Commentary: Rowley should not be offended by Kamla's act of humility and respect

Keith Rowley is deeply offended by something that happened in India during the visit to that country by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

The Prime Minister was a guest of on a State Visit and she was also celebrated as the Chief Guest at the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas event in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The event on January 9th was a celebration of Indians living abroad and people of Indian origin.

Persad-Bissessar was invited to attend and receive the honour because of her status as the first woman of the Indian Diaspora to become the Prime Minister of a country.

The person who made the presentation to the Prime Minister was India's president, Pratiba Devisingh Patil. 

In keeping with her personal style and Hindu tradition, Persad-Bissessar attempted to touch the feet of the president, whom she recognised as her elder; the president stopped her in the act and hugged her instead.

PM Kamla bows as a mark of respect to her elder, Indian President Pratiba Patil

It is something that Kamla has done here at home, showing respect for her elders and even performing aarti for them; she did it as recently as last year's Indian Arrival Day celebrations, when she paid tribute to pioneers.

File: PM Kamla performs Aarti for her elders, a Hindu custom that shows respect

The Opposition Leader and leader of the People's National Movement is upset because he sees the act as "the ultimate subservient of superiority and inferiority being demonstrated".

He told supporters at a political meeting: "I am a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and I take umbrage at my Prime Minister going to anybody's country and kissing any office holder's foot." 

He added, "Nobody sent the Prime Minister abroad to represent her religion or her race." 

The question that Rowley raises is whether as the head of government the Prime Minister was bowing before the head of state of another country. That seems to me to be taking the issue too far.

I certainly never did not see it that way and most people who come from the Hindu tradition like me would see it only as a mark of respect that is common in Hindu and Indian society. 

Kamla does this all the time at home, paying respect to her elders and her priests. So in that context, she was only following her tradition.

I don't think Rowley is being fair when he goes the distance he is going on this matter. Throughout the visit the Prime Minister acted according to the normal diplomatic tradition, following all the accepted protocols.

The event in Jaipur was for all intent and purposes a private one ... and from all reports, a very emotional one. The Indian media reports said people wept openly when Kamla received the award.

For that one moment she was representing herself, her ethnicity and her connection with India, the land she referred more than once to the "grandmother" of Trinidad and Tobago citizens of Indian origin.

The opposition leader also displays a level of cultural ignorance when he asked if President Obama, whose father was a Kenyan, would be expected to "bend down and kiss the foot of somebody in Kenya because his grandfather came from Kenya." (By the way, Obama bowed to Japanese royalty when he visited Tokyo in 2009 as a mark of respect.)

President Obama bows to Japan's Head of State during a visit in 2009

Kamla was following a tradition that is thousands of years old. It is a tradition brought to Trinidad when the first Indian arrived in the British colony of Trinidad in 1845, a tradition that the Indian community kept alive and handed down to their children and future generations. 

We agree with Rowley that we are "a proud nation". And we urge the PNM leader to see this issue in its right context and perspective. 

I disagree that Kamla's gesture was an act of subservience. And I state categorically, as someone who has known her and worked closely with her for more than a decade, that Kamla is fiercely nationalistic, as she should be. That is why she made the point in her speeches in India that India is not our mother.

Kamla understands her obligations to the nation and acted commendably during her State Visit. But she is also a cultured Hindu woman who follows a tradition that offers lessons in respect, humility and charity.

I respect her for it. 

Jai Parasram - 19 January 2012