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Speaker:The Honourable Basdeo Panday, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Date: November 5, 1999
Venue: Divali Nagar Site, Chaguanas, Trinidad
Occasion: Remarks at the National Council of Indian Culture's Ceremony at the Divali Nagar Festival
My Dear Friends:
Like virtually every other person in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, I have been looking forward eagerly to the lights of Divali.
Divali has long been embraced by our entire society as an annual celebration that is truly national.
Over the years, Divali has come to have many meanings to all who celebrate this joyous season.
Divali has as many meanings for us, as the million points of light that bring so special a glow to our land, to our hearts, to our lives, at this time every year.
As Christmas has come to erase all lines, all boundaries of religion, race and nationality, so, too, has Divali.
As we celebrate Divali this year, we have the obligation to pay special tribute to the man to whom must go the greatest credit for the nationwide embrace of, and celebration of, Divali.
Hans Hanoomansingh is the first and immediate Past President of the National Council of Indian Culture and the Conceptualiser, Father and Founder of the Nagar.
Few gifts of greater value have been given by a single citizen to this nation, this region, and this hemisphere, than this wondrous annual Divali Nagar celebration.
Hans Hanoomansingh deserves his nation's gratitude, and our lasting love, for the enduring service he has given to the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
One of the striking achievements of Hans Hanoomansingh's life in the service of his country is that while he has earned wide renown as the President of the National Council of Indian Culture, he has also been a significant crusader for multi-culturalism in our society.
This country owes a lot to Hans Hanoomansingh.
Let us thank him.
And let us salute Hans, now.
The National Council of Indian Culture goes into the millennium without Hans Hanoomansingh at the helm.
A new captain and a capable crew will guide the National Council of Indian Culture into, and in, the 21st Century.
They will, no doubt, be following the course charted by Hans Hanoomansingh.
Deokinanan Sharma, the President of the National Council of Indian Culture, and the team that he leads, have been given command of a sturdy ship that will sail on a secure course into, and in, the new century.
There is no reason why the Council, and the Nagar, should not continue to attract increased support from corporate Trinidad and Tobago of the level and character of the support that the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, and CLICO have given over the years.
We must remember, however, that corporate funding, however generously given, will only be sustained if put to patently good use by the beneficiaries of such support.
This impressive Nagar, produced by Nagar Chairman, Surigdeo Mangaroo, and his team, will, I am sure, guarantee that continued corporate support for the Nagar is assured.
My Brothers and Sisters:
The theme chosen for Divali Nagar this year, "Hindu Contribution to World Culture and Development", is much too vast in scope to be covered in a single Nagar, or even in a single year.
The immensity of India's contribution to world thought and culture, and development, expands across unbounded space and
One medium through which Hindu thought and culture has contributed to world thought and development is The Mahatma Gandhi, arguably the Outstanding Individual of the 20th Century.
Through the Mahatma, to the world, through to Martin Luther King.
And through the Mahatma to the world to Nelson Mandela.
If he dominated the 20th Century, the 21st Century also needs Mahatma Gandhi.
To this day, every day, Mahatma Gandhi contributes to my thought and development.
To that extent, the thought and culture that propelled Mahatma Gandhi is today shaping the development of many nations, many people.
In complex passages, and in simple sentences, Mahatma Gandhi is mentor to virtually every enlightened leader in the world.
Gandhi speaks of Unity:
"In nature, there is fundamental unity, running through all that we see about us.
Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity."
Had our religious leaders, here and around the world, taken Gandhi's counsel, religious belief would not have converted to the fierce zealotry which has wrought such destruction in so many societies.
Should our nation's politicians take Gandhi's counsel, there would not be the obdurate, the perverse negation of the very concept of unity as a national goal, embracing politics, and transcending politics.
The immensity of the contribution which Indian thought and culture has made, and will continue to make to global consciousness and development is immeasurable.
Gandhi speaks to us about Democracy.
"Democracy must, in essence, mean the art and science of mobilising the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of all of the various sections of the people in the service of the common good of all."
Does that sound a lot like Unity to you?
Are you listening to Mahatma Gandhi?
Have you done all that you have the power to do for unity in our land, and for democracy?
Gandhi puts it to us very simply:
"We must become the change we want to see".
I will repeat that message. It is so powerful in its simplicity.
"We must become the change we want to see."
This means that we must recognise and exorcise intolerance, if it exists within us.
Intolerance is the greatest obstacle to the growth of the human spirit, the greatest obstacle to the fulfilment of the human heart.
Intolerance is also the greatest obstacle to development.
Even where we encounter strong reasons for hate, we would do better to respond with love.
Hatred can only be overcome by love.
A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye, only ends up, as Gandhi has told us, in making the whole world toothless, and blind.
Divali is the most propitious period for us to begin the self examination that should be the prelude to the New Year, the New Decade, the New Century, and the New Millennium.
What tomorrow holds for us, what the new century holds for our country, is entirely a consequence what we take into that new season, that new era in the affairs of our civilisation.
Trinidad and Tobago, today, is plagued with too much hate, too much anger, too much violence.
