KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As the coun­try bid a tear­ful but cel­e­bra­tive farewell to for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day yes­ter­day, tales of his life as a war­rior for the vul­ner­a­ble, a vi­sion­ary leader, and a ten­der fa­ther showed that his lega­cy will live on for gen­er­a­tions.

Hun­dreds of mourn­ers, in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, busi­ness­men and women, mil­i­tary per­son­nel and for­eign diplo­mats, con­verged at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), San Fer­nan­do, for the state fu­ner­al that took many through an emo­tion­al morn­ing of laugh­ter, pride, and tears.

The count­less names in­clud­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Nigel De Fre­itas, for­mer pres­i­dents Paula-Mae Weekes and An­tho­ny Car­mona, Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Ker­rie Sym­monds and Guyana Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and In­ter­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion Hugh Hilton Todd.

The fu­ner­al drew old Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress col­leagues like Win­ston Dook­er­an, Gan­ga Singh and Mervyn As­sam to fresh­er faces like Ani­ta Haynes and Sad­dam Ho­sein.

So im­pact­ful was Pan­day’s life that Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo said his pass­ing on New Year’s Day was more than T&T los­ing its fifth prime min­is­ter.

Fac­ing the packed Sun­dar­lal Popo Ba­ho­ra Au­di­to­ri­um, she told mourn­ers that the coun­try lost one of the biggest and most colour­ful fig­ures in the mod­ern his­to­ry of the Caribbean.

“We lost a man who blazed a trail like few oth­ers be­fore him ever had and like few oth­ers ever will again. We lost a feisty fight­er who faced every bat­tle head-on, win­ning some and los­ing some along the way, at times hurt­ing his op­po­nents, at times hurt­ing him­self. We lost a man who yield­ed no ground dur­ing his 90 years. We lost a man who lived his life to the full and who, in the course of do­ing so, set the na­tion­al land­scape on fire,” Kan­ga­loo said.

She said Pan­day, who was af­fec­tion­ate­ly known at the Sil­ver Fox, fas­ci­nat­ed the coun­try and the Caribbean with his charm and en­thralled the na­tion with his wit. She re­called that he al­so had a dev­as­tat­ing­ly caus­tic side that she ob­served when she sat op­po­site him in Par­lia­ment be­tween 2007 and 2010.

“Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, in what turned out to be the sun­set years of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, he would, on oc­ca­sion when he was not wax­ing lyri­cal in the course of a con­tri­bu­tion, of­ten sit with his head buried in a book, nev­er look­ing up, al­most dar­ing those on the op­po­site side to in­ter­fere with his peace. Woe be­tide the un­sus­pect­ing soul who dared to do so. We all learned ear­ly on not to trou­ble the li­on when he was at rest.”

Kan­ga­loo said Pan­day had enough crit­ics dur­ing his life­time but likened him to a me­te­or blaz­ing its trail across the sky, burn­ing every­thing in its path. As the na­tion’s bright­est me­te­or, she said it would not be sur­pris­ing if, in his wake, he burned bridges at times. She said he had his fam­i­ly, whom he loved more than life, and his friends.

While Kan­ga­loo, a for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP for Pointe-a-Pierre, and Pan­day were po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents in Par­lia­ment, they were fam­i­ly friends in life. She re­called meet­ing him at her home in San Fer­nan­do in 1984, dur­ing a par­ty her fa­ther held to cel­e­brate her broth­er Wen­dell’s call to the bar. She said it was not his charm or wit that im­pressed her but her ob­ser­va­tion of a man who was com­plete­ly and ut­ter­ly in love with life.

“He and his beloved Oma danced the evening away with com­plete aban­don, mov­ing to the mu­sic in a way that even then, in my youth, it was dif­fi­cult for me and my friends to match. He was to show that same en­er­gy and some of those very dance moves al­most 40 years lat­er, when he mount­ed the stage at Bri­an Lara’s all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val par­ty re­cent­ly, to the ut­ter de­light of an ador­ing au­di­ence.”

Kan­ga­loo elicit­ed laugh­ter when she re­called meet­ing Pan­day at her in­au­gu­ra­tion in March 2023, and he dis­armed her with praise: “Con­grat­u­la­tions, that was an ex­cel­lent speech.”

She told mourn­ers, “Hav­ing got me where he want­ed me, he then said, ‘I am afraid to tell you, though, that you will get noth­ing done’. He paused briefly and con­clud­ed, still smil­ing, ‘with­out con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form’.”

Jovial­ly, she said Pan­day was like a boa con­stric­tor with its prey in its grip where it con­cerned con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

Daugh­ter: He was a pi­o­neer and sup­port­ive fa­ther

While speak­ers shared their sto­ries of Pan­day, the politi­cian and friend, Mick­ela Pan­day’s voice cracked as she spoke of the ten­der fa­ther who sup­port­ed his four daugh­ters in all their choic­es with­out be­ing judge­men­tal. Mick­ela said while he was not al­ways phys­i­cal­ly present dur­ing their child­hood, he was al­ways there when they need­ed him.

Sup­port­ed by her sis­ters Niala, Nico­la and Vasta­la, Mick­ela told mourn­ers that when the fam­i­ly trav­elled abroad a month ago, they nev­er ex­pect­ed they would not re­turn home with their pa­tri­arch.

“It was not even a thought be­cause of the sheer will, de­ter­mi­na­tion and fight­ing spir­it with which he lived his life. Any­one who knows him will know that our fa­ther has nev­er been some­one to com­plain about any­thing be­cause he nev­er want­ed any­one to wor­ry about him.

