Panday calls for Pan-Indian movement

OPPOSITION LEADER Basdeo Panday has called for the creation of a global movement to champion the rights of East Indians wherever they face inequality and injustice.

Addressing the closing ceremony on Tuesday of a seminar entitled “From Indentureship and Entrepreneurship” at UWI’s Learning Resource Centre at St Augustine, Panday said East Indians were the victims of discrimination in several of the countries they settled in and have consequently been engaged in a struggle against non-Indians for equity in their respective societies. He observed that there were some 20 to 25 million “overseas Indians” and persons of Indian descent who wielded significant socio-economic clout. Panday said it could be that “the national minority might well be an international majority.” “The time has come for us to explore the possibility of the use of such international power in the national struggle for equality and against intimidation, victimisation and marginalisation,” he declared.

Panday suggested that such a Pan-Indian movement could be similar to the Pan-African movement of the late 20th century and said the sentiment for the creation of this movement already existed in several countries of the Indian Diaspora. Indian High Commissioner Shri Virendra Gupta in his closing remarks, said there was a need to “tolerate and accept” diversity in multi-cultural societies like Trinidad and Tobago and India. Both men chatted cordially prior to and after the ceremony, with Panday showing no discomfort about a statement made 24 hours earlier by Gupta at the same venue in which he appeared to criticise persons who continually claim that East Indians have never played an equal role in the development of Trinidad and Tobago. Panday has been continuously claiming rampant discrimination against East Indians in the country, while Maha Sabha General Secretary Sat Maharaj has accused the National Lotteries Control Board of discriminating against East Indian cultural groups in terms of corporate sponsorship.