Con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, in­clud­ing pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion must be a pri­or­i­ty in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate eq­ui­table rep­re­sen­ta­tion and in­clu­sivenes, COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har has said. Ex­tend­ing best wish­es to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty on In­di­an Ar­rival Day, Ra­mad­har said:

"Dur­ing these 167 years the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty has un­doubt­ed­ly made tremen­dous progress in many ar­eas such as: ed­u­ca­tion, eco­nom­ic, so­cial, cul­tur­al, po­lit­i­cal, in the state and pri­vate sec­tors. To­day our chal­lenge is how does the di­as­po­ra liv­ing in a mul­ti­eth­nic so­ci­ety trans­form it­self while at the same time pre­serv­ing its rich her­itage as we con­front an un­cer­tain 21st cen­tu­ry?

"Here we live in har­mo­ny with our fel­low African, Eu­ro­pean, Chi­nese and Mid­dle East­ern de­scen­dants, all hav­ing their unique cul­ture and per­spec­tive. We all are proud to call here home. There­fore as we shape our na­tion's fu­ture, the most im­por­tant premise is that all must feel that their in­ter­ests are gen­uine­ly looked af­ter. To­kenism will no longer work."

He said T&T's in­den­tured fore­par­ents pro­vid­ed many lessons for cit­i­zens: "Val­ues such as self-re­liance, en­dur­ing pa­tience and hard work. They per­formed an hon­est day's work for an hon­est day's pay. Look­ing af­ter the fam­i­ly was their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and de­pen­dence on the State for ba­sic needs was un­heard of. They al­so be­lieved that truth and sin­cer­i­ty of pur­pose al­ways lead to suc­cess.

"While we are the prod­uct of this val­ue sys­tem, to­day the ques­tion begs it­self: are we still ad­her­ing to these val­ues or do we need to redi­rect our com­pass?" He said the hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion is one for all of T&T, and while we each con­tribute our dis­tinc­tive colour to the coali­tion of colours that con­sti­tutes our rain­bow na­tion, we all must re­mem­ber that the most im­por­tant colours are red, white and black.

"The most fit­ting way to ho­n­our the ear­ly im­mi­grants who set such high stan­dards for us is that we should en­deav­our to lift the bar high­er. "As we look to the fu­ture, let us con­tin­ue the work of build­ing a pro­gres­sive na­tion, so that we too shall leave a bet­ter in­her­i­tance for our chil­dren than the one we re­ceived."

Sen­ate vice pres­i­dent Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit in an In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage to the Sen­ate yes­ter­day said In­dia had con­nect­ed with T&T from 1845 and re­mains a vi­tal source of spir­i­tu­al and cul­tur­al strength to many. Ou­dit added, "In cel­e­brat­ing In­di­an Ar­rival Day 2012, as chil­dren of the in­den­tures we stand on the shoul­ders of our an­ces­tors who came to this coun­try with few ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions but with the wealth of a civil­i­sa­tion called In­dia in their hearts and minds."

"Our In­di­an her­itage is strong and has al­lowed this land­scape to en­joy In­di­an phi­los­o­phy, re­li­gion, cloth­ing, dress and food as part of al­most every as­pect of our lives in this mul­ti­eth­nic so­ci­ety." Ou­dit called for the pub­lic to pay trib­ute to those who worked here in 1845 and 1917 and al­so to those who stayed here to make T&T their home.

She added, " I be­lieve the age is up­on us when all fences must be bro­ken down. We must ac­knowl­edge that our na­tion­al con­scious­ness is forged from a sim­i­lar jour­ney of many of our an­ces­tors to this land." Ou­dit said, "We must em­brace In­di­an Ar­rival as part of who we all are so that we may build our own Moth­er T&T that we must be­come to many of our own sons and daugh­ters...even as we cel­e­brate 50 years of in­de­pen­dence, let us take up the chal­lenge to build bridges of wis­dom, faith and peace­ful co-ex­is­tence among all races, creeds and re­li­gions."