Akash Sama­roo

and Shas­tri Boodan

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has pledged her con­tin­ued sup­port for the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) and Di­vali Na­gar, en­cour­ag­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion to re­main stead­fast and over­come its chal­lenges as it cel­e­brates 40 years of pre­serv­ing In­di­an cul­ture and her­itage in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Her show of sup­port comes amid ten­sions be­tween the NCIC and the Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the with­draw­al of spon­sor­ship by sev­er­al State-con­trolled en­ti­ties and con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Blue Wa­ters be­com­ing a Di­a­mond Spon­sor of this year’s cel­e­bra­tions.

Speak­ing at Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas on Thurs­day night, Beck­les praised the NCIC’s lead­er­ship, mem­bers and vol­un­teers for their ded­i­ca­tion to sus­tain­ing what she de­scribed as a trea­sured na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion.

“I al­so pay spe­cial trib­ute and ac­knowl­edge the work of the NCIC for its con­tin­ued ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go. I en­cour­age you and of­fer my sup­port as you move for­ward,” Beck­les said.

She added, “May you con­tin­ue to over­come every chal­lenge with faith, courage, and de­ter­mi­na­tion. May you re­main stead­fast in the no­ble du­ty en­trust­ed up­on you.”

While Beck­les did not di­rect­ly ad­dress the spon­sor­ship con­tro­ver­sy, her com­ments came against the back­drop of pub­lic dis­agree­ments over fund­ing for this year’s event.

Sev­er­al state en­ter­pris­es with­drew their spon­sor­ship, while Blue Wa­ters in­creased its fi­nan­cial com­mit­ment, a de­vel­op­ment that sub­se­quent­ly at­tract­ed crit­i­cism from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The Prime Min­is­ter has de­fend­ed the with­draw­al of spon­sor­ship, ar­gu­ing that tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey should be pri­ori­tised for es­sen­tial ser­vices and that cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions should be treat­ed fair­ly in the al­lo­ca­tion of pub­lic re­sources.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed that the NCIC would re­ceive $500,000 through the Min­istry of Cul­ture, the same amount pro­vid­ed for last year’s cel­e­bra­tions.

Beck­les, mean­while, fo­cused much of her ad­dress on the his­tor­i­cal im­por­tance of Di­vali Na­gar.

Beck­les de­scribed the Na­gar as a space where Hin­du tra­di­tions are pre­served, younger gen­er­a­tions learn about their her­itage and peo­ple from dif­fer­ent back­grounds come to­geth­er to cel­e­brate the coun­try’s cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty.

She al­so high­light­ed an­oth­er mile­stone, the 60th an­niver­sary of Di­vali be­ing de­clared a pub­lic hol­i­day in Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der the lead­er­ship of the coun­try’s first Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, in 1966.

Turn­ing to na­tion­al uni­ty, the Op­po­si­tion Leader ap­pealed for greater tol­er­ance and re­spect, warn­ing against at­tempts to di­vide the pop­u­la­tion.

“We must re­sist all at­tempts to di­vide us. Let us be more will­ing to work to­geth­er in pur­suit of com­mon good,” she said.

“Uni­ty is some­thing we must prac­tise.”

She said the mes­sage of Di­vali, rep­re­sent­ing the tri­umph of light over dark­ness and knowl­edge over ig­no­rance, should in­spire cit­i­zens to build a more peace­ful and har­mo­nious Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Man­ga­roo says NCIC sat­is­fied with Di­vali Na­gar turnout

Mean­while, NCIC said it is sat­is­fied with at­ten­dance at this year’s cel­e­bra­tions, which be­gan on Oc­to­ber 30 and con­clude to­day, de­spite crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia about the night­ly crowds.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, NCIC pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo ac­knowl­edged that some nights were slow­er than oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly Mon­day when rain­fall af­fect­ed at­ten­dance.

How­ev­er, he said over­all pa­tron­age had been en­cour­ag­ing, with Wednes­day and Thurs­day nights at­tract­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly large crowds.

He added that at­ten­dance had ex­ceed­ed what the or­gan­i­sa­tion had ex­pe­ri­enced on an av­er­age night in pre­vi­ous years.

Man­ga­roo said the NCIC was al­ready look­ing at ways to in­tro­duce ad­di­tion­al at­trac­tions for the 2027 cel­e­bra­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly on nights when at­ten­dance tra­di­tion­al­ly tends to be low­er.

Among the pro­pos­als be­ing con­sid­ered is the re­vival of the Queen’s Pageant, which he said had at­tract­ed large au­di­ences in pre­vi­ous years.

Man­groo said 2027 would see the re­turn of Caribbean Night, where re­gion­al artistes would get the chance to per­form.

He al­so point­ed to plans to mod­ernise some of the Na­gar’s the­mat­ic dis­plays, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mov­ing to­wards dig­i­tal pre­sen­ta­tions.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about the event’s over­all pre­sen­ta­tion and the need to at­tract new au­di­ences, Man­ga­roo said the or­gan­i­sa­tion had be­gun plan­ning for next year.

He ac­knowl­edged that the NCIC would be re­view­ing its mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for 2027 as part of ef­forts to strength­en the Na­gar’s ap­peal.

“This year we had vis­i­tors from Guade­loupe, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States. We want to broad­en our reach to oth­er di­as­po­ra na­tions.”