“He was al­ways cheer­ful, wit­ty, charm­ing and charis­mat­ic, so you would nev­er know he was not feel­ing 100 per cent. Up un­til the last mo­ment, noth­ing changed. He was al­ways smil­ing and mak­ing every­one around him laugh,” Mick­ela said.

Though her wa­tery eyes glis­tened un­der the stage lights, she found a smile, shar­ing how he re­spond­ed to a doc­tor’s ques­tion about how he felt.

Mourn­ers laughed at Pan­day’s re­ply “‘Doc, if I were feel­ing well, I would not be here’.”

Mick­ela said Pan­day was al­ways full of spir­it, which made every­one love him. This at­tribute made his pass­ing ground-shat­ter­ing for the fam­i­ly, leav­ing them with lives that would nev­er be the same.

“The shock, pain and dis­be­lief were numb­ing but when you grow up like my sis­ters and I, a sense of du­ty im­me­di­ate­ly kicks in. Yes, he is our dad, but he does not be­long to us alone. He loved peo­ple, and peo­ple loved him.”

Mick­ela said her fa­ther was a for­ward-think­ing vi­sion­ary who al­ways found so­lu­tions to prob­lems. She said un­til his end, he be­came en­er­gised when en­gaged in po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and eco­nom­ic is­sues, al­ways will­ing to lis­ten and ad­vise when asked. She de­scribed him as a pi­o­neer who gen­uine­ly be­lieved in equal­i­ty and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion, which was ev­i­dent by the ac­com­plish­ments of the gov­ern­ment dur­ing his six-year tenure as prime min­is­ter. She said his gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act, Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act, and Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act and es­tab­lished the In­ter­im Rev­enue Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (now Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund), the Dol­lar-for-Dol­lar pro­gramme, built schools, po­lice sta­tions, and homes, paved roads, pro­vid­ed wa­ter, paid off T&T’s debt to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, and over­saw the low­est crime rate.

“Dad nev­er spoke the lan­guage of race, pub­licly or pri­vate­ly. He was equal in his treat­ment of every­one in both his pub­lic and pri­vate lives. He was a gen­uine pa­tri­ot who be­lieved in equal­i­ty for all.”

She thanked Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne and his team for mov­ing moun­tains to bring her fa­ther’s body back to T&T and those help­ing to host a state fu­ner­al a mere week af­ter his pass­ing.

Cari­com pays trib­ute

Cari­com As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Eliz­a­beth Solomon al­so paid trib­ute, say­ing Pan­day ded­i­cat­ed five decades to im­prov­ing cit­i­zens’ lives.

Solomon high­light­ed Pan­day’s con­tri­bu­tion to re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, say­ing it was un­der his lead­er­ship that T&T signed an agree­ment with Cari­com to es­tab­lish the seat of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) and the of­fices of the Re­gion­al Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion in T&T in 1999. Solomon said the CCJ con­tin­ues to pro­vide Cari­com states with the high­est ju­di­cial ex­cel­lence. She said it was al­so un­der Pan­day’s chair­man­ship of Cari­com that the par­lia­men­tary op­po­si­tion was ac­cord­ed of­fi­cial recog­ni­tion with­in the re­gion­al struc­ture.

“Bas­deo Pan­day was tru­ly a man who walked with mon­archs and nev­er lost the com­mon touch,” Solomon said.

Prayers for Pan­day

Yes­ter­day’s fi­nal jour­ney be­gan at the house of mourn­ing in Phillip­ine, San Fer­nan­do, where the fam­i­ly held a pri­vate ser­vice be­fore the state event.

Parts of busy San Fer­nan­do stalled as po­lice and the mil­i­tary led his body in a pro­ces­sion to­wards SAPA. Cit­i­zens lined the side­walk to catch a glimpse while some looked on from their cars.

With the au­di­to­ri­um filled, a pun­dit be­gan recitals and led the fam­i­ly in per­form­ing ar­ti.

Pan­day’s wife, Oma, and his daugh­ters placed malas on him and said prayers around his body.

Sev­er­al re­li­gious lead­ers of­fered prayers, in­clud­ing Pan­day’s for­mer min­is­ter of health, Imam Dr Hamza Rafeeq, who prayed for Al­lah to help the be­reaved fam­i­ly through their grief. Pres­by­ter­ian Church Rev Joy Ab­dul-Mo­han thanked God for Pan­day’s life and asked that his lega­cy catal­yse change.

Chief of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty, Ri­car­do Barath-Her­nan­dez, prayed for the spir­its to com­fort mourn­ers, while Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Rev Karl Pat­ter­son in­vit­ed God’s pres­ence in­to the au­di­to­ri­um. Pun­dit Dood­nath Chadee prayed for Pan­day’s soul, and Or­isha el­der Ba­ba Neal Ryan Rawl­ins prayed that Obata­la cov­er the fam­i­ly with his bless­ing.

Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don thanked God for Pan­day’s im­pulse to strug­gle for right­eous­ness for work­ers and mar­gin­alised cit­i­zens, and An­gli­can Bish­op Claude Berkley prayed for an­gels to wel­come him home.

There was al­so a per­for­mance by Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, who veered away from his usu­al so­ca genre to per­form Frank Sina­tra’s My Way. Na­tion­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val win­ner Adri­an­na Achaibar paid trib­ute on the steel­pan.

The cas­ket closed at 11.28 am, and mil­i­tary of­fi­cers du­ti­ful­ly marched to­ward the cas­ket and care­ful­ly draped the na­tion­al flag over Pan­day’s cas­ket for his fi­nal earth­ly jour­ney to the Shore of Peace in South Oropouche for his cre­ma­tion.