(Trinidad Express) Indian High Commissioner Malay Mishra said yesterday that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar failed to truly connect with the people of her ancestral village of Bihar during her recent State visit to India.
He said this was because of her inability to address the people of Bihar in Hindi.
Mishra was speaking at a function to commemorate World Hindi Day at the official residence of the High Commissioner in Port of Spain. World Hindi Day is observed on January 10 every year but was celebrated yesterday in this country as Mishra was in India with Persad-Bissessar.
He lamented that the Hindi language has disappeared in Trinidad and Tobago over a few generations and believes that it is time once again for it to become a part of the daily lives of those whose ancestors came from India.
Mishra said many people in this country sing Hindi songs and sing Hindi bhajans (religious Hindu songs) but most of them, if not all, do not know the meaning of what they are singing.
“Why should that be?” he asked.
“I will give you an example. Recently the Honourable Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar was in India on a State visit and she went to her ancestral village in Bihar and she addressed a gathering of nearly a hundred thousand people. People had come from 30 to 35 kilometres away to see and hear the Prime Minister whose ancestors had come from that village and they called her the ‘Daughter of Bihar’. She addressed them but she addressed them only in English, though she used a few words of Hindi in the beginning, her speech was all English and it had to be translated simultaneously.
“If she knew Hindi, I think she could have struck an instant rapport with her audiences who would certainly have been more excited with what they heard if they heard the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago speak to them in Hindi. But that was not to be.”
He said Persad-Bissessar said her mother country is Trinidad and Tobago while her grandmother country is India.
“If that is so, then if your mother tongue is English, then your grandmother tongue should be Hindi because that is the language of your ancestors who came from that land where your grandparents or great grandparents over three or four generations were speaking in Hindi.
“Why should that not be revived here again ? Why should we not make an effort?”
Mishra said Hindi is not a difficult language to learn. He said if people can learn and understand foreign languages such as Spanish and French, there is no reason why Hindi which, he said, is the language of their culture could not be learnt.
He said the Commission has Hindi classes in several parts of the country and he has seen somewhat of an increase in the numbers of people in attendance.
“Its not just the very young, but there are also senior students. They have a substantial interest in learning but that takes a little bit of extra effort to get that language into your system.
“Please understand that Hindi is not a foreign language for any of you. Hindi is your language. It was an integral part of your culture then and it is an integral part of your culture now. Trinidad and Tobago is primarily a diaspora country and the recent State visit of the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago to India has marked a new chapter in our bilateral relations.”
Mishra said Persad-Bissessar was celebrated in India and the people connected with her in a way that they may not have were she the head of state of a country like France, the United Kingdom or the United States.
“It (those countries) are far away for them. But the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, though it is physically far away, in coming back she was really close to them. That is because of the Indian part of the Prime Minister.
“It is because of the roots of the Prime Minister that found an instant connect with the Indian media. She just swept the Indian media unlike anybody else has ever done before. Wherever she went she has been the darling of the media. Today Trinidad and Tobago and Kamla Persad-Bissessar are household names in India and the simple reason was because of this connect.”