Bhadase : Hindu of Trinidad

D.Parsuram Maharaj :- An Executive Member of Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha

As the old century closes and a new one opens most communities all around the world have taken the time to reflect on the last hundred years to ascertain what individual or group that have contributed the most to their development and growth. The Maha Sabha Research Unit polled several hundred Trinidadian Hindus and Indians to find out who they thought was the most influential Hindu and the Hindu that has done the most for the Indian and Hindu community in Trinidad. The name that rang out above the rest was that of Bhadase Sagan Maraj [1920 -1971].  Of course there have been many others that have contributed towards the Indian struggles in Trinidad & Tobago that include HP Singh, Sinanans, Latchmi Parray, Ranjit Kumar, etc. all of whom deserve to be also placed on the Hindu/Indian honour roll. Bhadase, however, stands above these for what he did in the short time in which he did it.

“The evil that men do lives after them, / the good is oft interred with their bones;” [Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene II]. So too it has been with Bhadase Sagan Maraj. Many who lived in his times and those who did not automatically picture a gangster politician when the name Bhadase Sagan Maraj is mentioned. Frank Brassington, a contemporary of Bhadase in “The Politics of Opposition”  summed up the rumours of a violent person in the following  words : “Indeed my own impression to this day remains one of a violent life that appeared more legendary than real, and something that he deliberately fostered as part of making his personality more formidable for dealing with the hoi pollois especially”.

The Maha Sabha publication by Pundit Bhadase Seetahal-Maharaj “Master & Servant : Bhadase Sagan Maraj”  offers a brief but insightful look into the life of the person that affected the Indian and Hindu community in a manner that has yet to be emulated by any other. The foundations that were laid by Bhadase provided the base for the Maha Sabha to develop, the UNC to rise to government, and the Sugar Union to assert itself.

“As a trade union leader , he easily motivated the membership and championed their causes with remarkable success. Bhadase had the distinction of ending the rivalry among competing groups for leadership of the sugar worker’s union that were comprised of mainly Hindus and Indians. He was able to bring about unity in the sugar belt by forming an umbrella organisation which later became a single union.” [Master & Servant]

In an interview with Sri Satnaryan Maharaj revealed that in the crucial strike for the recognition of the union by the State Bhadase paid the striking sugar workers a small sum from his own pocket for weeks. This allowed the workers to hold out until the State was forced to recognise the union. Yet after all that effort today Bhadase is not only ignored by the Union that he founded but by also the national trade union movement which seems to ignore the Indian contribution to the labour struggle in Trinidad & Tobago. Instead these modern day ingrates remember Bhadase merely as a violent union leader.

Bhadase formed the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] which later became the first Opposition Party in young Trinidad & Tobago. Again this party represented the political aspirations of the Indian and Hindu community. Under Bhadase the PDP defeated Eric Williams and the African-dominated PNM in the 1958 Federal Elections. The foundations of the PDP later reincarnated itself as the DLP, ULF, and later on the UNC. Like Prime Minister Basdeo Panday,  Bhadase also felt that the party must broaden its support base to win elections ensuring that racial and religious tensions in Trinidad & Tobago would never develop as it did in Guyana. Like the Sugar Union, the political movement that Bhadase founded also fails to remember him. At Renizi Complex there are photos of Renizi, Butler, Nehru, Gandhi, and Panday but not of Bhadase.

The Maha Sabha is in trust of several correspondence from Caribbean leaders such as Cheddi Jagan, Alexander Bustamante, Eric Gairy, and several U.S. Senators who all noted the pivotal role that Bhadase played in Trinidad & Tobago. For example during the 1970 Black Power revolution Karl Hudson-Phillips went to speak to rebel Raffique Shah and was man-handled. Hudson-Phillips had to flown to a US hospital for medical treatment, and while there he penned a stirring letter to Bhadase that closed with the words “Ram Ram”.

British researcher Steven Vertovec noted in “Hindu Trinidad” that “ in 1952 a significant new era in the history of Indians in Trinidad began under the controversial leadership of Bhadase Sagan Maraj. In that year Maraj ....merged the two Sanatanist Hindu bodies to create a much more powerful pressure group and public organisation , the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha. ...This was a major step towards systematically unifying the Hindu population.”  Former DLP member of Parliament Balgobin Ramdeen recalled that at the meeting that resulted in the Maha Sabha formation that it was the powerful personality of Bhadase that forced the two groups to stick to the merger talks. As a result of the Maha Sabha formation the Hindu Marriage Act, the Divali Holiday, Hindu Cremations, and Hindu Schools all followed soon afterwards. One man Bhadase Sagan Maraj made the difference for the Hindu and Indian community.

Much more could be written about this man whose life border on legendary, but the limits of space restricts any further exploration of the life and contribution of Bhadase Sagan Maraj. Given the achievements of Bhadase it is clear that there is no other choice for Trinidadian Hindu of the Century.  The Maha Sabha, however, early in the new year will be producing a book on the great Hindu and Indian leader of Trinidad & Tobago -Bhadase Sagan Maraj.