Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) seem to be in a war or words over whether re­cent at­tacks on tem­ples were de­lib­er­ate and rep­re­setned re­li­gious hate crimes, or the acts of mere mis­cre­ants.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it is dan­ger­ous to T&T’s so­ci­ety’s peace and civ­il sta­bil­i­ty when in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly lazy al­le­ga­tions of hate crimes and re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance are thrown out with­out an io­ta of sup­port­ing ev­i­dence.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­ced­ed that crimes have been com­mit­ted at some Hin­du tem­ples but said this did not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean they were due to re­li­gious hate.

“While there is a vi­o­lent crime cri­sis on­go­ing, mod­ern Trinidad and To­ba­go is NOT a so­ci­ety of re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance or re­li­gious hate, and I call on cit­i­zens to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­ject those wicked and provoca­tive sug­ges­tions,” she said.

“Cit­i­zens must im­me­di­ate­ly move to stop this un­war­rant­ed and di­vi­sive theme from gain­ing any trac­tion by co­op­er­at­ing with the TTPS to bring these pet­ty thieves and van­dals to jus­tice.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly re­turned from vis­it­ing rel­a­tives over­seas.

She spoke af­ter last Sun­day’s in­ci­dent when stones were thrown at the Prana­vanan­da Ashram in Freeport as a prayer meet­ing was on­go­ing. Hours ear­li­er, at the Tarou­ba Recre­ation Grounds—a pop­u­lar Ram­leela site—tents were stolen and props for the Ram­leela pro­duc­tion were de­stroyed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added ,”Mod­ern Trinidad and To­ba­go has a crime prob­lem, we do not have a prob­lem of re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance or re­li­gious hate. Our so­ci­ety is one of the most tol­er­ant in the world re­gard­ing the ac­cep­tance of re­li­gious and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty. Re­cent­ly, there have been crimes at some Hin­du tem­ples, but these must not be viewed in iso­la­tion as an at­tack on the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty.”

She not­ed that in Ju­ly, the Church of the As­sump­tion’s parish of­fice in Mar­aval was bro­ken in­to, and pre­vi­ous­ly, there were rob­beries or van­dal­ism at the Mt St Bene­dict monastery, San Rafael RC church, St Fran­cis of As­sisi RC Church and the Clax­ton Bay SDA church, among oth­ers.

“We have had rob­beries or van­dal­ism at mosques in San­gre Grande, Cara­po, and Table­land to list a few. The fact is that none of these rob­beries or acts of van­dal­ism have been proven to be com­mit­ted due to re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance or hate. Some of these were crimes com­mit­ted by drug ad­dicts, men­tal­ly dis­turbed per­sons, mis­chief mak­ers, or pet­ty thieves.”

She said some acts of van­dal­ism have turned out to be fu­elled by dis­putes with­in the con­gre­ga­tion or com­mu­ni­ty, land dis­putes, noise com­plaints, bad park­ing is­sues, and even pet­ty fam­i­ly quar­rels.

“Places of wor­ship are of­ten soft tar­gets due to the lack of phys­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty and the be­lief by op­por­tunis­tic crim­i­nals that there may be valu­able alms and of­fer­ings on the premis­es,” she said.

She added, “Ours is a coun­try where tem­ples, mosques and church­es are sit­u­at­ed next to each oth­er, shar­ing carparks, ser­vice fa­cil­i­ties and recre­ation­al spaces. We all cel­e­brate and par­take in each oth­er’s re­li­gious fes­ti­vals and cel­e­bra­tions across any po­lit­i­cal, eth­nic, race or so­cial class lines.

“There­fore, it is dan­ger­ous to our so­ci­ety’s peace and civ­il sta­bil­i­ty when in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly lazy al­le­ga­tions of hate crimes and re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance are thrown out, with­out an io­ta of sup­port­ing ev­i­dence.”

How­ev­er Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment was im­me­di­ate­ly con­demned last night by the SDMS, which la­belled it a “bizarre, con­fused and in­sult­ing state­ment”.

In a state­ment, SDMS sec­re­tary gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of “down­play­ing” the se­ri­ous­ness of the re­cent at­tacks on tem­ples.

Not­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments, he said, “It doesn’t take Sher­lock Holmes to de­duce that the van­dal­ism of an ef­fi­gy of Rawan at Tarou­ba Recre­ation Ground, or the in­ten­tion­al de­struc­tion of Hin­du Mur­tis is ev­i­dence of a re­li­gious at­tack on the Hin­du faith.”

Ma­haraj snot­ed, “No one is sug­gest­ing that acts of vi­o­lence were on­ly lim­it­ed to places of Hin­du wor­ship, but as the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture and in­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemul said re­cent­ly, ‘What we need to note is that to take al­co­hol and to take meat on­to a tem­ple de­lib­er­ate­ly, to des­e­crate a tem­ple, it calls for re­al­ly a high lev­el of or­gan­i­sa­tion and think­ing from va­grants and men­tal­ly dis­turbed peo­ple. …We should not con­tin­ue to be dis­mis­sive of it’.”

Ma­haraj said while ac­cus­ing those who have con­demned these at­tacks as “in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly lazy”, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­peared un­aware her own sen­a­tor, Tim Gopeesingh, not on­ly con­demned these acts on Hin­du tem­ples but al­so chas­tised the en­tire PNM and a par­tic­u­lar PNM sen­a­tor for not do­ing the same.

The SDMS head said in­stead of join­ing na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion of the acts of des­e­cra­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was now con­demn­ing those who con­demned “these heinous acts”.

“It is tru­ly a dis­gust­ing slap in the face of all Hin­dus across T&T,” the SDMS said

He said he felt Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment was de­spi­ca­ble and “rem­i­nis­cent of the at­tack on a Hin­du pun­dit at a UNC meet­ing for which Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is still to con­demn”.

“It’s clear Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is on­ly in­ter­est­ed in get­ting Hin­du votes but has lit­tle con­cern for the rights of Hin­dus to prac­tice their re­li­gion with safe­ty and dig­ni­ty,” Ma­haraj said.