Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

"Of­fen­sive and dis­re­spect­ful."

That is how for­mer pres­i­dent of the Trinidad Mus­lim League, Dr Nass­er Mustapha, yes­ter­day de­scribed sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Sat Ma­haraj's at­tack on Arch­bish­op Joseph Har­ris, over his com­ment that child mar­riage was le­gal statu­to­ry rape.

Say­ing Ma­haraj's tirade does not pro­mote re­li­gious har­mo­ny in T&T, Mustapha, a se­nior lec­tur­er in so­ci­ol­o­gy and deputy dean of grad­u­ate stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, said Ma­haraj's com­ments were "of­fen­sive and un­called for."

"I know what he meant to say but it came across as of­fen­sive and his choice of words was dis­re­spect­ful. I feel he could have dis­agreed in a more civ­il man­ner.

"I know his in­ten­tions were good but he came across as ag­gres­sive. What he said does not au­gur well for re­la­tions be­cause we should be build­ing bridges for greater har­mo­ny be­tween com­mu­ni­ties.

"We must be con­cerned about the over­all sta­bil­i­ty of our coun­try. This will cre­ate fric­tion among the con­gre­ga­tions so I can­not sup­port what he said at all," Mustapha said.

He was re­fer­ring to Ma­haraj's call at an Ar­rival Day func­tion that Har­ris should "mind his own busi­ness" and "go to hell" for what he (Ma­haraj) saw as the arch­bish­op's at­tack on the Hin­du faith over child mar­riage is­sues.

Asked how he felt about Ma­haraj's claims that child mar­riages were "Hin­du busi­ness," Mustapha said that was not so.

"All re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties must con­form with our laws. There are the Hin­du, Mus­lim and Or­isha Mar­riage Acts but even if your com­mu­ni­ty be­lieves in some­thing and con­sid­ers it your busi­ness it has to be rat­i­fied by the laws of the land.

"You can­not say it is your busi­ness. It has to be ap­proved by the Gov­ern­ment and must con­form with the laws of the State."

Say­ing Ma­haraj may have be­come emo­tion­al while speak­ing with­in his own Hin­du cir­cle, Mustapha said he should now do the right thing and apol­o­gise.

Asked whether he was in sup­port of the move to change the Mar­riage Act, Mustapha said he had not yet read the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion so he could not com­ment.

He said, how­ev­er, that the In­ter-re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion would not con­done what Ma­haraj said.

But con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said he would not apol­o­gise.

"I speak on be­half of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty and he (Mustapha) speaks on be­half of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty. I am en­ti­tled to my view and he is en­ti­tled to his," Ma­haraj said.

Say­ing he stood by his com­ments, Ma­haraj said the ques­tion of an apol­o­gy did not arise.

"The Hin­dus have a view. I stand by my view. I have not changed it so why should I apol­o­gise?" Ma­haraj asked.

In a ra­dio in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Arch­bish­op Har­ris said he had no re­sponse to Ma­haraj's harsh crit­i­cisms.

"I have nev­er dis­re­spect­ed any re­li­gious leader in T&T. I don't in­tend to low­er my­self and get down in that kind of be­hav­iour so I pre­fer not to com­ment," Har­ris said.

He al­so said he was not tak­ing Ma­haraj's crit­i­cisms se­ri­ous­ly.

"The on­ly per­son who can send me to hell is Almighty God so I am not in hell. If Almighty God con­demns me to hell I will be quak­ing in my boots but you don't get con­demned to hell for speak­ing the truth," he added.