Cherisse Moe

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma has de­scribed head of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha of T&T Sat­narayan Ma­haraj as a tremen­dous fight­er and one of the most in­flu­en­tial Hin­dus out­side of In­dia. Shar­ma was speak­ing at a cer­e­mo­ny to ho­n­our Ma­haraj. The event, host­ed by the Ma­ha Sab­ha, took place at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya Road, Tu­na­puna, on Thurs­day evening. Ma­haraj was award­ed the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) for his con­tri­bu­tion in the field of ed­u­ca­tion. Stat­ing that Ma­haraj had con­tributed to every im­por­tant de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try in the last 38 years, Shar­ma said he was al­so re­spon­si­ble for keep­ing Hin­duism alive in T&T.

Fight­ing for equal­i­ty and jus­tice, he said, was al­ways on Ma­haraj's front burn­er. "You know the chal­lenges of the world," Shar­ma said. "The last few days we have been all over the Caribbean...Up to a short while ago, we just sent an­oth­er few con­tain­ers to St Lu­cia." He said Ma­haraj "taught us how to care for each oth­er and how to reach out to each oth­er. "To­day, Hin­duism has glob­al ap­peal for glob­al chal­lenges–dis­as­ters, earth­quakes, hur­ri­canes...Hin­duism has taught us how to at­tend to it, how to re­spond and how to be pre­pared," Shar­ma said.

Stat­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had re­ceived her first job through Ma­haraj, as a teacher at Lak­sh­mi Girls' Hin­du Col­lege, Shar­ma said it was be­cause of Ma­haraj that East In­di­ans in T&T could as­pire to hold some of the high­est of­fices in the land. "He has caused lit­tle boys like me to go in­to the Par­lia­ment and stand up big and strong...He has put us in­to med­ical school, not on­ly to be­come doc­tors, but to be strong and to be fear­less," he said. "When you eat roti on BWIA, it was Sat Ma­haraj that caused it to hap­pen. "To­day, we can walk with our heads high. To­day, we can go in­to any in­sti­tu­tion in this coun­try and be treat­ed fair­ly...Sat has con­tributed to that in a mean­ing­ful. To­day, our mandirs are the pride of the Caribbean."

Mean­while, echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Wade Mark, who de­scribed Ma­haraj as a strong ad­vo­cate of ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture, re­li­gion, strong fam­i­ly val­ues and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, and a man who con­tributed "enor­mous­ly" to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Decked in tra­di­tion­al In­di­an at­tire, Ma­haraj said he was "deeply ho­n­oured" to be recog­nised for his con­tri­bu­tions to T&T and was hap­py to see that peo­ple were now free to prac­tise "their var­i­ous forms of cul­ture," as T&T was a mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety. Al­so in at­ten­dance at the cer­e­mo­ny were Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Tim Goopeesingh, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Vas­ant Bharath, Min­is­ter of Food Pro­duc­tion.