Govt. willfully dividing Hindu community – PPP

Nov 18, 2015 News

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By Abena Rockcliffe
Despite the fact that the Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, went to great lengths to explain the factors taken into consideration in pronouncing November 10 as Diwali, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP)  is accusing him, and by extension the Government, of willfully causing division in the Hindu community.

Ramjattan is the Minister empowered, under the Public Holidays Act, to declare National holidays in Guyana.
At his most recent press conference, PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee indicated that the party’s Central Committee reviewed recent developments on the religious front as it relates to Diwali. He said that after careful consideration, the committee resolved that the APNU+AFC government “unnecessarily and willfully generated controversy concerning the dates for celebrating the Hindu religious holiday of Diwali.”
Leading up to Diwali, there was much controversy over the official date. While the Ministry of Public Security gazetted the date as November 10, the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha had contended that Diwali should fall on November 11.
Rohee said that the party considered this move by the government as “political and divisive, reminiscent of the situation that obtained in the 1960’s which saw the emergence of Hindu and Muslim political parties to fight the PPP electorally.”
Rohee said that the PPP decided that the actions of the government were merely a smokescreen to divide the Hindu community with a long term political objective in mind. He did not specify what political objective might be obtained by “dividing the Hindu community.”
Rohee also stated that efforts to “publicly profile a section of the Muslim community as supportive of the APNU+AFC are fraught with political motives.”
The General Secretary said that his party will continue to monitor these developments and offer support when it sees it necessary or whenever called upon by representatives of religious bodies. Rohee said that this is the part the PPP will play to ensure that unity prevails.
Even though the Ministry of Social Cohesion had nothing to do with the entire episode surrounding the dates, Rohee called the Ministry’s integrity into question.

He said that the PPP will look to ensure that the “so-called Ministry of Social Cohesion does not succeed in its divisive, manipulative, deceitful and bribe-sharing efforts to divide Guyanese socially and politically along religious lines ostensibly for electoral purposes.”
Interestingly, the PPP is the only political force in Guyana that keeps pushing ethnic issues. In this regard Minister Ramjattan had called on the PPP, during budget debates, to quit pushing ethnic division.
When he announced that he would not budge in his decision to declare November 10 as the date for Diwali, Ramjattan said that he arrived at his decision following consultations with various authorities on the subject, both locally and abroad.
Ramjattan said that he received a letter dated June 16, 2015 informing him that based on the zodiac constellations in the Hindu calendar (Drik Panchang), the correct date for Deepavali is November 10, 2015 and not November 11, 2015, as shown on certain calendars.
This letter was written by a respected and well known Pandit Rabindranath Persaud, (Ravi), Head of the Hindu Organization called the Viraat Sahba.
This letter also informed him that at a meeting held on June 4, 2015, at the Guyana Pandits Council, senior Pandits and Mandir leaders approved November 10, 2015 as the rightful date for the observation of this Hindu Festival of Lights.
The Minister said that apart from the signature of Pandit Ravi, other senior Hindu representatives attached their signatures at the end of that letter.
Ramjattan said too, Trinidad and Tobago had roughly the same situation as Guyana. He said he contacted an associate in that country to request of the powerful Hindu Leader Pandit Sat Maraj to find out what was their computation.  The communication he received was that Tuesday November 10 was when Deepavali would be celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago.
The President of the Dharmic Sabha, Dr. Vindyha Persaud, had communicated her disappointment to Ramjattan in him declaring Deepavali on November 10.
In a subsequent interview, Persaud opined that the matter could have been handled better and there should have been more broad-based consultations. She said that if the largest single Hindu organization could be ignored, then Government was not serious about cohesiveness.
“We did send a petition and we did not receive the courtesy of a response. That included some 4000 signatures, and included in those signatures were pandits and religious devotees, countrywide. Some 150 Mandirs signed on and were joined by the Guyana Arya Sabha, the Hare Krishna movement,” Persaud said.

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