Gail Alexan­der

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sa­ba gen­er­al (SDMS) sec­re­tary Vi­jay Ma­haraj has called on po­lit­i­cal par­ties - specif­i­cal­ly the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress- not to use and abuse the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty for gen­er­al elec­tion votes.

“I’m not hit­ting one par­ty ei­ther, I’m hit­ting all par­ties that abuse the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty and at this stage the UNC’s at the fore­front of this with cer­tain re­marks which are very, very in­sult­ing to the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty,” Ma­haraj added yes­ter­day, stand­ing by his ad­dress on Jaagri­ti TV last Fri­day.

Ma­haraj’s com­ments last Fri­day ref­er­enced state­ments made at last week’s UNC Cot­tage Meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas where se­nior par­ty mem­bers re­ferred to En­er­gy Min­is­ter and in­com­ing prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young as “Stu­art Lal­be­har­ry Young” and oth­er ref­er­ences which ques­tioned Young’s In­do-T&T roots and even re­ferred to Young’s broth­er An­gus.

Ma­haraj on Jaagri­ti had shown re­cent me­dia re­ports of the com­ments. He’d said, “When you start - and this is what is be­gin­ning to irk the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty in T&T, not me alone- say­ing ‘Stu­art ‘Ra­jesh’ Young, An­gus ‘Ramesh’ Young’—I have to ask if their moth­er is Mus­lim and their fa­ther is a Ro­man Catholic or what­ev­er, why all these so­cial me­dia posts and TV ad­ver­tise­ments don’t have ‘Stu­art Mo­hammed Young’ and ‘An­gus Ya­coob Young’? Why Hin­du names? Why?! My com­mu­ni­ty needs an an­swer!”

Ma­haraj read a sup­port­ing so­cial me­dia post by one Miss Ali protest­ing the UNC’s re­marks.

Query­ing why the Young broth­ers were dubbed “Ra­jesh” and “Ramesh “ Ma­haraj asked if the UNC was afraid to call Mus­lim names for some rea­son.

“And the Hin­dus are the bobolees?! No, we’ll not stand for it any longer! I’m pro­tect­ing my com­mu­ni­ty which is seek­ing pro­tec­tion and they’re speak­ing out at this point.”

Ma­haraj not­ed he’d al­so sent to the UNC’s po­lit­i­cal leader and gen­er­al sec­re­tary, copies of a let­ter he’d re­ceived from the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2023 when there were is­sues with state­ments by Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath and his sta­tion was threat­ened with their li­cence be­ing re­voked. He said he al­so sent them le­gal let­ters from a ma­jor com­pa­ny to his sta­tions af­ter a UNC deputy leader made a state­ment about the com­pa­ny at a Rio Claro meet­ing.

Ma­haraj said the UNC de­cid­ed to re­move their broad­casts from Jaagri­ti.

“I didn’t ‘put them out’. If they’d have stayed on air I’d have put things in place to pro­tect the sta­tions.”

Ma­haraj added, “We’ve had prob­lems with all par­ties in Gov­ern­ment. My com­mu­ni­ty is sim­ply tired of be­ing used and abused. Our 2024 Di­vali grant hasn’t been re­ceived. The Phag­wa and In­di­an Ar­rival grants—due March and May 2024—on­ly ar­rived De­cem­ber 2024, mere pit­tance.”

Ma­haraj who said the SDMS was found­ed in 1952, not­ed the first po­lit­i­cal par­ty in T&T was the Peo­ple’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty which came out of peo­ple from the SDMS in 1954.

Yes­ter­day he told Guardian Me­dia those com­ments didn’t mean SDMS would form a po­lit­i­cal par­ty but were meant to il­lus­trate the or­gan­i­sa­tion is po­lit­i­cal­ly aware and would pro­tect the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought a re­sponse from UNC Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai, Chair­man Dave Tan­coo and deputy lead­ers about Ma­haraj’s state­ments but re­ceived no re­ply.