Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Trib­utes to late for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day con­tin­ued pour­ing in yes­ter­day, in­clud­ing from for­mer Cou­va North MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al, cur­rent UNC MP Ravi Rati­ram, Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots Leader Wat­son Duke, UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo, UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark and for­mer UNC stal­wart Dr De­vant Ma­haraj.

Pan­day, 90, died on Mon­day evening at a Flori­da hos­pi­tal, sur­round­ed by his fam­i­ly. He had been ail­ing re­cent­ly and in mid-De­cem­ber, had been tak­en to the US for med­ical at­ten­tion.

PDP leader Duke said, “Mr Pan­day was the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of strength un­der pres­sure. A trade union­ist who be­came prime min­is­ter. He said, ‘If you see me and a li­on fight­ing, don’t feel sor­ry for me but for the li­on.’ And he lived those words.

“He was ac­cus­tomed to strug­gle and he strug­gled to be­come the first In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter and first Hin­du PM, al­so paving the way for all trade union­ists try­ing be­fore and try­ing af­ter, to say to them, ‘You can be­come PM.’”

Duke said be­cause of Pan­day, there was much hope for peo­ple, and tru­ly in T&T every race finds an equal place.

Af­ter re­turn­ing to nor­mal­cy af­ter po­lit­i­cal life, he said Pan­day was nev­er heard cre­at­ing bac­cha­nal and trou­ble. “He be­came a true pa­tri­ot. My chal­lenge to­day is those lead­ers who fail to ac­knowl­edge the great­ness of him while he was alive. This is fast be­com­ing the norm in T&T– praise you when you’re dead. Let’s open our eyes and recog­nise peo­ple and their con­tri­bu­tions in life while they’re here,” Duke added.

For­mer Cou­va North MP Ram­di­al, who suc­ceed­ed Pan­day as MP, said, “I’m deeply sad­dened by the pass­ing of for­mer prime min­is­ter, op­po­si­tion leader, Cou­va North MP, po­lit­i­cal leader and founder of the UNC, Mr Pan­day. Just a few weeks ago we heard he was re­cu­per­at­ing.

“Mr Pan­day and I had a good re­la­tion­ship, even more so in re­cent times. When I suc­ceed­ed him as MP, he wished me well, and his ad­vice was to al­ways put my con­stituen­cy work be­fore my min­is­te­r­i­al role be­cause ‘the peo­ple vot­ed for you to rep­re­sent them in Par­lia­ment.’ He was tru­ly a peo­ple per­son, charis­mat­ic, wit­ty in every way and al­ways gave me sound po­lit­i­cal guid­ance.

“He be­came a strong ad­vo­cate for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and made sure to con­vey such to me when­ev­er we spoke. He ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment to me when I was re­ject­ed as UNC’s can­di­date in 2020. He was proud of my achieve­ments as an MP dur­ing my tenure in gov­ern­ment. In his last few con­ver­sa­tions with me, he said he was a fan of my col­umn and of­fered to help me in any way pos­si­ble. I was go­ing to con­sult with him for an ar­ti­cle on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form this year.

“He was a true pa­tri­ot and ser­vant to the coun­try and will be great­ly missed by the peo­ple. He was the most loved politi­cian whose lega­cy is well record­ed and will live on. Om Sadgati.”

Cur­rent Cou­va North MP Rati­ram said Pan­day served with dis­tinc­tion as Cou­va North MP for 34 years.

“Mr Pan­day will sure­ly be missed by many, es­pe­cial­ly Cou­va North con­stituents, who kept a pic­ture of him on their al­tar,” Rati­ram said.

“He ded­i­cat­ed his life to serv­ing the peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the poor and the op­pressed, as he fought for so­cial jus­tice, equal op­por­tu­ni­ties, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, and na­tion­al uni­ty across this coun­try. His charis­mat­ic lead­er­ship was wide­ly ad­mired by many. Mr Pan­day’s tenure was marked by eco­nom­ic re­forms, so­cial progress, and a vi­sion for a unit­ed na­tion. His abil­i­ty to bridge di­vides and fos­ter uni­ty ex­em­pli­fied his states­man­ship, leav­ing an in­deli­ble mark on the na­tion he served.”

