the gov­ern­ment did not con­sid­er East In­di­an cul­ture part of the coun­try's cul­tur­al fab­ric.

Shar­ma, who says the re­la­tions be­tween the var­i­ous eth­nic groups in the coun­try are very good, laments the lack of ad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty at of­fi­cial cul­tur­al events, in­clud­ing Car­ifes­ta.

Q: Mr Shar­ma, the NCIC is cel­e­brat­ing its 50th an­niver­sary next year, what has been the great­est achieve­ment of your group so far?

A: (Clear­ing his throat in the study at his home in Palm Road, Val­sayn, on Thurs­day morn­ing) Di­vali Na­gar is the best project we ever came up with, be­cause it is the first time in the his­to­ry of In­di­an cul­ture in this coun­try the en­tire na­tion has been ex­posed to what In­di­an cul­ture is all about.We have al­so been in the fore­front of the re­vival of East In­di­an cul­ture in some of the small­er is­lands in the Caribbean.

There was a con­tro­ver­sy some years ago over whether chut­ney should be per­formed on this pro­gramme. Has that sit­u­a­tion changed?

No. We do not al­low that at the Di­vali Na­gar. Nor do we do pro­mote chut­ney at the NCIC, be­cause it be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with vul­gar­i­ty; the com­po­si­tions are not of the stan­dard we would like.

Chut­ney is an in­te­gral part of East In­di­an/T&T cul­ture. Isn't that dis­crim­i­nat­ing against your own her­itage?

No. It is not a form of dis­crim­i­na­tion, be­cause we do al­low some types of chut­ney singing, based on its orig­i­nal form, but the way it has turned out in re­cent years, we don't think we can pro­mote that. As you know, chut­ney shows are syn­ony­mous with the con­sump­tion of al­co­holic bev­er­ages, and we do not serve al­co­hol at any of our func­tions.My per­son­al view, and this is not the view of the ex­ec­u­tive of the NCIC, is that it has gone away from its orig­i­nal moor­ings.

So you are say­ing that it is not In­di­an cul­ture?

No. I think they have gone far away from what is In­di­an cul­ture. You don't hear an In­dia beat in the re­cent chut­ney type of song. We don't have the tabla, we don't have the har­mo­ni­um and we don't have the dho­lak and so on, right? They have tak­en more to the ca­lyp­so style of singing.

Do you have any­thing against the fu­sion of both types of mu­sic?

No, I am not say­ing that. There will be fu­sion be­cause we live in a coun­try where we can­not avoid it.

If you had your way will you ban the chut­ney?

(Half smil­ing) I have no in­ten­tion, I will nev­er ban chut­ney.

So why this ve­he­ment stand against it at Di­vali Na­gar?

I re­peat, be­cause it is as­so­ci­at­ed with vul­gar­i­ty and the kind of danc­ing which can­not be on our stage, around which we have de­vel­oped the pro­mo­tion of our cul­tur­al her­itage.Don't get the im­pres­sion that we do not ap­pre­ci­ate oth­er forms of our lo­cal cul­ture.

I gath­er that you have some kind of beef with the Car­ifes­ta pro­gramme?

Yes. I was on that plan­ning com­mit­tee, the on­ly East In­di­an, and when I tried to push for the in­clu­sion of East In­di­an items I was told in no un­cer­tain terms that Car­ifes­ta was an Afro-Caribbean cul­tur­al pre­sen­ta­tion.

Re­al­ly? By whom?

(Shak­ing his head in the neg­a­tive) I wouldn't name the per­son now. That per­son is alive to­day.Since then we have been giv­en to­ken rep­re­sen­ta­tion and I am not aware if any­thing has changed sub­stan­tial­ly in the last cou­ple of years as I am no longer ac­tive in that sphere.Com­ing from T&T, where al­most half the pop­u­la­tion is of East In­di­an ori­gin, I feel East In­di­an cul­ture must be giv­en more promi­nence.

Gen­er­al­ly, Mr Shar­ma, are you of the opin­ion that the East In­di­an cul­ture is not giv­en the kind of promi­nence it de­serves here in T&T?

Gen­er­al­ly it has im­proved but I feel there could be much more promi­nence at the ma­jor cul­tur­al events in our coun­try.

We have had two prime min­is­ters of East In­di­an ori­gin, one of whom is cur­rent­ly at the helm of our gov­ern­ment. Have you ever at­tempt­ed to raise the mat­ter at this lev­el?

No. I have not re­al­ly done so but I do speak about it on my plat­form and I main­tain we can get more promi­nence.

Ex­act­ly in what way?

(Slight­ly pinch­ing his right cheek) For in­stance, when we had the Icons cel­e­bra­tion at the coun­try's re­cent 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, when we looked at the pro­gramme there was a pauci­ty of East In­di­an per­form­ers.

