On Au­gust 7, an or­gan­i­sa­tion that ex­ists pri­mar­i­ly in cy­ber­space called Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Peo­ple of In­di­an Ori­gin (Go­pio) held an awards cer­e­mo­ny to recog­nise cit­i­zens of In­di­an ori­gin. At this func­tion, held at the con­tro­ver­sial Na­pa build­ing in Port-of-Spain, fire and brim­stone were hurled at the dy­ing car­cass of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) by Go­pio leader De­osaran Bis­nath and keynote speak­er Dr Bhoe Tewarie. These speak­ers railed against the dis­crim­i­na­tion of the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion led by Patrick Man­ning in the strongest of terms. The iron­ic part is that such com­men­taries come af­ter the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion when the PNM and Man­ning have been vir­tu­al­ly wiped off the face of the po­lit­i­cal map. All of a sud­den these "In­di­ans" have grown strength to stand up to a dead regime to point out its short­com­ings and dis­crim­i­na­tion to­wards the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty. Signs of po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunism and van­dal­is­ing the much won gen­er­al elec­tion against the PNM have surged from bold-faced In­di­ans, whose long si­lence aid­ed and abet­ted the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. Af­ter Go­pio In­ter­na­tion­al re­moved its for­mer pres­i­dent, they met with the very Patrick Man­ning to as­sure him that the Bis­nath-led Go­pio would not give the PNM Gov­ern­ment any prob­lems as De­vant Ma­haraj had.

In ear­ly 2008 the Go­pio del­e­ga­tion of Ram­saran, Nan­doe, Per­saud and Bis­nath met with then Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning. Mem­bers of Go­pio In­ter­na­tion­al paid a cour­tesy call on Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning to clear up any "mis­un­der­stand­ings" based on the ac­tions of the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive of Go­pio T&T. In a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, it was re­port­ed that Go­pio sec­re­tary gen­er­al Ashook Ram­saran as­sured Man­ning that Go­pio In­ter­na­tion­al would close­ly mon­i­tor the op­er­a­tions of the new lo­cal chap­ter to "guar­an­tee that no such mis­un­der­stand­ing would re­oc­cur" and al­so pro­vide guid­ance to en­sure that the or­gan­i­sa­tion's man­dates were ad­hered to. "The Prime Min­is­ter wel­comed the new lo­cal in­car­na­tion of Go­pio and wel­comed the com­mit­ment made by the group to man­age the lo­cal arm ad­e­quate­ly in or­der to en­sure that no fur­ther prob­lems would arise," the re­lease stat­ed. While Ram­saran and oth­ers in the Go­pio del­e­ga­tion re­it­er­at­ed Go­pio's po­si­tion of be­ing non-po­lit­i­cal and sec­u­lar, Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning wel­comed the change in the ex­ec­u­tives of Go­pio T&T.?An of­fi­cial re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed the con­tents of the dis­cus­sion and that there would be no longer a chal­lenge to the PNM from the new Bis­nath-led or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In fact, right af­ter meet­ing with then Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning, the lo­cal Go­pio made a bee­line for the PNM feed­ing trough. At a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Don­na Cox, Bis­nath elab­o­rat­ed on some of the com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes be­ing planned by Go­pio T&T. These in­clude ed­u­ca­tion­al sem­i­nars on al­co­hol abuse, di­a­betes and ed­u­ca­tion. Min­is­ter Cox wel­comed the ef­forts and of­fered the sup­port of the Min­istry of Cul­ture. A clear play for state fund­ing by an or­gan­i­sa­tion with­out a track record was be­ing made. When the cy­ber­space group did not get fund­ing which it found suf­fi­cient, it re­turned the mon­ey. Dr Tewarie, speak­ing at the same func­tion about the po­lit­i­cal ter­ror­ism against the for­mer Chief Jus­tice Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma, was silent when the ter­ror­ism was be­ing played out. The Ma­ha Sab­ha, the then Op­po­si­tion, and oth­ers were de­cry­ing the PNM's treat­ment of CJ Shar­ma dur­ing the con­tro­ver­sy. The im­por­tant voice of the Pro Vice Chan­cel­lor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Tewarie, was silent dur­ing this trau­mat­ic pe­ri­od of our na­tion's de­vel­op­ment.?When a state­ment from Dr Tewarie could have made a dif­fer­ence in the de­bate, the good­ly doc­tor was silent. Dur­ing the past, in­stances of the many and var­ied acts of the Man­ning-led PNM dis­crim­i­na­tion against the In­di­an pop­u­la­tion of T&T oc­curred.

When voic­es to de­fend and sup­port the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty were re­quired, there was si­lence by some who now speak out. When Chief Jus­tice Shar­ma was be­ing threat­ened with im­pris­on­ment, on­ly a few were brave enough to chal­lenge his ac­cusers. Now that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, of which the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and the Con­gress of the Peo­ple are the main play­ers, is in gov­ern­ment, bold-faced In­di­ans are emerg­ing from the wood­work to stake a claim. Some ob­vi­ous­ly feel that be­cause the base of these two po­lit­i­cal par­ties are main­ly In­do-Trinida­di­ans, that beat­ing an In­di­an drum now and vil­i­fy­ing the half-dead car­cass of the PNM, they will be now first in line to re­ceive state fund­ing and em­ploy­ment. The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship will be best warned to stay far from these in­di­vid­u­als and new de­fend­ers.?It is safe to sit be­hind the anonymi­ty of a com­put­er in one's home and help pro­duce a man­i­festo, but the time will come when one has to per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fy with the strug­gle. In­dia was lost to the colo­nial British­ers for hun­dreds of years be­cause there have al­ways been In­di­ans who are self-serv­ing.