Shas­tri  Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) and Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions will not be used as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball.

This was the state­ment made by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor and NCIC pres­i­dent De­oroop Teemal, as he gave the clos­ing re­marks on the fi­nal night of Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions in Ch­agua­nas on Wednes­day night.

Speak­ing just ahead of the fea­ture speech by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who al­so re­ferred to the di­vi­sive­ness be­ing sowed by some sec­tors of so­ci­ety, Teemul said, “With due re­spect to all, the NCIC has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the event and a na­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to not al­low the event to be used as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball. In­vi­ta­tion to Gov­ern­ment and oth­er of­fi­cials are al­ways ex­tend­ed in recog­ni­tion of their roles in pub­lic of­fice rather than per­son­al or po­lit­i­cal en­dorse­ment.

“Notwith­stand­ing this, we are con­scious of ad­dress­ing our roles in pub­lic con­cerns and hold our­selves open to con­struc­tive di­a­logue to re­solve is­sues that may arise. It is our in­tent to al­ways keep fo­cus­ing on the cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al essence of this event rather than the in­di­vid­ual con­tro­ver­sies that take away from the cel­e­bra­tion. It is our in­ten­tion that the event would pro­ceed with­out any po­lit­i­cal un­der­tones and would re­main fo­cused sole­ly on the Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions while en­sur­ing that the event re­mains open to all.”

He was re­fer­ring to the in­ci­dent when calls were made in sev­er­al quar­ters to with­draw the in­vi­ta­tion to then-act­ing prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, as he was ini­tial­ly card­ed to de­liv­er the fea­ture ad­dress in the ab­sence of Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley.

The Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Peo­ple of In­di­an Ori­gin (GO­PIO) had made the call, in­di­cat­ing that Young had of­fend­ed Hin­du women with his re­cent sala­cious com­ments to­wards Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate and was un­wor­thy of speak­ing at a re­li­gious event of the pres­tige of the Di­vali Na­gar.

How­ev­er, Teemal said the NCIC would not steer from its mis­sion and be ma­nip­u­lat­ed for the sake of pol­i­tics. He re­mind­ed the packed gath­er­ing of the mis­sion of Di­vali Na­gar, which is “to cel­e­brate and pre­serve In­di­an cul­tur­al her­itage, in­clud­ing spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, mu­sic, dance, art and lit­er­a­ture; to pro­vide a plat­form that ed­u­cate the pub­lic on the sig­nif­i­cance of Di­vali and pro­motes un­der­stand­ing and re­spect for Hin­du val­ues and tra­di­tions with­in a  mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety; to cre­ate a space wel­com­ing all com­mu­ni­ties, fos­ter­ing uni­ty and har­mo­ny by show­cas­ing the val­ues of peace, good­will and the tri­umph of light over dark­ness; and to en­gage the younger gen­er­a­tion of artistes by of­fer­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for cre­ative ex­pres­sion, cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tion and the de­vel­op­ment of the tra­di­tion­al arts.”

Teemal said giv­en these ob­jec­tives, the NCIC of­ten finds it­self in a del­i­cate sce­nario that re­quires care­ful han­dling to bal­ance re­spect for Di­vali tra­di­tions.

He not­ed, “Di­vali Na­gar tran­scends po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions and re­mains fo­cused on bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er in ob­ser­vance of the fes­ti­val’s theme of light, wis­dom and com­mu­ni­ty. Com­mu­ni­ties aim­ing to up­lift and uni­fy, rather than di­vide.”

He said de­spite chal­lenges such as fi­nan­cial and lo­gis­ti­cal con­straints, the NCIC would strive to keep the Na­gar con­tem­po­rary and rel­e­vant so it could ap­peal to the next gen­er­a­tion.

Dur­ing his fea­ture speech fol­low­ing Teemal, the PM al­so not­ed the di­vi­sion be­ing cre­at­ed in the so­ci­ety.

“Even as an ever-in­creas­ing num­ber spon­sor di­vi­sive­ness, prac­tise hypocrisy, en­cour­age in­grat­i­tude and glo­ri­fy ha­tred, true Hin­duism sees knowl­edge as be­yond the mere ac­qui­si­tion of in­for­ma­tion. It holds knowl­edge in­stead as the path to seek­ing, know­ing, un­der­stand­ing, and feel­ing God’s pres­ence in our every ac­tion,” PM Row­ley said.

Speak­ing briefly with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing the event, Sen­a­tor Ran­dall Mitchell, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, said a $600,000 sub­ven­tion had been ap­proved for this year’s Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions.