Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Sat­narayan Ma­haraj be­lieves the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment should for­get the Sec­tion 34 is­sue and con­tin­ue to "per­form." Speak­ing to re­porters at the launch of Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions in Debe, south Trinidad, yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said he did not think the Sec­tion 34 fi­as­co would cause the Gov­ern­ment to lose the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

"How come one in­stance of mis­con­duct could cause you to lose a whole elec­tion?" Ma­haraj said. Asked to ex­plain what the part­ner­ship could do to move for­ward, Ma­haraj said: "There is no need to get over it...Go ahead and per­form. "You pro­duced a man­i­festo and I will judge you on this," he said.

"At end of five years we will look to see if they ful­filled the promis­es as out­lined in the man­i­festo. It is on­ly then I will pass judg­ment on the Gov­ern­ment, not halfway through its term." Ma­haraj al­so said To­ba­go was be­ing run "like a fam­i­ly af­fair." "One man is the head and the oth­er cousin is the head of fi­nances...This is a fam­i­ly af­fair in To­ba­go."

Ma­haraj said yes­ter­day's event was geared at re­viv­ing Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions. He said the Ma­ha Sab­ha had 20,000 pupils in its schools and 1,200 teach­ing and aux­il­iary staff. "We de­cid­ed to mo­bilise this group to en­sure that Ram­leela sur­vives over the next 50 years."

He al­so said the Ma­ha Sab­ha planned to in­tro­duce tas­sa drum­ming in schools and par­tic­i­pa­tion in arts and dra­ma was now part of the cur­ricu­lum. Ma­haraj not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment had pur­chased 1,400 har­mo­ni­ums and tenor pans for the schools. Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal com­mend­ed the chil­dren for their par­tic­i­pa­tion.

He said the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to sup­port cul­ture to re­flect T&T's mul­ti-eth­nic, mul­ti­cul­tur­al and mul­ti-re­li­gious com­po­si­tion. Say­ing the re-en­act­ment of Ram­leela showed the tri­umph of good over evil, Mooni­lal said evil was ram­pant.

"The evil that Ra­van rep­re­sents are al­so the evils that are abound in our so­ci­ety, whether it is crime, delin­quen­cy, al­co­holism. What­ev­er form of delin­quen­cy may ex­ist, this is sym­bol­ised by the dark­ness and all that Ra­van will stand for," Mooni­lal said. He al­so re­vealed that a mid­dle-and up­per-scale hous­ing set­tle­ment will be built in the area soon for stu­dents who will be at­tend­ing the new Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies law cam­pus in Debe.