Community advocate Chan Rukmin Jamoona of Trinidad, and a long time Little Guyana/Little Trinidad resident of Richmond Hill, made the below comments about the role of real estate developer and radio personality Herman Singh in helping to save the parade when some prejudiced Whites in the Community Board in greater Richmond Hill area almost derailed the continuation of the parade. The Phagwah parade, started in 1990 has been held annually, and it attracted several White and others in Indian participants. But as a foreign introduced culture of Indo-Caribbeans and Asian Indians, it did not sit well with some Whites in the area who sought to out an end to it. Jamoona recalled the role of Herman and others, in remarks in a chat site, the struggle to keep the parade going.
Jamoona penned: The parade did not sit well with Whites. The Arya Spiritual Center and other groups maintain the Phagua parade over many years with great difficulties. For this success we owe a great deal to Herman Singh. He sits very quietly in meetings and says nothing, but he does a great lot. When the prejudiced white community in Queens wanted to get rid of the Phagwa Parade in Queens, they invited us to a meeting at the 106th precinct sometime in the mid 1990s. There were approximately 50 people present. They were all presidents and leaders of the community boards, Civic Associations, Precincts Community Councils, and many more powerful organizations. At that meeting, they told us how and why we had to move the Phagwa Parade out of Smokey Park, Richmond hill to some other location. They actually ridiculed us about being filthy, noisy, having numerous late night noisy parties in our backyards with fights, etc. They also told us how we litter the community with no sense of remorse.
They told us we could not continue our parade in Smokey Park even though they knew that the parade was scheduled to be held very soon. Thank goodness the Police Precinct Captain, Mr. Storch and the two community affairs police officers Bell and Adams were supportive of us and favored our position. After much discussion, the Precinct Captain insisted that the community should be able to have their functions in Smokey Park since we are now a part of the residential community. Eventually, they stated that we must give them $1000.00 in order to reserve the park for the parade. We also had to provide security, portable toilets, a ‘wenger’ wagon for the stage and do a thorough post Phagwah cleanup of the park. We agreed to of their demands.
At that time raising $10,000.00 and incurring such expenses were not easy. Thanks to Herman Singh we overcame the difficulties. He saved the day and gave us the encouragement, courage and support to move ahead with the Parade. He dipped his hands in his wallet and immediately wrote a check of $10,000.00 and handed it to the chairperson before they could change their minds or come up with more demands. Everyone was silent! The permit for the parade was upheld for the Arya Spiritual Center. Afterwards, Pandit Ramlal, now deceased, Dharmacharya of the Arya Samaj, continued to invite and involve other mandirs and groups to organize the parade. Then Bhai Prakash Persaud, Bhai Kishore Megnauth and I went out to meet with the mandirs to invite them to participate in the Phagwah Parade. The Federation of Mandirs was then formed, and of course trouble started and has not ended until now.
Friends, now that all is well, let us get together as a community and do some creative , positive and wonderful things to improve ourselves, our community, and the human population at large.
We are very fortunate to have had people like Pandit Ramlal, Herman Singh, and many others like the older Pandits, Omadath, Hardwar, Dubey, my parents Pandit Bhagirathee, Krishna Tiwari, Pandit Prakash Gossai, and many others who have worked hard to secure and keep our religion alive. Now we have many younger pundits like Pandit Chunelall, Pt Seeratan, Pt Arun Gossai and so many more wonderful people. Can we not use all these resources and make our community a better one?
Friends Let us pool our resources together and use this forum to promote greater opportunities for all of our people and also for humanity at large. May we continue to be blessed so that we can provide for the goodness of the entire world.
— Namaste! Chan Rukmin Jamoona