Sat Ma­haraj

On May 30, the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha cel­e­brat­ed In­di­an Ar­rival Day which is now a na­tion­al pub­lic hol­i­day in T&T. Com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad have al­so been ob­serv­ing this day through­out the month of May, which we re­gard as Her­itage Month. Not on­ly were vil­lagers en­gaged in large cel­e­bra­tions on open grounds but hun­dreds of Hin­du tem­ples and schools, to­geth­er with par­ents, teach­ers and pun­dits, ob­served this day with rev­er­ence, prayers and cul­tur­al per­for­mances.

We stopped to recog­nise and salute the hard work and dis­ci­pline of our fore­fa­thers who have left us a lega­cy of not on­ly phys­i­cal at­trib­ut­es, but al­so a re­li­gion and a cul­ture that are al­so em­braced by tens of mil­lions in over 125 coun­tries world­wide. Our an­ces­tors taught us hard work, dis­ci­pline and re­spect for law and or­der and for the rights of oth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty.

There are those among us who wish to ig­nore these laws and in­stead to im­ple­ment be­hav­iour pat­terns of their own cre­ation. These are the peo­ple who in­vari­ably oc­cu­py space in our jails in Port-of-Spain, Car­rera and Gold­en Grove. They live here at tax­pay­ers' ex­pense.

On May 30, the Ma­ha Sab­ha or­gan­ised our na­tion­al In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tion on the grounds of our Par­vati Girls Hin­du Col­lege, Debe, south Trinidad. In­vit­ed to this func­tion were Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and a num­ber of se­nior and ju­nior gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, to­geth­er with 2,400 boy and girl scouts from across the coun­try with their teach­ers, par­ents and hun­dreds of se­nior devo­tees in the Debe catch­ment.

With­out apol­o­gy, an ac­tivist of the High­way Re-Route Move­ment, Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh and a hand­ful of women sat at the en­trance/ex­it of this col­lege com­pound be­cause they wished to have au­di­ence with the Prime Min­is­ter with­out ap­point­ment while she was at­tend­ing a pri­vate func­tion.

What was even more alarm­ing was that Dr Kublals­ingh and his group sat at the en­trance/ex­it of this com­pound, en­dan­ger­ing the lives or our chil­dren and el­der­ly peo­ple should there have been an emer­gency of an earth­quake or a fire. Our chil­dren would have been trapped, so would have been our el­der­ly in the au­di­ence.

To this day nei­ther Dr Kublal-singh nor any mem­ber of his Re-Route Move­ment has come for- ward to apol­o­gise for what we con­sid­er an il­le­gal act on pri­vate prop­er­ty. We con­sid­er that they chose this point be­cause they full well knew that the me­dia will come out to cov­er the event. Dan­ger to our chil­dren and the el­der­ly was all be­cause of their greed for pub­lic­i­ty and na­tion­al at­ten­tion.

It is af­ter this heart­less in­ci­dent that the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, who had great sym­pa­thy for the Re-Route Move­ment and its need for di­a­logue, be­gan dis­tanc­ing our­selves from what we con­sid­er an ir­re­spon­si­ble group. A few weeks lat­er, we no­ticed with great shock and con­ster­na­tion the be­hav­iour of Dr Kublal-singh and the group he leads at a meet­ing called at the Debe High School, Ring Road, Debe, to dis­cuss con­cerns of the re-route ag­i­ta­tors with a view to ef­fect pos- sible changes.

This meet­ing came to a sud­den halt. The "Kublalites," in a loud and ag­gres­sive man­ner, caused the meet­ing to be abort­ed. We, the Ma­ha Sab­ha, will not be a part of this be­hav­iour. Even more shock­ing was the de­ci­sion of Dr Kublals­ingh and his group to erect what they called a Hin­du tem­ple/shrine with mur­tees (im­ages) in the path­way of the new high­way to Point Fortin.

These were even­tu­al­ly bro­ken down and re­moved by the State while both the PNM op­po­si­tion and pub­lic­i­ty seek­ers con­verged on the site to shout des­e­cra­tion. We wish to make it abun­dant­ly clear to the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion that no des­e­cra­tion of Hin­duism was com­mit­ted by the State be­cause no Hin­du mur­tee was in­stalled at that site.

Ac­cord­ing to a se­ries of Teach Your­self pub­li­ca­tions by the NTC Pub­lish­ing Group, Hin­duism is high­light­ed and the pro­ce­dure which ap­prox­i­mates to our lo­cal Hin­du tra­di­tion for the con­se­cra­tion of the im­age/mur­tee of a Hin­du God is ex­plained:

"The pro­ce­dure for con­se­crat­ing a mur­tee in a new tem­ple is giv­en in a Pu­rana text. The stat­ue is ful­ly im­mersed in cold wa­ter. It is dried and the top of its head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, chest, back, navel, arms and legs are touched with a piece of thin gold wire which is dipped in ghee and hon­ey. It is then sprin­kled with a mix­ture of milk, yo­gurt, ghee, sug­ar and hon­ey, while mantras are re­cit­ed.

"Af­ter­wards, it is bathed with cold wa­ter, dried, fixed on a pedestal in the in­ner shrine and of­fered an elab­o­rate pu­ja. Af­ter these rit­u­als, the spir­it of God is be­lieved to en­ter the stat­ue, which then be­comes a mur­tee to be wor­shipped as a sym­bol of the di­vine spir­it.

"Four guardian spir­its are in­voked and es­tab­lished (al­though not in ma­te­r­i­al form) at the four cor­ners of the court­yard around the tem­ple. Pu­ja and of­fer­ings of cooked food and fruit to the guardian spir­its make the plot of land and the tem­ple sa­cred. These guardian spir­its are be­lieved to pro­tect the tem­ple from evil in­flu­ences."

• Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha