It is good, as re­port­ed, that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley vis­it­ed the Di­vali Na­gar and ad­dressed the gath­er­ing at this most im­por­tant Hin­du and in­deed na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion, and as far as is known at this point, with­out any neg­a­tive po­lit­i­cal re­crim­i­na­tion oc­cur­ring.

This “light over dark­ness” hap­pen­ing oc­curred notwith­stand­ing the shame­ful in­ci­dent of name-call­ing in the na­tion­al Par­lia­ment by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young against Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The ac­cep­tance of Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley at the fes­ti­val al­so came against the back­ground of the state-owned (of­ten per­ceived as gov­ern­ment-con­trolled) TTT hav­ing not car­ried the ad­dress to the Na­gar of Op­po­si­tion Leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Af­ter the non-broad­cast of Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s speech, there have been strong com­ments from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress claim­ing the sta­tion was used as a tool to do the dirty work of the rul­ing par­ty and Gov­ern­ment. In the cir­cum­stances, there­fore, as has pre­vi­ous­ly oc­curred, it could have been log­i­cal­ly ex­pect­ed that par­ty pol­i­tics may have been dragged on­to the Na­gar stage and amongst the crowd.

It is of great re­lief and ben­e­fit to the na­tion, there­fore, that the "light" of the fes­ti­val con­tin­ued to shine and con­quer the dark­ness so that the cel­e­bra­tions closed un­con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by cheap and di­vi­sive pol­i­tick­ing.

The Light of Di­vali, one of the holi­est and most im­por­tant of the Hin­du re­li­gious events, cel­e­brat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, shone through the po­lit­i­cal and crim­i­nal dark­ness of our time and for that, the na­tion must be glad.

It must be said too, that Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, as he has been re­port­ed in the news me­dia, kept his com­ments and en­cour­ag­ing words free of the neg­a­tive po­lit­i­cal crosstalk, thus avoid­ing the news space and time in the me­dia be­ing con­sumed by the neg­a­tive. In do­ing so, the PM did not pro­vide fod­der for any­one who may have had a thought of dis­rupt­ing and dis­re­gard­ing the spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of Di­vali.

Words of com­men­da­tion must al­so be said to the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) for re­sist­ing be­ing bait­ed to en­gage in con­flict, name call­ing and the like and so avoid­ing a po­ten­tial dis­rup­tion and dis­re­spect for the sa­cred­ness of the fes­ti­val and the space in which it is held.

Over­all, we should all be thank­ful that once again, tens of thou­sands of ad­her­ents of the Hin­du faith were able to cel­e­brate their fes­ti­val and re­li­gious rit­u­als in an en­vi­ron­ment of sa­cred­ness. More­over, that they were al­lowed to meet and greet and share their ho­li­ness and hap­pi­ness with the wider non-Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty. This must sure­ly re­dound to the ben­e­fit of all of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is there­fore the hope that the light of the Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions 2024 will linger and con­tin­ue to shine up­on the na­tion in the days, weeks and months ahead.

The chal­lenge for the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is to learn from the les­son of this year’s Di­vali fes­ti­val that we don’t have to drag sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion in­to open and nasty con­flict and that there are as­pects of the cul­ture which must re­main above the hor­ri­ble and ab­surd.

Thank­ful­ly, giv­en our mul­ti­cul­tur­al na­ture, over the next cou­ple months there will be the cel­e­bra­tion of the birth of Christ, the Chris­t­ian sav­ior who, as the Bible says, died to save mankind from his ul­ti­mate pay­ment for his sins.