Rati­ram re­count­ed Pan­day’s fa­mous lines: “‘If you ever see me and a li­on fight­ing, don’t feel sor­ry for me, feel sor­ry for the li­on.’ ‘Nev­er, nev­er, nev­er sur­ren­der!’ ‘Send me off in a blaze of glo­ry!’”

“As I salute Mr Pan­day, on be­half of my con­stituents, my ex­ec­u­tive, coun­cil­lors and staff, I ex­press deep­est con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and I pray that his soul at­tains lib­er­a­tion. Om Sadgati.”

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Beck­les said, “My heart goes out to Oma and Mr Pan­day’s daugh­ters Niala, Mick­ela, Nico­la, and Vasta­la. Trinidad and To­ba­go is feel­ing the weight of this loss deeply, mourn­ing not just a tow­er­ing fig­ure, but a vi­sion­ary leader ahead of his time.”

She said Pan­day left an in­deli­ble mark as T&T’s fifth prime min­is­ter, the first per­son of In­di­an de­scent and the first Hin­du to hold the of­fice. He broke bar­ri­ers and blazed the po­lit­i­cal trail.

“From his ear­ly days as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 1972 to his tenure as a ded­i­cat­ed Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and his lead­er­ship roles in promi­nent po­lit­i­cal al­liances and unions, Pan­day’s in­flu­ence was felt across the spec­trum. His dy­nam­ic pres­ence and sage coun­sel in the Par­lia­ment halls will al­ways be cher­ished. As a fel­low par­lia­men­tar­i­an, I fond­ly re­call how Pan­day kept us sharp and gen­er­ous­ly shared his wis­dom with the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers. May his soul rest in peace, and may his con­tri­bu­tions to T&T en­dure as an ever­last­ing lega­cy.”

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice Po­lit­i­cal Leader David Ab­du­lah said, “Mr Pan­day’s place in T&T’s his­to­ry is as­sured. His life’s work is now fin­ished but his lega­cy will live on. His mul­ti-faceted ser­vice to the work­ers and peo­ple of T&T is unique. He was a quin­tes­sen­tial ‘Tri­ni to the bone’. As a pub­lic plat­form speak­er he had few equals and his en­gag­ing per­son­al­i­ty meant that he was at home in every com­mu­ni­ty in the coun­try.”

Phillip Alexan­der, founder and CEO of Cit­i­zens Union of T&T said, “... Over the com­ing days/weeks oth­ers will milk his pass­ing for all the ben­e­fits any as­so­ci­a­tion they could muster could give. I won’t.

“Few know how to own a room like he did and I dare say it was his su­per­pow­er ... He had a long in­nings and played the hands he had, some good, oth­ers maybe not so good, some he will be re­mem­bered for, oth­ers many would rather for­get, but in the end, his lega­cy out­grew even him.

“Bas was many things as we all are, but in the end, if you are re­mem­bered fond­ly through all those vi­cis­si­tudes and bad weath­er, then one can say well done. Go on to your just re­ward, Sil­ver Fox. For bet­ter or worse, you did more than most ...”

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Fuad Khan, “Bas lived his three score and ten and 20 more. He was a good leader who was not afraid of us­ing strong peo­ple who could de­vel­op the par­ty and coun­try. He nev­er be­lieved in choos­ing lack­eys just to sup­port his lead­er­ship. It is sad that he was os­tracised from the par­ty he built and he or his fam­i­ly was nev­er al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate. It’s eas­i­er for him to en­ter heav­en than the par­ty he found­ed!

“He al­ways told me, ‘The peo­ple to be feared are those on your side, not the PNM who are the KNOWN en­e­my.’ So true, thank you, Bas.”