Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

In a week of mount­ing crit­i­cism at home and abroad, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Hin­du devo­tees that one must have “bel­ly” to stand against in­jus­tice.

Speak­ing Fri­day night at the Ganesh Ut­sav Foun­da­tion Mandir in Ota­heite, Per­sad-Bisses­sar likened her re­silience to the chal­lenges faced by Lord Ganesh. She said Pun­dit Sunil See­ta­hal Ma­haraj’s night­ly dis­cours­es re­mind­ed her of a Katha where Ganesh en­dured ridicule for his ap­pear­ance.

“He was ridiculed for his man­ner­isms. He was ridiculed for his large stom­ach. In Trinidad, we use the word bel­ly. I know what that feels like, but I, too, know you must have ‘bel­ly’ to fight dis­crim­i­na­tion, in­jus­tice, and wrong­do­ing. And so, Lord Ganesh leads the way for us,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Her re­marks came amid back­lash over her en­dorse­ment of a Unit­ed States mil­i­tary strike on a Venezue­lan drug ves­sel that killed 11 sus­pect­ed car­tel mem­bers in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for the US to “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly” drew out­rage lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, with crit­ics ac­cus­ing her of reck­less­ness and un­der­min­ing T&T’s long tra­di­tion of neu­tral­i­ty.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­demned the com­ments as “reck­less, dis­grace­ful, and in­con­sis­tent with the oath she has tak­en to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion.” She warned that such in­flam­ma­to­ry lan­guage could en­dan­ger fish­er­folk and off­shore work­ers, while al­so ques­tion­ing whether Cari­com lead­ers had been con­sult­ed be­fore align­ing so open­ly with US mil­i­tary ac­tion.

In­ter­na­tion­al con­cerns have al­so been raised. Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan, a lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s words “over­stepped diplo­mat­ic bound­aries” and risked erod­ing T&T’s cred­i­bil­i­ty in the re­gion. Pro­fes­sor Andy Knight went fur­ther, de­scrib­ing the US strike as “an in­ten­tion­al killing in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters with­out due process” and warn­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sup­port could desta­bilise the Caribbean.

The strongest re­buke came from Venezuela. Dur­ing his week­ly tele­vi­sion pro­gramme, In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo launched a scathing per­son­al at­tack, call­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar a “drunk woman” who had sided with an “im­pe­r­i­al act” con­demn­ing Caribbean fish­er­men to “ex­e­cu­tion at sea.”

De­spite the firestorm, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has main­tained her stance, say­ing she had a du­ty to pro­tect law-abid­ing cit­i­zens from the vi­o­lence of transna­tion­al car­tels. At Fri­day’s re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tion, how­ev­er, she steered clear of the con­tro­ver­sy and in­stead fo­cused on faith, uni­ty, and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“The plu­ral­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go al­lows for a Hin­du woman, bap­tised as a Bap­tist by my Brah­min fa­ther, and schooled Pres­by­ter­ian, to be guid­ed that all prayers are good prayers. We may have dif­fer­ent names, but we pray to the same God,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told devo­tees that Hin­du teach­ings en­cour­age peo­ple to unite, lis­ten, and re­main open-mind­ed. She said the sym­bol­ic ele­phant ears of Lord Ganesh re­mind devo­tees that “some­times we have to lis­ten more,” adding, “that is why I tell you, first I lis­ten and then I lead.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so praised the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia for its re­cent sup­port to T&T, in­clud­ing a do­na­tion of pros­thet­ic limbs. She urged cit­i­zens in need to con­tact their Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to ac­cess them.

“There are many peo­ple wait­ing ea­ger­ly for these, and I wel­come those land­ing on our shores and with­in your com­mu­ni­ties. Please reach out to us and your MPs so we can bring you for­ward to get the pros­thet­ic limb. I think a lot of peo­ple will be hap­py with that,” she said.

She added that In­dia had al­so agreed to pro­vide dial­y­sis ma­chines, sea am­bu­lances, and lap­tops for school­child­ren—ges­tures she de­scribed as signs of grow­ing friend­ship be­tween the two coun­tries.

To mark the Ganesh Ut­sav farewell, Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­vit­ed In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Dr Pradeep Singh Ra­jpuro­hit on stage as she pre­sent­ed a gift from Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di: wa­ters from the holi­est rivers of In­dia, which she then of­fered to the near­by ocean.

“These are wa­ters from the holi­est of rivers out of In­dia. They were gift­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go. And tonight, as we say farewell to Lord Ganesh by way of the mur­ti, I think it is fit­ting that, the ocean be­ing so close by, we of­fer these in the wa­ters of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

In his re­marks, Ra­jpuro­hit said it was heart­en­ing to wit­ness the vi­bran­cy of the fes­ti­val.

“We are de­light­ed to see life-size mur­tis and even big­ger mur­tis,” he said, com­mend­ing the or­gan­is­ers and par­tic­i­pants.

He al­so thanked T&T for host­ing Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di dur­ing his re­cent vis­it, say­ing the In­di­an leader was deeply im­pressed by the warmth and hos­pi­tal­i­ty shown. Ra­jpuro­hit high­light­ed the Cab­i­net’s wel­come at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the cul­tur­al show­case at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre, tra­di­tion­al meals served on so­hari leaves, and the be­stow­al of the coun­try’s high­est civil­ian award.