Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last evening urged the pop­u­la­tion to let the Hin­du fes­ti­val’s spir­i­tu­al theme of knowl­edge over ig­no­rance pre­vail against those aimed at sow­ing dis­cord and di­vi­sive­ness through­out T&T.

“Even as an ever-in­creas­ing num­ber spon­sor di­vi­sive­ness, prac­tice hypocrisy, en­cour­age in­grat­i­tude and glo­ri­fy ha­tred, true Hin­duism sees knowl­edge as be­yond the mere ac­qui­si­tion of in­for­ma­tion. It holds knowl­edge in­stead as the path to seek­ing, know­ing, un­der­stand­ing, and feel­ing God’s pres­ence in our every ac­tion,” PM Row­ley said while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas.

Dr Row­ley em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of light over­com­ing dark­ness, a core tenet of the Di­vali fes­ti­val.

He urged at­ten­dees to em­brace the spir­it of love and for­give­ness.

“We must recog­nise that mod­ern man is at a cri­sis point. It is said that we know so much yet un­der­stand so lit­tle about our­selves. One as­pect of that cri­sis has been our loss of faith, or a be­lief in God’s di­vine force in our dai­ly lives. Our na­tion is at a cross­roads in a tur­bu­lent and un­cer­tain world.”

The PM al­so recog­nised the ur­gent need for so­ci­ety to re-es­tab­lish roots in re­li­gion.

“It is in times like these that the true teach­ings of the Bha­gavad Gi­ta, and I dare say the Quran and the Bible, pro­vide valu­able un­der­pin­nings for a na­tion whose youth and even many adults are ex­ist­ing with­out the moral and spir­i­tu­al up­lift­ment nec­es­sary to guide us to that place of safe­ty, com­fort and progress,” he said.

“Progress has meant an im­proved qual­i­ty of our life but has come with a great emo­tion­al toll. To­day, the sci­ence lab­o­ra­to­ry is in­creas­ing­ly re­plac­ing places of wor­ship.”

He ex­pressed his wish­es for a pros­per­ous and joy­ous Di­vali to the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty, urg­ing every­one to spread light and pos­i­tiv­i­ty in their com­mu­ni­ties.

“Im­plic­it in the themes of Di­vali, I al­so see that of in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, a call to all peo­ple to take own­er­ship of their lives,” the PM said.

“I see Di­vali as re­mind­ing us of the need for Di­vine ther­a­py, our com­mu­ni­ca­tion with God, on one hand, and our du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as cit­i­zens of our great coun­try, on the na­tion­al lev­el. Let us con­tin­ue to spread the light of Di­vali, across our beloved Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing, Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) pres­i­dent De­oroop Teemal lament­ed the ris­ing costs as­so­ci­at­ed with stag­ing re­li­gious and cul­tur­al events but un­der­scored the need to pre­serve the coun­try’s lega­cy and her­itage.

Among the Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters who ac­com­pa­nied Dr Row­ley to the Na­gar last night were En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell and Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein.

There were calls from sev­er­al quar­ters to re­scind Young’s in­vi­ta­tion to the event, as he was ini­tial­ly card­ed to de­liv­er the fea­ture ad­dress as act­ing PM in Row­ley’s ab­sence. The Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Peo­ple of In­di­an Ori­gin (GO­PIO) pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed that Young had of­fend­ed Hin­du women with his re­cent sala­cious com­ments to­wards Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate and was un­wor­thy of speak­ing at a re­li­gious event.

How­ev­er, PM Row­ley re­turned in time to take Young’s place on the Na­gar podi­um last night.

Days ago, TTT Lim­it­ed was al­so forced to apol­o­gise to the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) for tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties ex­pe­ri­enced dur­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s speech at the Di­vali Na­gar over the week­end.

The NCIC is yet to de­cide on whether the state-owned me­dia com­pa­ny’s ex­pres­sion of re­gret is suf­fi­cient.