Author: Rory Rostant
Publication: Trinidad
Guardian
Date: July 10, 2000
URL: http://www.guardian.co.tt/
INDIAN High Commissioner
Professor Parimal Kumar Das clashed with Indo-Trinidadians at a panel discussion
on Saturday over their belief that Trinidad and Tobago was facing a racial
crisis like Fiji.
"I don't look at it
as a crisis between Fijians and Indians," Das told his audience, including
fellow panelists Kamal Persad, an Express columnist, and former DLP MP,
Balgobin Ramdeen.
"That is what the Western
media would have you believe," he said, arguing that the Indian community
in T&T had gotten the wrong perception of the crisis in Fiji.
While agreeing that Indians in Trinidad hold political power, he refused
to be drawn into any argument that T&T was on the same path as Fiji.
Professor Das, who has
written a book on Fiji, said he saw the crisis in Fiji as a conflict between
the powerful ruling landlords and the working class.
Persad, however, insisted
that the conflict was indeed one of race and instigated to keep the Indians
from power. To look at the crisis in Fiji from Das' perspective was
to sidestep the issue, he said, describing it as a race war.
The panel discussion,
organised by the Hindu Writers Forum, took place on Saturday at the Chaguanas
Junior Secondary School. Its theme was "The Fiji crisis: Its implications
for Hindus in Trinidad and Tobago".
The panel, chaired by
Dr Kumar Mahabir, was the first in a series of discussions to be held throughout
T&T. It was organised to defend Hindu and Indian rights.
Das argued that it was
the fear of multi-racialism taking root in Fiji under Prime Minister Mahendra
Chaudhry which brought rebel leader George Speight to power.
Chaudhry was removed
not because he was Indian, Das maintained, adding that the attempted coup
was not only against Indians but against Fijians as well.
"Indians are not standing
up for Indians," Das was told afterward by a member of the Hindu Seva Sangh,
a Hindu activist group, during the question-and-answer period. "When
India acts strong then Indians in Trinidad look good."
Das reminded the audience
that as High Commissioner to T&T he did not represent the Indian population
only, but other races as well. Das was then told that India had sacrificed
the Indians in Fiji for the sake of aspiring to the status of a world power.
Fiji's history, Persad
insisted, was similar to that of Trinidad's and Guyana's, where Indians
got into power and other races faced the spectre of an Indian hegemony.
As has happened in Fiji,
Persad said, a similar pattern was developing in Trinidad, where Indians
are now being viewed with contempt for wielding political power.
Of the race war theory,
Das said it was wrong to make that kind of presentation without knowing
the facts.
