Pan­di­ta Don­na Ram­cha­ran is call­ing for in­creased re­li­gious tol­er­ance in T&T fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion of two new life-sized mur­tis at the Jai Kali Maa Mandir in Car­li Bay on Sat­ur­day. The in­stal­la­tion comes sev­er­al months af­ter van­dals des­e­crat­ed the tem­ple and de­stroyed its orig­i­nal mur­tis dur­ing a Sep­tem­ber 2023 at­tack, part of a trou­bling pat­tern of van­dal­ism tar­get­ing Hin­du places of wor­ship over the past decade.

Pan­di­ta Ram­cha­ran, the tem­ple’s spir­i­tu­al leader, urged cit­i­zens to seek un­der­stand­ing rather than re­spond with fear or prej­u­dice to­ward un­fa­mil­iar re­li­gious prac­tices, par­tic­u­lar­ly those with­in Hin­duism.

“This is hap­pen­ing be­cause peo­ple don’t un­der­stand Hin­duism, and even more so, Shak­tism,” she said. “They don’t un­der­stand our di­vine moth­er Kali De­vi. When peo­ple turn a blind eye, they end up in­ter­fer­ing, van­dal­is­ing, and do­ing things that are just wrong. In­stead of de­stroy­ing, why not ask ques­tions? Come and find out who she is. Kali is our Vir­gin Mary, our moth­er.”

Shak­tism, a ma­jor tra­di­tion with­in Hin­duism, cen­tres on the wor­ship of the Di­vine Moth­er, known as Shak­ti or De­vi. Kali, a revered god­dess in this tra­di­tion, em­bod­ies trans­for­ma­tive pow­er and is of­ten called up­on to de­stroy evil and bless devo­tees.

“I am call­ing for more re­li­gious tol­er­ance in this coun­try, not just here in Car­li Bay, but across T&T,” Pan­di­ta Ram­cha­ran added.

Ar­ti­san Ku­bir Ben­ny craft­ed the new mur­tis, which rep­re­sent Kali and Rad­ha Kr­ish­na. Devo­tees col­lect­ed the stat­ues from Brick­field Vil­lage on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, then ac­com­pa­nied them in a vi­brant four-hour pro­ces­sion with stops in Wa­ter­loo, Freeport, Preysal, and Bal­main be­fore reach­ing their new home in Car­li Bay. Up­on ar­rival, Pan­di­ta Ram­cha­ran con­se­crat­ed and in­stalled them in a cer­e­mo­ny at­tend­ed by wor­ship­pers.

The Pan­di­ta em­pha­sised that all are wel­come at the tem­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing week­ly ser­vices held on Sun­days at 10 a.m. She al­so not­ed that de­vo­tion to Kali is grow­ing world­wide, as more peo­ple con­nect with the god­dess’s mes­sage of em­pow­er­ment and pro­tec­tion.