SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Bas­deo Pan­day had a sharp tongue. Imag­ine be­ing hu­mil­i­at­ed by it. But that was the fate of for­mer politi­cian Hulsie Bhag­gan. Called “pan­cake face” on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form by Pan­day af­ter a fall­out, Bhag­gan, the Sil­ver Fox’s friend turned foe, wished for his soul to rest in peace one day af­ter his cre­ma­tion at the Shore of Peace.

“We moved on,” Bhag­gan said in a mes­sage to the Sun­day Guardian on Thurs­day.

It was clear that Bhag­gan had for­giv­en Pan­day al­most two decades af­ter his vi­cious and scathing at­tack on her.

Pan­day, 90, died on New Year’s Day at a hos­pi­tal in Flori­da. From 1995 to 2001, he served as the coun­try’s fifth prime min­is­ter.

As the founder of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in 1989, Pan­day re­mained the po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty un­til 2010 af­ter he lost his bid to be elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader. Af­ter be­ing de­feat­ed by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, he claimed that the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive had “stolen the elec­tions”.

Af­fec­tion­ate­ly called the Sil­ver Fox, Pan­day was cre­mat­ed on Tues­day fol­low­ing a tear­ful and cel­e­bra­tive farewell.

The Sun­day Guardian reached out to Bhag­gan on the same day of Pan­day’s cre­ma­tion to share her most mem­o­rable mo­ment with him and asked if she would agree with the sen­ti­ments ex­pressed by some peo­ple that Pan­day was the coun­try’s best prime min­is­ter for his wit, charis­ma and lead­er­ship qual­i­ties.

She did not re­spond. Calls to her phone al­so went unan­swered.

On Wednes­day, the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed Bhag­gan’s work­place at the New Life Min­istries Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in St Au­gus­tine, where she agreed to speak at 1 pm. But short­ly af­ter agree­ing to an in­ter­view, Bhag­gan, the clin­i­cal di­rec­tor of the drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre, changed her mind, stat­ing in a What­sApp mes­sage she pre­ferred not to com­ment.

“We moved on,” Bhag­gan wrote, re­fer­ring to Pan­day and her­self.

“May he rest in peace,” the mes­sage stat­ed and in­clud­ed an emo­ji of clasped hands, which sig­ni­fied a ges­ture of prayer, re­spect and thanks.

Bhag­gan’s be­gin­nings

Just like Pan­day, Bhag­gan came from hum­ble be­gin­nings to a po­lit­i­cal ca­reer that peaked in con­tro­ver­sy.

The sec­ond to last of 14 chil­dren, Bhag­gan grew up in Guaya­mare, a small vil­lage in Ca­roni.

Her pas­sion for help­ing the needy and dis­ad­van­taged pushed her to stand up with dozens of res­i­dents in her com­mu­ni­ty who lost their homes due to the ex­pan­sion of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way.

For more than a decade the res­i­dents had been await­ing com­pen­sa­tion and re­lo­ca­tion from the Gov­ern­ment but were ig­nored.

This kick­start­ed Bhag­gan’s ac­tivism and en­try in­to pol­i­tics.

Bhag­gan’s fight for the voice­less and op­pressed is where she met Pan­day who at that time was pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the All Trinidad Sug­ar and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union (ATS­GW­TU) which she joined as a mem­ber.

As an ad­vo­cate for the peo­ple, Bhag­gan mo­bilised the pop­u­la­tion on ris­ing food prices and cham­pi­oned a pe­ti­tion which was signed by 20,000 cit­i­zens.

For one week, she fast­ed on the steps of the Par­lia­ment build­ing call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ease the squeeze on the poor man’s pock­ets.

In her com­mu­ni­ty, she lob­bied for a bet­ter sup­ply of pipe-borne wa­ter.

When cen­tral Trinidad was sub­merged in flood wa­ters, Bhag­gan fought in de­fence of the af­fect­ed vic­tims.

