Detractors of Kamla and her UNC team, and more precisely, enemies of Jack Warner, hover in their castles in the sky like vultures, wishfully believing that the Indians of this country, the hard core UNC fundamentalists, would reject him on the grounds that he is not one of them; that he, an Afro/Trinidadian, has no right to be holding fort at the epicenter of their power base. Fortunately for the party, those with such regressive thoughts, those with the cherished idea that this new UNC configuration would soon mash up, become splintered like confetti in the wind, are a handful - no, less than that, a pinch (as of salt) of rabid Pandayites, who dream dreams that would never become reality in a thousand years, a thousand lifetime.
What they fail to understand is the all-embracing, welcoming arms of the Indian people.
Indians – especially the Hindus (who constitute the core of the UNC) – are among the most liberal minded people in the world; and one example stands out, and qualifies them for that magnanimous definition: even in the most fundamentalist of Hindu homes, one could find among their pantheon of gods, the picture of Jesus – oftentimes hung above their front doorway, in a manner of greeting, of spiritual open-mindedness.
And in the case of the Sai Baba devotees, Christian hymns and Islamic qasedas make up their tuneful repertoire.
The point is, 1986’s one love might not have happened were it not for the Indian’s submission of their parliamentary supremacy vis-à-vis the other parties in the NAR configuration; and of their warm embrace of Robinson as leader – notwithstanding their own leader’s statistical right (at least) to that position.
The Indians accepted Robinson in a way that PNM supporters never, and would perhaps never ever, support a Kamal or an Errol Mahabir in their midst.
The Indians, however, welcome a Jack amongst them as an honorary Indian - not only because of how they understand the metaphysics of their Atma (soul) and its omnipresence - but on a more down-to-earth, practical way, they see anybody in opposition to the PNM existentially - as one of them, as a brother in arms against a common adversary.
In that context, they have been happy to break roti not only with Robinson, Karl, and Jack, but also with Humphrey, Robin Montano, and Alloy Lequay etc.
Jack’s possible superiority in this motley crowd of honorary Indians is that he is the only one from among them who could interject colourful Bhojpuri words and expressions into his speeches animating them a’ la Panday.
In fact, among the born and bred Indians of the UNC itself, there is none to match Jack’s bilingualism in this regard – some of them seemingly more anglicized than he is.
Out of this understanding of the Indian psychology, I can offer no hope to those holding their breaths, waiting to exhale, when they hope that the day would come when not all the king’s horses would be able to put Jack back together again.
L. Siddhartha Orie.
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