Trinidad and Tobago: Leader of the Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday praised the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) for keeping East Indian culture alive and contributing to the development of Trinidad and Tobago.
She was speaking at the Indian Day arrival celebrations at Rock Hindu Penal School (SDMS). The former prime minister said that if people do not know where they came from and do not honor their roots and ancestors, then there is no future for them.
“Today, I really want to pay tribute to the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha for their role in helping to illuminate the past and helping to share the culture and keep it alive, ensuring that our rich culture East Indian to be passed down from generation to generation,” she said. Persad-Bissessar also honored former SDMS general secretary Satnarayan Maharaj for his contribution to T&T.
“We had a great understanding, he would invite me and brush me off, but he was always a brother and a great soul to all of us. So let’s pay tribute as we miss him this year,” she said.
The Maha Sabha, she said, has played a tremendous role in the lives of many citizens. She said Indian Arrival Day is important because it commemorates the end of a colonial indenture system that lasted for more than 100 years.
The Indian settlement, she said, was an exploitative and discriminatory system. “This was meant to enrich a few at the expense of the workers who worked every day in the sugar cane fields and that is why it is very important that such a discriminatory system, such an unequal system, such an unjust economic system should not be struck again never. people here or anywhere else in the world,” she said.
However, she said the employment period helped enrich Trinidad and Tobago and added to the cultural diversity that fills hearts with pride today.
Persad-Bissessar said she knows everyone who came and made T&T the diverse melting pot that it is. She said this country has people from every major civilization in the world, including those from Africa, China and Europe.
She also paid tribute to former chief minister Basdeo Panday, who said he fought tirelessly to get the Indian Homecoming Day celebration. She said on this occasion she thinks about the ‘sacrifice’ made by her ancestors and the trials and tribulations they faced.
Persad-Bissessar said there is a saying that parents ‘pick up salt’ and eat a modest meal to ensure their children get an education.
She praised the Maha Sabha for its contribution to the education sector by establishing a number of schools in the country.
She said she attended Mohess Road Hindu School as a child and many would have attended SDMS schools in their journey to a better way of life.
Persad-Bissessar stressed the importance of education, saying it is a passport out of poverty.