She al­so led a na­tion­al cam­paign against cor­rup­tion in the con­struc­tion of the $100 mil­lion Ca­roni Rac­ing Com­plex un­der the then Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

Re­gard­ed as a cham­pi­on for the peo­ple and a ris­ing politi­cian, Bhag­gan be­came a found­ing mem­ber of the UNC and lat­er the par­ty’s first pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer (PRO) un­der Pan­day’s lead­er­ship.

From 1992 to 1995, Bhag­gan served as Ch­agua­nas MP on the Op­po­si­tion bench.

Back­lash

Bhag­gan took her task of serv­ing the peo­ple fur­ther by block­ing the Uri­ah But­ler High­way to protest against the con­struc­tion of the Guaya­mare sec­tion of the high­way which led to her ar­rest and sev­en days in prison in soli­tary con­fine­ment.

Her con­fine­ment was noth­ing com­pared to the back­lash she faced when she ac­cused African men of rap­ing East In­di­an women in Cen­tral which cre­at­ed a pub­lic out­cry and was de­scribed as di­vi­sive.

Bhag­gan in a let­ter dat­ed May 25, 1993, ad­dressed to then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Rus­sell Hug­gins, com­plained of an up­surge in crime in Cen­tral. The en­tire let­ter was read out by Diego Mar­tin West MP, now Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to Par­lia­ment on June 25, 1993.

A call was made by Bhag­gan for a joint army/po­lice pa­trol in Cen­tral due to wide­spread ter­ror­ism of con­stituents whose homes were be­ing bro­ken in­to for two months.

The vic­tims, the let­ter stat­ed, were robbed and beat­en and women raped.

Stress­ing that con­stituents were un­der siege, Bhag­gan fur­ther stat­ed that in every sin­gle com­mu­ni­ty of her con­stituen­cy, there were now neigh­bour­hood watch groups. Bhag­gan list­ed three women who were vic­tims of rape with­out call­ing their names.

The let­ter ac­cused Hug­gins of be­ing aware of the sit­u­a­tion but had re­fused to take ac­tion.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was al­so knocked for its in­suf­fi­cient ve­hi­cles to re­spond to re­ports.

Bhag­gan point­ed out in the let­ter that un­less the Gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to do some­thing, con­stituents would em­bark on what­ev­er means pos­si­ble to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies.

It al­so re­vealed a very sor­did as­pect of the siege–the per­pe­tra­tors were men of African de­scent and the vic­tims were East In­di­ans. Her ex­plo­sive claims cre­at­ed a pub­lic up­roar.

Con­demn­ing Bhag­gan’s ac­cu­sa­tions, Row­ley told mem­bers as a mul­ti-eth­nic coun­try when we be­gin to iden­ti­fy our prob­lems along eth­nic lines, even peo­ple who should know bet­ter would be­gin to be­have in a cer­tain way and these sit­u­a­tions on­ly get worse.

In her con­tri­bu­tion, Bhag­gan ar­gued there was an in­crease in rob­beries and vi­o­lent crimes in the coun­try, stat­ing over the last decade many women had been raped while there was no ac­tion from the po­lice.

Giv­ing a break­down of the 1992 crime sta­tis­tics, Bhag­gan stat­ed a rob­bery was com­mit­ted every three hours, every 20 hours a per­son was wound­ed and rapes and sex­u­al of­fences were com­mit­ted every 36 hours.

The mur­der rate stood at three per week, Bhag­gan said.

Rad­i­cal style

Bhag­gan’s rad­i­cal style of pol­i­tics and ad­vo­ca­cy for peo­ple to be placed be­fore the par­ty raised eye­brows. She al­so re­ject­ed the tra­di­tion of MPs tow­ing the par­ty line.

This did not sit well with Pan­day, and in 1994 Bhag­gan faced ex­pul­sion from the UNC and was rel­e­gat­ed to the back­bench in Par­lia­ment.

From be­ing friends in pol­i­tics, Bhag­gan and Pan­day had drawn swords.

Pan­day pub­licly at­tacked and den­i­grat­ed Bhag­gan by call­ing her “pan­cake face” in a pub­lic space. Bhag­gan, on the oth­er hand, re­fused to sup­port the par­ty with cer­tain bills in Par­lia­ment.

