NCIC board calls for Mangaroo’s head over Divali Nagar funding fiasco

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor -Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Grow­ing dis­sat­is­fac­tion with­in the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) has led to calls from with­in its board for pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo to step down, amid ac­cu­sa­tions that his han­dling of re­cent con­tro­ver­sies has dam­aged the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s rep­u­ta­tion and ex­posed di­rec­tors to per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al con­se­quences.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that sev­er­al di­rec­tors have lost con­fi­dence in Man­ga­roo’s lead­er­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly over his han­dling of the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of Di­vali Na­gar 2026 and his pub­lic ex­changes with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

While dis­sat­is­fied di­rec­tors are re­luc­tant to pur­sue a for­mal con­fronta­tion dur­ing the Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions, some are hop­ing Man­ga­roo will vol­un­tar­i­ly re­lin­quish the pres­i­den­cy to al­low the or­gan­i­sa­tion to re­build pub­lic con­fi­dence.

Sources fa­mil­iar with dis­cus­sions with­in the coun­cil say dis­sat­is­fac­tion has in­ten­si­fied over al­le­ga­tions that Man­ga­roo has been mak­ing pub­lic state­ments and en­gag­ing the me­dia with­out ad­e­quate­ly con­sult­ing the wider board, leav­ing di­rec­tors to face crit­i­cism over po­si­tions they did not nec­es­sar­i­ly en­dorse.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the board was aware that an ap­pli­ca­tion had been sub­mit­ted for a $500,000 Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion for this year’s Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions.

How­ev­er, sources stressed that the sub­mis­sion of an ap­pli­ca­tion did not mean fund­ing had been ap­proved or dis­bursed.

The Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced yes­ter­day that the ap­pli­ca­tion will be ap­proved.

They ex­plained that ap­pli­ca­tions for Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tions are sub­mit­ted through es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures re­quir­ing cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and NGOs to pro­vide bud­gets, fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion and sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion.

Con­se­quent­ly, di­rec­tors did not be­lieve a sep­a­rate no­ti­fi­ca­tion to the Gov­ern­ment was nec­es­sary, since the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties were al­ready aware of the ap­pli­ca­tion.

The sources al­so dis­closed that Gov­ern­ment fund­ing for last year’s Di­vali Na­gar was on­ly re­ceived mid­way through 2026, mak­ing it im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine when any sub­ven­tion for this year’s event would be re­ceived.

They em­pha­sised that Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tions and cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship arrange­ments are en­tire­ly sep­a­rate fund­ing mech­a­nisms.

The NCIC has main­tained long­stand­ing cor­po­rate part­ner­ships with or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing First Cit­i­zens Bank and oth­er spon­sors, some of which are State-owned en­ter­pris­es.

These re­la­tion­ships, sev­er­al ex­tend­ing be­yond 18 years, are based on the com­mer­cial val­ue of Di­vali Na­gar, in­clud­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for ad­ver­tis­ing, brand ex­po­sure, cus­tomer en­gage­ment and, in some cas­es, rev­enue gen­er­a­tion.

Against that back­ground, sources say the board had agreed to ac­cept Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship but op­posed hold­ing a press con­fer­ence to pub­licly an­nounce the com­pa­ny as a di­a­mond spon­sor.

Di­rec­tors re­port­ed­ly feared the an­nounce­ment would at­tract po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy, giv­en the ten­sions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the com­pa­ny’s own­ers.

While Blue Wa­ters had re­quest­ed the me­dia event, sources main­tain that Man­ga­roo in­sist­ed on pro­ceed­ing de­spite con­cerns ex­pressed in­ter­nal­ly.

The an­nounce­ment sub­se­quent­ly drew crit­i­cism from Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who ac­cused the com­pa­ny’s own­ers of us­ing the spon­sor­ship as a pub­lic re­la­tions ex­er­cise.

Sources in­sist that sev­er­al di­rec­tors nev­er in­tend­ed for the or­gan­i­sa­tion to be­come em­broiled in a pub­lic dis­pute with the Prime Min­is­ter.

The con­tro­ver­sy has re­port­ed­ly cre­at­ed con­sid­er­able un­ease among di­rec­tors, many of whom vol­un­teer their time while main­tain­ing pro­fes­sion­al ca­reers and fam­i­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Some are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the po­ten­tial con­se­quences for mem­bers em­ployed in the pub­lic sec­tor, amid re­ports that in­di­vid­u­als have faced un­com­fort­able ques­tions about their as­so­ci­a­tion with the NCIC.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that di­rec­tors be­lieve their pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tions are be­ing af­fect­ed by state­ments and de­ci­sions at­trib­uted to the or­gan­i­sa­tion col­lec­tive­ly, al­though those po­si­tions do not al­ways re­flect the views of the board.

There are al­so con­cerns about the cir­cu­la­tion of screen­shots of in­ter­nal dis­cus­sions, which sources say have fur­ther strained re­la­tion­ships and ex­posed in­di­vid­ual di­rec­tors to un­want­ed scruti­ny.

The ten­sions fol­low the res­ig­na­tions of ap­point­ed board mem­bers Var­sha Ramhar­rack, Feri­da Ramkissoon and Dr Shane Mo­hammed, al­though the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing their de­par­tures have dif­fered.

Sources say the grow­ing dis­cord has al­so cre­at­ed un­cer­tain­ty among some par­tic­i­pants and sup­port­ers of Di­vali Na­gar, with ques­tions be­ing raised about whether the con­tro­ver­sy could af­fect in­volve­ment in the cel­e­bra­tions.

De­spite the dis­sat­is­fac­tion, di­rec­tors are re­port­ed­ly re­luc­tant to ini­ti­ate a no-con­fi­dence move while the cel­e­bra­tions re­main un­der­way.

Sources in­di­cate that some favour dis­cus­sions aimed at per­suad­ing Man­ga­roo to step aside rather than pur­su­ing a po­ten­tial­ly di­vi­sive in­ter­nal process.

How­ev­er, they ac­knowl­edge Man­ga­roo’s long­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the preser­va­tion and pro­mo­tion of In­di­an cul­ture, main­tain­ing that the dis­pute con­cerns his present lead­er­ship rather than his his­tor­i­cal ser­vice.

Man­ga­roo has pre­vi­ous­ly de­nied sug­ges­tions of in­ter­nal tur­moil or po­lit­i­cal mo­tives sur­round­ing the spon­sor­ship arrange­ment, main­tain­ing that Blue Wa­ters ap­proached the NCIC months be­fore the con­tro­ver­sy in­volv­ing its own­ers.

The dis­sat­is­fied di­rec­tors be­lieve a change in lead­er­ship is now nec­es­sary to re­store uni­ty, pro­tect mem­bers and re­build con­fi­dence in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Man­ga­roo yes­ter­day af­ter­noon for a re­sponse to the board mem­bers’ con­cerns; how­ev­er, no re­sponse came up to press time.