SAMP­SON NAN­TON

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

samp­son.nan­ton@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­pressed her grat­i­tude to In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di for the com­pas­sion he demon­strat­ed to­wards Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er small na­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Dur­ing an ad­dress to a gath­er­ing of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Cou­va last night, which was at­tend­ed by Mo­di and his del­e­ga­tion, who ar­rived in T&T hours ear­li­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that un­der his lead­er­ship, In­dia ex­tend­ed its sup­port to the world, es­pe­cial­ly four years ago.

“When the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought the world to a stand­still, while some coun­tries were hoard­ing med­ical sup­plies, you, sir, made sure that vac­cines and sup­plies reached even the small­est na­tions, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­marked.

This elicit­ed sus­tained ap­plause from the hun­dreds present in the au­di­ence.

On Tues­day, April 13, 2021, T&T re­ceived 40,000 dos­es of the Ox­ford/As­traZeneca COVID-19 vac­cines af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di re­spond­ed to a re­quest for as­sis­tance from this na­tion dur­ing a pe­ri­od when ac­quir­ing vac­cines was par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing.

Re­flect­ing on this, Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ued, “Through your benev­o­lence, you brought hope and calm where there was fear. I say again, this was more than diplo­ma­cy; this was an act of kin­ship. This was an act of sheer hu­man­i­ty; this was an act of love, and this is one of the many rea­sons we are deeply proud to be­stow up­on you, Ex­cel­len­cy, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, our na­tion’s high­est ho­n­our, to­mor­row.”

She told the au­di­ence that it was a “pro­found ho­n­our to be graced” by one of the world’s most es­teemed and ad­mired vi­sion­ary lead­ers.

“Your pres­ence is a great in­spi­ra­tion to all of us, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the Trin­ba­go In­do com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­la­tion­ships be­tween both na­tions go be­yond time and dis­tance, as she laud­ed Mo­di for po­si­tion­ing his coun­try as “a promi­nent and dom­i­nant glob­al pow­er through vi­sion­ary and fu­tur­is­tic ini­tia­tives.”

“We bow to you, sir,” she said.

She ac­knowl­edged his ef­forts in sup­port­ing the In­di­an di­as­po­ra and the com­mon his­to­ry shared by the two na­tions.

“The ties that bind In­dia and T&T are ties of an­ces­tors, kin­ship, sac­ri­fice and love,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“We here are the grand­chil­dren of Moth­er In­dia, sep­a­rat­ed by oceans but unit­ed by love and re­spect. The ties that bind our two na­tions are tru­ly un­break­able.”

She asked that the two coun­tries con­tin­ue this jour­ney to­geth­er, as part­ners, as broth­ers, and as sis­ters.

Dur­ing her ini­tial term as Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar trav­elled to In­dia in Jan­u­ary 2012, in recog­ni­tion of the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al con­nec­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, which date back to the ar­rival of In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers to T&T in 1845.

A sig­nif­i­cant as­pect of her vis­it was her role as the Chief Guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Di­vas (PBD) in Jaipur, a promi­nent an­nu­al gath­er­ing for the In­di­an di­as­po­ra, where she was ho­n­oured with the Pravasi Bharatiya Sam­man Award, ac­knowl­edg­ing her con­tri­bu­tions and the strong re­la­tion­ship she em­bod­ied be­tween the In­di­an di­as­po­ra and their home­land.