The Hindu community needs to develop a more forthright leadership if it must succeed. It needs to unveil the leadership of Bhadase Sagan Maraj who not only founded the Maha Sabha and the PDP that won two national elections but also built more than thirty schools to educate the children in the sugar cane belt. Had these schools not been built the Hindu community would have been abandoned to toil in the fields and distinguished sons and daughters such as Dr. Vijay Narinesingh, Kamla Persad-Bissessar would not have seen the light of day.
Bhadase Maraj’s leadership was uncompromising. Had he been otherwise he would not have been able to achieve wealth and other personal glories that helped him to win the confidence of the masses. While a few professionals objected to his use of muscles, had he been mild and meek he would have been physically beaten up and thrown over a precipice to die. Thankfully, he was feared for his recklessness, thus ensuring his survival.
Bhadase Maraj could have adopted the Buddha- Gandhi style of leadership but did not. This leadership style facilitated the invaders in its first phase and the partitioning of India in its second phase. The Buddha-Gandhi leadership style that promotes ahimsa is alien to Hindu dharma. Our religion makes it clear that if the enemies are using subterfuges to win then by all means the Hindu must counteract with subterfuges to defeat them.
Today the Modi-led BJP and the RSS are working assiduously to remove this weakness that has sunk into the minds and hearts of the Indian people. The government is spending vast sums of money to equip the Indian army with the latest technology and has also embarked on a mission to make India a manufacturer and exporter of weapons.
I recall a friend saying to me that Bhadase Maraj achieved so much but died at age 55 (1916-1971) when he could have lived longer. I retorted that it was not how long one lives that matters, but what one achieves and more so how one improves the condition of one family and community. Bhadase Maraj did not live like a corbeau waiting on a carcass to fill his stomach as has become the lifestyle of so many who project themselves as leaders. He lived large and with style. He was certainly the greatest individual in the history of the country, a claim that few would have the guts to accept or challenge.
Hindus in the diaspora must put their heads together for their survival, if not they are going to perish. The next ten years would determine the death or survival of the diaspora. One is saying this because a kind of hubris has overtaken the community. The Hindu community appears to possess something that gives a false sense of pride when nothing substantial is done to deal with issues and take advantage of opportunities. V. S. Naipaul wrote: “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.” These are the opening lines in his novel A Bend in the River (1979). Are we as a community addressing the issues that are confronting us? Or are we taking the easy way out-drowning ourselves in alcohol?
Mala, 61, continues to sell in the market. She was hoping that she would retire when her son got a job. More than two years after graduating with a degree in Business Management, her son remains unemployed. This is the frustration our people are faced with under an inept and bias government.
Imagine the frustration of our people who must experience perennial floodings and destruction to their furniture, carpet, and appliances and the general inconvenience to live in their own homes. Amidst these hardships the best response they can get from some quarters is a subway sandwich and a bottle of clorax! None of the CEOs, academics, or business associations are calling on the government to clean the rivers and build retention ponds. None of them have bothered to visit the victims of floods in these parts of the country but had it been in some parts of Port of Spain or Greenvale, all the who is who would have been present and pledging assistance. What hypocrisy!
Conscious Hindus must not allow a few eunuchs postering as community leaders to reduce the community to a harem for the pleasure of their Emperor to win personal favors. These leaders are not about building and running schools like Swami Prakashananda of Trinidad and Swami Aksharananda of Guyana but more about preparing halwa, ras malai, tandoori chicken, biryani, pani puri and dal makhani for their Emperor. A similar treatment was provided to Burnham and Hoyte, the two dictators that destroyed the economy of Guyana and resulting in more Guyanese living outside than inside the country.
