SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

"A gi­ant, pa­tri­ot and Tri­ni to the bone."

That was the de­scrip­tion used by aca­d­e­m­ic and his­to­ri­an Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe to paint the life and ac­com­plish­ments of Sat Ma­haraj, as hun­dreds of mourn­ers showed up at the head­quar­ters of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), St Au­gus­tine, yes­ter­day to pay their last re­spects to the 88-year-old cul­tur­al and re­li­gious icon who died on Sat­ur­day.

Cud­joe was one of sev­er­al peo­ple who paid glow­ing trib­ute to Ma­haraj at his fu­ner­al ser­vice. He was abroad when he learnt of Ma­haraj's death but he said he had to come back home to ho­n­our the life of the man whom he de­scribed as this "great pa­tri­ot."

Cud­joe said he did not know Ma­haraj per­son­al­ly but be­came ac­quaint­ed with him be­cause of the in­sults they would ex­change via news­pa­pers columns.

"But we were on­ly chas­ing af­ter shad­ows," he said.

At first, Cud­joe said they were hos­tile to­wards each oth­er but over time they dis­cov­ered they had one thing in com­mon - they were con­cerned about the wel­fare of each oth­er's group and de­ter­mined to ad­vance the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple.

Cud­joe said when cit­i­zens at­tacked Ma­haraj's pa­tri­o­tism, Sat de­mand­ed that his ash­es be scat­tered over the Gulf of Paria and not the Ganges.

"No one is go­ing to com­prise Sat's pa­tri­o­tism," Cud­joe said.

Ac­cord­ing to Cud­joe, Ma­haraj tied the wounds of a na­tion.

"I be­lieve Sat would be most ho­n­oured if each mem­ber of this mul­ti-cul­tur­al and mul­ti-racial so­ci­ety recog­nise that Sat was in­deed Tri­ni to the bone. Sat served this coun­try by serv­ing his peo­ple."

In so do­ing, Cud­joe said Ma­haraj helped us all to de­vel­op our na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and recog­nise that "Trin­bag­o­nism" comes in dif­fer­ent forms, shades and re­li­gious align­ments.

Most im­por­tant­ly, Cud­joe said Ma­haraj un­der­stood that the ser­vice to oth­ers was his pri­ma­ry oblig­a­tion, as urged cit­i­zens "to rise out of the dark­ness and dis­cov­er what we have in com­mon as a peo­ple."

Now dead, Cud­joe said Ma­haraj's spir­it must live on.

Cud­joe said Ma­haraj laid down his life for his friends and coun­try with pride and de­vo­tion.

"No man, or woman, in this na­tion loved this is­land bet­ter than he did."

While some peo­ple likened Ma­haraj to the late Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi, Cud­joe com­pared him to Dr Mar­tin Luther King who made the USA a more per­fect union.

"He would go down in our his­to­ry as a ma­jor ar­chi­tect to per­fect our union and make T&T a bet­ter place."

Ma­haraj, Cud­joe said was a gi­ant who stood for the best in us.

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy, Ma­haraj's el­dest son Vi­jay Ma­haraj said his fa­ther did not on­ly in­flu­enced the Hin­du di­as­po­ra world­wide but hob­nobbed with world lead­ers.

Grow­ing up in Eng­land in the 1950s and '60s, Vi­jay re­called racism was ram­pant as there was a lot of "Pa­ki bash­ing."

"I was nei­ther black or white, the on­ly friend I had was my fa­ther and he was my con­fi­dant, my pro­tec­tor."

For 40 years, Vi­jay said his fa­ther ded­i­cat­ed his life to the ser­vice of his God, SDMS and beloved T&T.

"To de­scribe Sat as a strong man would be an un­der­state­ment," Vi­jay said.

"His courage to say what need­ed to be said at a time when no one else was pre­pared to say it to a coun­try that did not want to hear it is the true mea­sure of brav­ery. Sat was pre­pared to speak the un­com­fort­able truth that would up­set the sta­tus quo."

All his fa­ther want­ed, Vi­jay said was a lev­el play­ing field and just so­ci­ety for all.

Vi­jay has since as­sumed the po­si­tion of gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the SDMS since Ma­haraj's death.

He ques­tioned how it could be right for oth­er re­li­gions to have ra­dio and tele­vi­sion sta­tions, "the Dhar­ma­charya be forced to de­cline the na­tion's high­est award"- the then Trin­i­ty Cross be­cause it was a re­li­gious Chris­t­ian sym­bol, Ma­ha Sab­ha schools be forced to ed­u­cate chil­dren and hand over those stu­dents to schools run by oth­er re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions.

"Why must we give up on our In­di­an cul­ture in or­der to be­come a true Tri­ni? Why couldn't they un­der­stand that In­di­an mu­sic and cul­ture- the dhan­tal, dho­lak and tas­sa are to us as pan, ca­lyp­so and lim­bo are to oth­er com­mu­ni­ties?"

These, he said were the soul search­ing ques­tions that ex­er­cised the mind of his fa­ther.

"The so­cial in­jus­tice both­ered him."

Vi­jay said his fa­ther's strug­gles trans­formed the na­tion­al land­scape, as they have claimed their cul­tur­al space and con­tin­ue to de­mand recog­ni­tion and equal­i­ty.

The jour­ney for Sat, Vi­jay said was dif­fi­cult, stat­ing that one man with courage is a ma­jor­i­ty.

"Sat was that one man. But stand­ing up for what you be­lieve in nev­er is."

He said his fa­ther had the du­bi­ous dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the sub­ject of many ca­lyp­soes.

While oth­er Hin­du lead­ers re­mained silent on na­tion­al is­sues, Vi­jay said "Sat emerged as the lone pow­er­ful voice for Hin­dus, nev­er one to back down from a fight. Sat's courage and de­ter­mi­na­tion earned na­tion­al re­spect."

To­day, Vi­jay said many have come to see Sat's wis­dom and truth in what he strug­gled for.

"He did not sim­ply be­long to our fam­i­ly or the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty or In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty. Sat was a na­tion­al hero and icon."

Vi­jay said on Oc­to­ber 12, his fa­ther proph­e­sied that Lak­sh­mi Girls Hin­du Col­lege would cap­ture its fifth con­sec­u­tive Pres­i­dent's Medal.

In 2020, Vi­jay said the school we look for­ward to sev­en (Pres­i­dent's Medals) as the next step is to be­come the first school to claim both Pres­i­dent's Medals.

"This is Sat's lega­cy and great­est achieve­ment. The cow­sheds have now be­come the most pres­ti­gious col­leges in the na­tion."