JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, March 8, 2025

HINDU SCHOOLS IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

by

20141120

A del­e­ga­tion of four from the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha at­tend­ed a Hin­du Or­ga­ni­za­tion­al Con­fer­ence in New Del­hi, on No­vem­ber 21-23.

As Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Ma­ha Sab­ha I was chair­man of Ses­sion 2: "Tem­ples and Hin­du Awak­en­ing," while the CEO of the Ma­ha Sab­ha's ra­dio and tele­vi­sion net­work, Jaagri­ti, Lokesh Ma­haraj, de­liv­ered a pa­per on mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the prop­a­ga­tion of Hin­duism.

Pres­i­dent of the Pun­dits' Parishad Bhadase See­ta­hal Ma­haraj pre­sent­ed a pa­per on Hin­du Schools in T&T. Here it is. This is Part 1 in a se­ries:

This pre­sen­ta­tion seeks to de­scribe the ex­cel­lent per­for­mance by Hin­du pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools in Trinidad in all facets of ed­u­ca­tion, growth, de­vel­op­ment and progress of the chil­dren who at­tend the schools. It will al­so iden­ti­fy the key fac­tors which are re­spon­si­ble for the over­all ex­cel­lent per­for­mance of all schools owned and ad­min­is­trat­ed by the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha In­cor­po­rat­ed of T&T.

This pre­sen­ta­tion will, for clar­i­ty, con­cise­ness and un­der­stand­ing, out­line, de­fine and de­vel­op the key is­sues that im­pact on the per­for­mance of Hin­du Schools in Trinidad. As a re­sult, the pre­sen­ta­tion will be struc­tured along the fol­low­ing di­vi­sions:

� Brief back­ground of Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty

� Po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry and cli­mate

� Ear­ly and suc­ces­sive or­gan­i­sa­tion­al lead­er­ship

� Strate­gic gov­er­nance

� School con­struc­tion plan­ning process

� Re­cruit­ment pol­i­cy and process

� Cur­ricu­lum

� School lead­er­ship, man­age­ment and in­te­grat­ed gov­er­nance

� Re­la­tion­ship with key stake­hold­ers

� Re­la­tion­ship with gov­ern­ments

� Re­la­tion­ship with oth­er de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards

� Ex­am­i­na­tions, test­ing and as­sess­ment

� Ex­am­i­na­tion per­for­mance

� The way for­ward

Brief back­ground ofHin­du com­mu­ni­ty

Trinidad is a part of the twin-is­land re­pub­lic that is named T&T. It has a land mass of 1,864 square miles and a cos­mopoli­tan pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple. It is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic state and the Gov­ern­ment is usu­al­ly elect­ed for a five-year term. There have been ear­ly elec­tions on a few oc­ca­sions for a num­ber of rea­sons, but the gov­er­nance struc­ture has re­mained firm, strong and in­tact, ex­cept for two in­stances of so­cial up­heavals in 1970 and 1990; these up­heavals were quick­ly coun­tered.

Trinidad was pop­u­lat­ed with in­dige­nous peo­ples–the Caribs and Arawaks–be­fore the Spaniard Christo­pher Colum­bus ar­rived in 1498. There­after, gov­er­nance was tak­en over by the British, the last colo­nial ruler be­fore Trinidad gained in­de­pen­dence in 1962. This in part ac­counts for the di­verse cos­mopoli­tan pop­u­la­tion in Trinidad. The var­i­ous races and re­li­gions nor­mal­ly co­ex­ist in a peace­ful man­ner in spite of ex­pect­ed ten­sions large­ly based on re­li­gion, eco­nom­ics and pol­i­tics.

The ar­rival of East In­di­ans in Trinidad com­menced in 1845 when in­den­tured im­mi­grants, most­ly from Ut­tar Pradesh in In­dia, came to re­sus­ci­tate the dy­ing sug­ar plan­ta­tions as a di­rect con­se­quence of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery in 1838. Peo­ple from oth­er places were tried, but they did not pos­sess the req­ui­site abil­i­ty to ad­just and adapt to the in­dus­try re­quired of sug­ar cane cul­ti­va­tion.

From 1845 to 1917 in­den­tured im­mi­grants ar­rived con­tin­u­ous­ly from sev­er­al parts of In­dia to sus­tain the sug­ar plan­ta­tions. As a re­sult, the pop­u­la­tion of East In­di­ans cur­rent­ly com­pris­es ap­prox­i­mate­ly 42 per cent of the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion.

The Hin­du pop­u­la­tion has re­mained quite steady at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 23 per cent of the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion over the last 19 years. To­day peo­ple from In­dia con­scious­ly de­cide to make Trinidad their per­ma­nent res­i­dence, and they are present in thou­sands as doc­tors, en­gi­neers, busi­ness own­ers etc. Ar­riv­ing in Trinidad with a wealth and lega­cy of re­li­gious and cul­tur­al mores, val­ues and prac­tices, even though from im­pov­er­ished con­di­tions, it was not easy and it still is not easy for the Hin­dus to dis­solve in­to the con­fig­u­ra­tion of a di­verse land­scape. As a con­se­quence of this, Hin­dus from the ear­ly years formed and de­pend­ed on in­for­mal struc­tures to pre­serve and prop­a­gate a known way of life.

The pan­chaay­at and oth­er sys­tems as­sist­ed in reg­u­lat­ing life as con­di­tions re­quired. It is and was no sur­prise there­fore that re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions and struc­tures were de­vel­oped. Against this back­ground, Hin­dus have con­firmed them­selves as an in­trin­sic as­pect of po­lit­i­cal life and have pro­duced two Hin­du Prime Min­is­ters–the Ho­n­ourable Bas­deo Pan­day in 1995 and the present Prime Min­is­ter, the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in 2010.

The Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty has al­so pro­duced sev­er­al promi­nent politi­cians as well as ex­perts and lead­ers in every imag­in­able field of en­deav­our. The cen­tral point is that Hin­dus ex­ist­ed in a hos­tile po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment and had to de­vise strate­gies and poli­cies to en­sure sur­vival in an ac­cept­able man­ner. One of the ear­ly un­der­pin­nings of life in an alien en­vi­ron­ment was the in­abil­i­ty to de­code the pre­vail­ing lan­guage, and the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty was iso­lat­ed in the ear­ly years.

By the end of the pe­ri­od of in­den­ture­ship in 1917, some Hin­dus and East In­di­ans re­turned to In­dia while, for most, Trinidad was now the land of res­i­dence or birth. Many mar­riages and oth­er af­fil­i­a­tions were con­cre­tised and life had greater form, func­tion and mean­ing. In the ear­ly part of the 1900s, the Hin­dus con­sti­tut­ed a most­ly in­verse com­mu­ni­ty.

Part 2, next week: Ear­ly and suc­ceed­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion­al lead­er­ship.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored