by Samp­son Nan­ton

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and a man who carved out a lega­cy for him­self as a fight­er, Sat­narayan Ma­haraj, 88, has died.

He died at 12.01 am Sat­ur­day, eight days af­ter he suf­fered a stroke.

Ma­haraj had been ward­ed at Med­ical As­so­ciates in St Joseph in crit­i­cal con­di­tion and yes­ter­day his son Vi­jay Ma­haraj an­nounced that he had been tak­en off sup­port sys­tems.

In the lead-up to his pass­ing, over 100 pun­dits and devo­tees gath­ered at sev­en mandirs across Trinidad for pu­jas, ha­vans and jaaps, as it was be­com­ing clear that Ma­haraj may not have had long again to live.

The devo­tees chant­ed the Rudri, re­cit­ed the Ma­ha Mri­tyun­jaya mantra and read from the Gi­ta, chap­ters de­vot­ed on the jour­ney af­ter death.

Flashback May 30th. Sanatan Dharma Maha Saba Secretary General Satnarayan Maharaj presents a plaque to the principal of the Parvati Girl's Hindu College Sharda Maharaj-Ramjattan, during the annual Indian Arrival Day Celebration hosted by the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha of Trinidad and Tobago, South Regional Council, at Parvati Girl's Hindu College in, Debe.

RISHI RAGOONATH

A state­ment by Ra­dio and TV Jaagri­ti said that Ma­haraj passed peace­ful­ly in his sleep.

"We are ex­treme­ly grate­ful to every­one for their ded­i­ca­tion of prayers and of­fer­ings of sup­port in vary­ing forms and fash­ion," the state­ment said.

"As per Hin­du tra­di­tions, Sri Sat­narayan Ma­haraj was un­der the pro­tec­tion of Tu­lai Leaves and he al­so drank holy wa­ter from the most revered Triveni Riv­er. In his dy­ing mo­ments, he clasped a copy of the Hanu­man Chal­isa which he al­ways kept in his pos­ses­sion when he was alive."

The state­ment went on to say that his pass­ing was "en­tire­ly free of any pain and suf­fer­ing and was a smooth tran­si­tion from this mor­tal world".

Ma­haraj was a devo­tee of Lord Hanu­man which in Hin­duism is the god of strength, which matched his life of fight­ing for the Hin­du and East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ties.

Prayers for the SDMS Secretary-General Sat Maharaj at the Munroe Road Shiv Mandir on Thursday night. Pujas and havans together with Jaap/chanting were also conducted simultaneously at other mandirs throughout Trinidad.

Central Broadcasting Services Ltd/Tv Jaagriti

The state­ment said: "We, there­fore, have no doubt that none oth­er than Prab­hu Sri Ram and his Chief Ser­vant, Lord Hanu­man at­tend­ed up­on Sri Sat­narayan Ma­haraj to take him on to his new jour­ney to their heav­en­ly abode."

Three days of mourn­ing have been de­clared in his ho­n­our and his fam­i­ly said they will an­nounce fu­ner­al arrange­ments with­in 24 hours.

The trib­ute paid to Ma­haraj in the state­ment con­tin­ued: "Sat­narayan Ma­haraj was a true fight­er for the bet­ter­ment of Hin­dus, East In­di­ans and by ex­ten­sion, the en­tire so­ci­ety. In­deed he has achieved im­mense suc­cess in his bat­tles for our en­hanced wel­fare. Each and every one of us iden­ti­fy with him on an in­di­vid­ual lev­el. His lega­cy will cer­tain­ly con­tin­ue through all of us and the col­lec­tive start­ing point will be the man­ner in which we ho­n­our him at this time."

Ma­haraj's last days were blessed with prayers from Hin­du and oth­er re­li­gious lead­ers.

Among them were the Dhar­mar­charya, Pun­dit Dr Ram­per­sad Paras­ram, Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don, the Ab­bot of Mt St Bene­dict, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Sev­en Day Ad­ven­tist Church, Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin and the pres­i­dent of the Is­lam­ic Front Move­ment, Umar Ab­dul­lah.

SDMS Secretary General Sat Maharaj, UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and former UNC Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Anil Roberts, at the UNC’s Divali event in El Dorado, last month.

PETER CHRISTOPHER

“There has been an over­whelm­ing amount of sup­port com­ing from the Hin­du, and non-Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty as well,” Pun­dit Rishi said on Fri­day.

Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Princes Town, Bar­ry Padarath was among the first to re­spond, telling the fam­i­ly that they are not alone and would have the sup­port of his par­ty in their time of grief.

Devo­tees de­scribed Ma­haraj as the "god­fa­ther of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty" in Trinidad and To­ba­go but his reach spanned well be­yond that com­mu­ni­ty alone.

He was award­ed the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold), the na­tion's sec­ond-high­est award, in 2010.

He fought a le­gal bat­tle in 2006 to change the name of the na­tion's high­est award from the Trin­i­ty Cross be­cause he ar­gued that the Chris­t­ian sym­bol of a cross did not rep­re­sent the coun­try's mul­ti-re­li­gious na­ture.