Some of this misfortune is the inevitable consequence of the demagoguery of a small band of people bent on feeding and exploiting the insecurities of certain sections of the population.
They polarise society with their mantras of malice, which ferments a growing rage within easily manipulable minds and senses.
That rage explodes, tragically, in violence and often in killings.
That rage is also inflamed on our nation's roads, where selfishness and incivility have reached Olympian heights.
The expression of such rage is programmed by the responses which so many of us, and most of our young people, ingest from television.
On that torrent of foreign television programming that we consume, the first option for the resolution of any conflict is, routinely, brutal violence; violence involving the deadly use of guns and other weapons.
Far too often, women are the victims in those television expositions of violence.
From all of this, we find life imitating art, Naipaul's "Mimic Men" becoming more than a metaphor.
We must, by now, be all outraged at the abuse, the mayhem inflicted upon the women and children in our society, and their slayings.
We can do very little about the influence of television programming, and the Internet.
We must do more than express outrage at those shocking incidents of violence against women.
Your Government has put legislation in place to deal severely with the perpetrators of such crimes.
Let us start, now, in this most appropriate of places, and in this most appropriate of seasons, to begin a transformation in society's attitude to our womenfolk.
Let us pledge to give new respect to the women in our society.
Let us vow that we will hold in reverence every mother, every daughter, every sister, every wife, whomsoever they may be.
Let us do this in tribute to the ideals that are embodied in the person of the Goddess, Mother Lakshmi.
Let us all vow to venerate and protect, and make a place of honour in our society, and in our hearts, for every girl and every woman in our Republic.
Let us pray for an end to the disrespect, the neglect and the violence which so many women are made to suffer in our country, every day.
By elevating every woman in our esteem, we will be honouring the shining example of Maha Lakshmi, Lakshmi Mata.
Let me also urge our women folk to so conduct their lives, and to so comport themselves, that no one can possibly have any justification for treating any female with disrespect.
Let light triumph over darkness, good over evil, fairness over injustice.
Let us see light as wisdom, darkness as ignorance.
It is important that as we elevate our womenfolk, we also set out to protect the nation's children.
We dare not risk losing the new, young generation, in the manner in which we might have lost large numbers of the last.
This generation of children is my personal priority.
I wish you would make it yours.
When I confirmed in March, 1998, that the Common Entrance Examination would be abolished by the year 2000, I was scoffed at by some people.
Come next year, the Common Entrance Examination will end.
That is not going to bring comfort to every one.
Most perversely, there are people with responsibility for some of those young lives who fair the thought that the end is in sight for that brutal Common Entrance, which has been branding thousands of young children as failures every year since the Sixties.
Equally perversely, there are those who routinely deny our children attendance at school, as a first option, for the flimsiest of causes.
I appeal to all of you, I urge you all, let us make next year, and the next century, the Year and the Century of the Child.
It belongs to them, anyhow.
We have the responsibility to prepare them for that century.
We must also ensure that we protect them from the perils that young people face.
One of those perils are the sexual predators who violate young girls, and - nauseatingly - young boys.
We must protect our young innocents from drugs, and from the traffickers.
I cannot say to you that we are winning the war against drugs, but we have been winning some very big battles.
We continue to take the fight to the drug cartels.
My Brothers and Sisters, I often stress that education is the greatest equaliser in any society.
A revolution is taking place in education in this country.
Wherever you live, it is likely that a new school will be constructed near you, or a new early Childhood Care and Education Centre.
In all our schools, teaching staff will be better prepared, and better equipped, and if the country's finances will permit, better compensated.
Earlier on, I recalled Mahatma Gandhi's counsel on religion and unity.
With this very much in mind, I have sought a new accord with the denominational school boards.
The outcome to this will be the expanded involvement of religious bodies in the operation of our schools.
We cannot go wrong with an education system with religion at its heart.
Ladies and gentlemen:
In this joyous Divali season, I am raising a number of very serious issues with you.
I have asked you to elevate the woman in our society.
I have asked you to protect and to help to provide for the children of our nation.
I urge you now to protect and to provide for every person who is not as strong, and not as well off as you are.
The focus is on the Vedas for this year's Nagar.
Let us focus on one Hymn, 109, from The Rig Veda:
"The man with food in store, who, when the needy comes in miserable case, begging for bread to eat, hardens his heart against him, even when of old he did him service, find not one to comfort him"
Not only the woman, not only the young, but all who are vulnerable; particularly our senior folks, let us love them.
Let us ensure that light and the love of Divali brighten their lives and lighten their loads for the entire year to come.
My Brothers and Sisters;
My Dear Friends;
On this joyous occasion, I wish everyone in Trinidad and Tobago the love and enlightenment, the happiness and the prosperity, that the Goddess Lakshmi has showered upon the world.
Let us, in Maha Lakshmi's honour, cleanse our hearts and our minds of all greed and of all hate for other human beings.
May our hearts be as pure as the lotus flowers which surround Mother Lakshmi.
May our lives be blessed by the eternal beauty, the eternal goodness of Maha Lakshmi.
Thank you all.
God Bless you all