Govt, Opposition split on Indian national awards

GOVERNMENT and the Opposition yesterday differed on plans announced by the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (Gopio) to launch their own national awards on the eve of Indepen-dence Day. Gopio president Parsu-ram Maharaj said the reason for the national award, which will run parallel to the traditional one held annually at President’s House on Independence Day, was because of the “Christ-ian bias” of the present awards system, particularly with the Trinity Cross as the highest award. Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) Secretary-General Sat Maharaj has expressed support for the alternative awards.

Speaking with Newsday at Port-of-Spain City Hall, Local Government Minister Rennie Dumas said: “I think that people are free to promote what they consider to be their interest, but I think there is always a fine line between promoting the interests of any group you think you belong to and the creating of any instance of polarisation. “The unfortunate thing about that is the suggestion that the group is denigrating the national awards system in promoting their own system of awards. “I feel that a group who wants to give awards for any particular reason, any particular group can in fact do so, without suggesting that the national award system is flawed. “You are setting up yourself as it were in opposition to the na-tional programme. One always has to look at that.”

However, Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday thought the staging of an Indian national awards ceremony in TT was “a very good idea.” While steering clear of the “Christian bias” allegations levelled by Gopio, Panday claimed the current system does not take the contributions of all persons into account and the proposed system would cater for persons who were deserving, but did not receive a national award. The UNC leader said he did not see any conflict which the proposed awards could cause with the annual Independence Day awards at President’s House. At an April 25, 2003 post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said Govern-ment was committed to changing the name of the Trinity Cross. Manning observed that as Opposition Leader Panday was very vocal about the issue but never addres-sed it as Prime Minister. “One of the things I would like to do before touching it myself is to find out why (he didn’t change the name),” he said.