With a long his­to­ry in ac­tivism, so­cial de­vel­op­ment, trade union­ism and grow­ing pop­ulism, Bhag­gan in a 2010 in­ter­view with the Trinidad Guardian re­mem­bered head­ing Club Mon­day, which in­clud­ed Pamela Gokool, Rook­min Sook­nanan and Ann Marie Bil­badur who brought sex­u­al charges against a UNC mem­ber in Oc­to­ber 1994.

Pan­day, the ar­ti­cle stat­ed, lat­er sued Gokool for li­bel and slan­der at a Pe­nal meet­ing.

The fall­out be­tween them al­so led ca­lyp­son­ian David Rud­der to com­pose the song “The Bal­lad of Hulsie X” in 1988, im­mor­tal­is­ing her as the “Sug­ar Belt Queen” al­ways on the Cen­tral scene.

Pan­day was ac­cused of shift­ing the UNC from be­ing a ragga­muf­fin monar­chy to sup­port­ing the par­a­sitic oli­garchy in the song. One line of the ca­lyp­so stat­ed there was a scourge in the land of an “African zeg ma­chine”.

A fe­male with a high-pitched voice can be heard say­ing in the back­ground of the ca­lyp­so “Ah not mov­ing,!” “Get them out!” and “sex­u­al ha­rass­ment”.

Pan­day not guilty

In a shock­ing move in 1994, Pan­day faced five charges un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, in­clud­ing at­tempt­ed rape.

His ac­cusers were three young women em­ployed at the UNC’s Cou­va-based of­fice.

Be­fore the 1995 snap gen­er­al elec­tion was called by then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, a mag­is­trate com­plet­ed hear­ing the mat­ter.

At that time, the UNC was gain­ing mo­men­tum in the po­lit­i­cal land­scape un­der Pan­day’s lead­er­ship.

Pan­day cap­tured a swell of sup­port from the vot­ing pop­u­la­tion to be­come the coun­try’s fifth prime min­is­ter in 1995.

One week af­ter the elec­tion, the mag­is­trate de­clared Pan­day not guilty.

Bhag­gan’s pas­sion for serv­ing peo­ple drove her to form the Move­ment for Uni­ty and Progress (MUP) which did not at­tract elec­toral sup­port or a seat in the polls.

MUP on­ly at­tained 0.4 per cent of the na­tion­al vote.

Bat­tered and bruised, Bhag­gan bowed out of pol­i­tics and be­gan to work at the New Life Min­istries and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre.

Bhag­gan went in­to po­lit­i­cal obliv­ion un­til she resur­faced in 2010 as a mem­ber of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and lat­er be­came a deputy chair­man of the par­ty.

In 2010 Bhag­gan said in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian that she had for­giv­en Pan­day “a long time ago” and that it was not about Pan­day. “I want­ed to help trans­form the par­ty. I had noth­ing per­son­al with him.”

Bhag­gan re­called her pleas­ant be­gin­nings with Pan­day, stat­ing that she was work­ing at a bank and got in­volved with ATS­GW­TU.

Pan­day’s com­mit­ment to help­ing the work­ing class and poor at­tract­ed Bhag­gan to him.

Dur­ing her stint with the UNC, Bhag­gan helped set up Heal, the par­ty’s drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre.

She had said Pan­day was re­luc­tant to let go of pow­er, and he should not “be blamed to­tal­ly for the mis­takes he made as peo­ple around him af­fect­ed his be­hav­iour which ap­peared dic­ta­to­r­i­al and au­thor­i­ta­tive.”

She said that Pan­day could have left his po­lit­i­cal life “in a blaze of glo­ry” and that “some should take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for al­low­ing his demise in such an un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous man­ner.”

She wished Pan­day all the best.

Af­ter his ex­it from pol­i­tics, Pan­day led a qui­eter life, and his tu­mul­tuous ca­reer as a politi­cian was left to the his­to­ry books.