GOPIO awards a struggle for equality

ATTORNEY Anand Ramlogan has commended the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin  (GOPIO) for initiating a struggle for equality of treatment for Indo-Trinidadians in the National Awards. Ramlogan, who addressed the launch of GOPIO’s National Awards Project at the Divali Nagar Site on Monday night, said Indo-Trinidadians had been “hurt, disenchanted, alienated and marginalised” in the country’s Independence Day National Awards. He said the National Awards Scheme started in 1969, and out of the 64 Trinity Cross Awards, only eight or 12 percent of the recipients had been Indo-Trinidadians,  among them, Dr Rudranath Capildeo, Mitra Sinanan, VJ Naipaul, Tajmool Hosein, Wahid Ali, Isaac Hyatali, Noor Hassanali and Chief Justice Sat Sharma. Ramlogan pointed out that Indo-Trinidadians did not fare any better with the Public Service Medal of Merit Gold (22 out of 336), the Humming Bird Medal Gold ( 44 out of 233), or the Chaconia Gold (37 out of 213).

“How is that possible  in a society where Indo-Trinidadians comprise half the population?” he asked. “Is it that there are too few Indo-Trinidadian super achievers who have contributed to this nation to deserve a National Award?” Ramlogan said the GOPIO awards were “an important symbolic protest that should not be necessary but is in itself long overdue.” “Our Constitution, which is the Supreme law of the land and the foundation of our democracy, begins with an affirmation that as a people, our nation is built on the ideal of, inter alia,  a society of  free man and free institutions, the dignity of the human person with equal and inalienable rights. “To this end, each and every citizen enjoys, as a fundamental human being, the right to equality of treatment, freedom of conscience and religious belief and freedom of thought and expression.”

He said the fact that the Indo-Trinidadian community had to host a parallel national awards ceremony must be a matter of great concern to all citizens. Ramlogan noted: “Unfortunately, instead of focusing on the hurt and pain that would have led to such a move, much attention has instead been given to petty, silly things such as whether a private organisation can give out national awards, whether this will divide the society and the universality of the symbol of the cross.” He added: “It is not about Hindus and Muslims , Orishas, Bahais versus Christians and it is certainly not about UNC versus PNM. The issue is much more fundamental than that.” During the function, GOPIO presented its first award to Veera Bhajan, a disabled student of St Augustine Girls’ High school who passed the CXC Exams with seven distinctions.