Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Two late lead­ers, Dr Wahid Ali and Pun­dit Kr­ish­na Ma­haraj, as well as se­nior at­tor­ney Karl Hud­son-Phillips and for­mer PNM min­is­ter Ka­malud­din Mo­hammed, will be ho­n­oured with the na­tion's high­est award–Or­der of T&T–at to­mor­row night's In­de­pen­dence award cer­e­mo­ny. This was re­vealed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, dur­ing an In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tion held at Clarke Rochard Recre­ation Ground in Pe­nal on Sat­ur­day night. In her fea­ture ad­dress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T's awards in 2010 will be dif­fer­ent from pre­vi­ous years as two of the high­est ho­n­ours of the land would go to Ma­haraj and Ali, both of whom re­fused to ac­cept the Trin­i­ty Cross in 1977 and in 1995 on the ba­sis of con­science.

She praised both men for their courage, say­ing they cham­pi­oned in­clu­sion and ac­cep­tance of every creed and race in T&T. Ali, who was the first head of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion, died in 2008, not be­fore he crit­i­cised both Bas­deo Pan­day and Patrick Man­ning for not chang­ing the Trin­i­ty Cross to re­flect T&T's re­li­gious di­ver­si­ty. On Sat­ur­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in keep­ing with the spir­it of mul­ti-cul­tur­al­ism and mul­ti-eth­nic­i­ty, pi­o­neered by both men, she had de­cid­ed to ho­n­our Ma­haraj and Ali posthu­mous­ly. "We have lots of chal­lenges, but I know we can over­come every chal­lenge," she said. "We will work to­geth­er to build this land, as we cel­e­brate In­de­pen­dence and as we look back at our suc­cess­es, we know that there is so much we need to do.

"There are a lot of grid­locks and ob­sta­cles, but I know with your help, prayers and love, your Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment will over­come." She not­ed that the Law Lords of the Privy Coun­cil agreed that it was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and against eq­ui­ty and fair­ness to force any one re­li­gion to ac­cept the Trin­i­ty Cross. Be­cause of the stance tak­en by both Dhar­ma­charya Ma­haraj and Ali, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she want­ed to ho­n­our both men. In an in­ter­view lat­er, she dis­closed that Hud­son-Phillips, a pi­o­neer in leg­isla­tive re­form, and cul­tur­al am­bas­sador Ka­malud­din Mo­hammed will al­so be ho­n­oured with T&T's high­est or­der.

More on the awardees:

Karl Hud­son-Phillips

Hud­son-Phillips was elect­ed for a nine-year term from the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Group of States. In 1959, af­ter grad­u­at­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge in the UK, Hud­son-Phillips was called to the Bars of the Unit­ed King­dom and Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­spec­tive­ly, and in 1970 was ap­point­ed Queen's Coun­sel. He has had an ex­ten­sive pri­vate prac­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go and in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean, as well as be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don. Hud­son-Phillips was At­tor­ney-Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs of Trinidad and To­ba­go from 1969 to 1973.

In his ca­pac­i­ty as At­tor­ney-Gen­er­al, he over­saw the im­ple­men­ta­tion of sig­nif­i­cant leg­isla­tive re­form in the ar­eas of crim­i­nal law, labour law and di­vorce law. He has de­fend­ed and pros­e­cut­ed in sev­er­al high-pro­file crim­i­nal tri­als in the Caribbean re­gion, in­volv­ing mur­der, trea­son, and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, fraud, il­le­gal drugs and ex­tra­di­tion. He was a law re­form com­mis­sion­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go and is a mem­ber of the Board of the Jus­tice Stud­ies Cen­tre of the Amer­i­c­as in San­ti­a­go, Chile.

Dr Wahid Ali

Dr Ali was a doc­tor of med­i­cine. He was award­ed the Clin­i­cal Prize in Surgery and the ti­tle Dis­tin­guished Grad­u­ate, UWI, in 1998. He was the first re­cip­i­ent of the Sir Thomas Tay­lor Award, as well as a gold medal­list for pub­lic ser­vice by the Vish­va Hin­du Parishad. He was a for­mer gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor and Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the first pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion. He was al­so a di­rec­tor of the ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion. Ali–a Mus­lim–re­fused to ac­cept the Trin­i­ty Cross in 1977, and on­ly ac­cept­ed it when then prime min­is­ter Er­ic Williams promised to change the Cross in the fu­ture. He died in 2008.

Ka­malud­din Mo­hammed

Mo­hammed, 83, a for­mer PNM min­is­ter served as a coun­ty coun­cil­lor from 1953 to 1956 and was the chair­man of the St George Coun­ty Coun­cil. He al­so served as Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture from 1956 to 1961, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties from 1961 to 1966, Min­is­ter of West In­di­an Af­fairs from 1966-1970. In 1973 to 1981, he was Min­is­ter of Health and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

Pun­dit Kr­ish­na Ma­haraj

Spir­i­tu­al head of the Hin­du Com­mu­ni­ty, Pun­dit Ma­haraj was first award­ed the high­est na­tion­al award–the Trin­i­ty Cross–in 1996 from then Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning for out­stand­ing so­cial work and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. How­ev­er, he re­fused to ac­cept the Trin­i­ty Cross on the grounds that it was a Chris­t­ian sym­bol. Ma­haraj then be­gan a cam­paign to have the name of the award changed. In 1997, a cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee was named to look at the is­sue of the Trin­i­ty Cross. In May 2006, Jus­tice Pe­ter Ja­madar, a Chris­t­ian, ruled that "the Trin­i­ty Cross–the na­tion's high­est award–was strict­ly a Chris­t­ian sym­bol, and as a re­sult, should be changed. Ma­haraj died in No­vem­ber 2003, and it would be three years lat­er, in 2006, that the Trin­i­ty Cross would be re­named the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T.