One of the items that got me re­al mad was that the Shiv Shak­ti dancers, prob­a­bly the lead­ing East In­di­an dance group in the coun­try, couldn't per­form or wasn't al­lowed to per­form a sin­gle dance by them­selves. They were sub­servient to a singer who per­formed a win­ing song, which they danced to, and the four East In­di­an dancers were win­ing to the song. (Fur­rowed brow) And that was the to­tal sum of East In­di­an per­for­mance at that func­tion.

I no­tice that you don't like the word "dis­crim­i­na­tion" in the con­text of our dis­cus­sion, but don't you feel this is some kind of dis­crim­i­na­tion?

Yes. I try to avoid the word­be­cause I re­al­ly don't think it might be dis­crim­i­na­tion. It is just...

Any sim­i­lar type of ex­pe­ri­ences you might have gone through?

Yes. For our coun­try's 10th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence we were a very small and strug­gling or­gan­i­sa­tion at that time, we went to the for­mer min­is­ter (whom he named and who has since passed on) with over­all re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the cel­e­bra­tions and asked him if we could get some as­sis­tance to run our show through­out the coun­try.

And there was a lot of ar­gu­ment about whether East In­di­an cul­ture was part of T&T's cul­ture, and it was clear to us that the min­is­ter (name called again) made it very clear that the gov­ern­ment of the day did not con­sid­er East In­di­an cul­ture.

Wait, wait, Mr Shar­ma, are you speak­ing the truth, the whole truth and noth­ing but the truth?

Mr Raphael, I have no rea­son to speak an un­truth and as long I live I will al­ways re­mem­ber that en­counter.To con­tin­ue the sto­ry, he told us, how­ev­er, "We are go­ing to give you $10,000, but please do not ad­ver­tise at any of our shows that the gov­ern­ment of T&T has giv­en you $10,000." Be­cause they did not con­sid­er East In­di­an cul­ture as part of T&T's cul­ture.

Do you think that at­ti­tude still ex­ists to­day?

No. That has changed con­sid­er­ably. Since Di­vali Na­gar start­ed, the cul­ture has gone on the na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stage, as it is broad­cast all over the world. We are get­ting text mes­sages from al­most every cor­ner of the globe.

Mr Shar­ma, have you ever tried to take ad­van­tage of the fact that our prime min­is­ter and some of her top min­is­ters are Hin­dus and, there­fore, the NCIC should be treat­ed more favourably than the non-Hin­du based or­gan­i­sa­tions?

(Adamant­ly) Mr Raphael, we have steered clear away from the pol­i­tics as much as pos­si­ble and of course in­di­vid­ual mem­bers will have their pref­er­ences, but as an or­gan­i­sa­tion we do not en­dorse any par­tic­u­lar par­ty.We in­vite all MPs, every sin­gle one of them, at our open­ing cer­e­mo­ny each year.

What kind of bill are your faced with stag­ing the Na­gar pro­gramme, let's say this year?

We do not have the fi­nal fig­ure as yet but this year it is es­ti­mat­ed in the re­gion of $3 mil­lion, with the Gov­ern­ment con­tribut­ing $1.5 mil­lion, an in­crease of $.5mil­lion from 2012.

Mr Shar­ma, it ap­pears that the Di­vali Na­gar is bet­ter or­gan­ised than the African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day ac­tiv­i­ties. What is the NCIC do­ing bet­ter than the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee?

(Quick­ly with a guard­ed re­sponse) That is com­ing from you, right? I have not been to the Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions and it ap­pears to be a well-or­gan­ised cel­e­bra­tion, but in the case of our pro­gramme we have been in it for so long, we love our cul­ture, we want to en­sure that it is pre­served, prop­a­gat­ed and we are buoyed by the re­sponse from the pub­lic.

It al­so ap­par­ent that more Afro-Tri­nis at­tend the Di­vali Na­gar than In­do-Tri­nis do at the Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions...what do you think ac­counts for that, if I may say, im­bal­ance?

(A big smile) I can­not doubt that be­cause I have not been to the Eman­ci­pa­tion pro­gramme, and per­haps in re­cent years In­do-Tri­nis are a lit­tle bit scared go­ing in­to Port-of-Spain be­cause of the crime wave and so on...I am not sure. I don't know why they are not go­ing.

Fi­nal­ly, Mr Shar­ma, do you have any­thing else to say which I was un­able to ex­tract out of you?

(Shift­ing in his chair with a broad smile) I think you have cov­ered quite a lot of ground, and I did not ex­pect you to get me in­to all kinds of pol­i­tics and racial things (laugh­ter) but with­out that the ar­ti­cle will not be very good read­ing. I am sure what you have done here will cre­ate good read­ing.