It was lat­er changed to 'The Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go".

Sat Maharaj as he spoke to the media following his challenge of the Police Service's handling of a raid on the compound of Radio Jaagriti earlier this year.

The SDMS un­der him mod­ernised 42 schools and built five sec­ondary schools as well as 12 ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion cen­tres.

He re­vived the ob­ser­vance of Phag­wa and was in­stru­men­tal in the cre­ation of the In­di­an Ar­ri­val Day hol­i­day and an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tions.

He led for­mer week­ly news­pa­pers, the Bomb and the Blast and fought in court for a li­cense to open Ra­dio Jaagri­ti and TV Jaagri­ti, ded­i­cat­ed to the Hin­du faith.

He was no stranger to con­tro­ver­sy be­cause of his strong views.

He fought with late cul­tur­al icon Ras Shorty I over a ca­lyp­so, "In­drani", which Ma­haraj in­sist­ed was de­grad­ing of East In­di­an women.

He al­so took is­sue with Shorty I's ca­lyp­so "Shan­ti Om" which Ma­haraj in­sist­ed was tram­pling up­on the sanc­ti­ty of the Hin­du re­li­gion by the use of sa­cred words.

Prayers for the SDMS Secretary-General Sat Maharaj at the Munroe Road Shiv Mandir on Thursday night. Pujas and havans together with Jaap/chanting were also conducted simultaneously at other mandirs throughout Trinidad.

Central Broadcasting Services Ltd/TV Jaagriti

He was al­so on the oth­er end of the ca­lyp­so spec­trum, with some ca­lyp­so­ni­ans chid­ing him in their lyrics.

Among them was Cro Cro's parang 'Dougla Wed­ding', with the words, "I want a wed­ding, a dougla wed­ding, I want to see Sat Ma­haraj frown­ing".

Ear­li­er this year, he came un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for sedi­tion fol­low­ing state­ments he made on air dur­ing his TV show, "The Ma­ha Sab­ha Strikes Back".

Among oth­er things, he de­scribed To­bag­o­ni­ans as "lazy peo­ple who don't want to work" dur­ing the pro­gramme.

Of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at Ra­dio Jaa­gri­ti for ev­i­dence in re­la­tion to the au­dio-vi­su­al clip, which aired on Tues­day April 16.

Evans Gajadar, 94, centre, sits between India High Commissioner Bishwadip Dey, left, and SDMS Secretary General Sat Maharaj.

Shastri Boodan

He chal­lenged the Po­lice Ser­vice in court, claim­ing that the search war­rant was not read to him.

High Court Judge Ron­nie Boodoos­in­gh up­held the ju­di­cial re­view law­suit brought by Ma­haraj and his com­pa­ny, say­ing that they were en­ti­tled to chal­lenge the is­sue and that the po­lice's de­ci­sion was un­law­ful.

As part of the de­ci­sion, Boodoos­in­gh gave Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith sev­en days to pro­vide a copy of the war­rant and have the orig­i­nal avail­able for in­spec­tion by Ma­haraj and the com­pa­ny's lawyers.

Ma­haraj would lat­er chal­lenge the Sedi­tion Law in court, a mat­ter that was not con­clud­ed be­fore he died.

He drew the ire of many in 2017 over his stance against the out­law of child mar­riages.

Sanatan Dharma Maha Saba (SDMS) Sat Maharaj and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar chat with ​Vrishni S Maharaj and Vasudha S Maharaj.

DION ROACH

Ma­haraj had said that a team of lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the SDMS was look­ing at the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sion (Mar­riage) Act, No.8 of 2017 to see where it breached the Hin­du re­li­gion’s right to prac­tice and was to ad­vise on what ac­tion to take against the State.

The law was even­tu­al­ly passed de­spite his short cam­paign against it.

In 2011, Ma­haraj was hailed as the most pow­er­ful Hin­du out­side of In­dia by then-gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma dur­ing Ma­haraj’s 80th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion.

An­oth­er gov­ern­ment min­is­ter in 2011, Rudranath In­dars­in­gh said Ma­haraj gave a voice to not on­ly Hin­dus but to a wide cross-sec­tion of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and re­shaped so­cio-eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal think­ing in the coun­try.

“Gov­ern­ments fear this man in this coun­try, it’s a good sign,” Shar­ma said of Ma­haraj in 2011.

Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) secretary general Sat Maharaj, centre, chats with Caroni Hindu School pupils during the organization’s annual Indian Arrival Celebration in Debe yesterday.

Tony Howell

Ma­haraj was al­so a long-stand­ing colum­nist with the Trinidad Guardian news­pa­per.

Ra­dio and TV Jaagri­ti ran a three-hour pro­gramme on his death from mid­night to 3 am Sat­ur­day, re­ceiv­ing calls from mem­bers of the pub­lic, the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty and mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.

An­nounc­ers said they will con­tin­ue to pro­vide up­dates over the next three days lead­ing up to the fu­ner­al.

He was born on April 17, 1931.