Divali Nagar fallout deepens as another board exec resigns

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Dr Shane Mo­hammed has be­come the lat­est mem­ber to quit the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) board in a fall­out over Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of this year’s event, af­ter sev­er­al state en­ti­ties with­drew their sup­port. He is al­so ac­cus­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion of al­low­ing an un­true claim that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar cut fund­ing for Di­vali Na­gar 2026 to go un­cor­rect­ed.

In his res­ig­na­tion let­ter to NCIC pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo on Sun­day, Mo­hammed said the un­cor­rect­ed nar­ra­tive had brought the Prime Min­is­ter and her of­fice in­to dis­re­pute.

“In the past week, a nar­ra­tive in the pub­lic’s do­main that the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter pulled the plug on fund­ing for Di­vali Na­gar 2026 has not been cor­rect­ed. This is cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly un­true!” Mo­hammed wrote.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said there was al­so no fac­tu­al ev­i­dence to sup­port a claim that the Gov­ern­ment had cut all fund­ing for the cel­e­bra­tions and the event was suf­fer­ing as a re­sult of this.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the is­sue of State fund­ing for this year’s Na­gar is still to be de­ter­mined. In May 2026, the NCIC re­ceived $500,000 for its 2025 Na­gar. The NCIC has ap­plied for $1 mil­lion for this year’s event.

Mo­hammed said or­gan­is­ers had an­tic­i­pat­ed that some State agen­cies would not re­turn as cor­po­rate part­ners be­cause of a change in Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.

His de­par­ture fol­lows the res­ig­na­tions of ap­point­ed mem­bers Feri­da Ramkissoon and Var­sha Ramharak. Man­ga­roo pre­vi­ous­ly de­nied that their de­par­tures were con­nect­ed to the Blue Wa­ters spon­sor­ship con­tro­ver­sy. He said Ramkissoon cit­ed work com­mit­ments, while no con­nec­tion was es­tab­lished be­tween Ramharak’s de­par­ture and the dis­pute.

The NCIC has an elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive board, with ad­di­tion­al mem­bers ap­point­ed to con­tribute ex­per­tise. Mo­hammed said he was in­vit­ed to join fol­low­ing his role in ex­e­cut­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s April 2026 An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing.

“It was the be­lief that I would bring spe­cial­ist ex­per­tise to the new­ly elect­ed team,” he said.

Mo­hammed, who said he is a long­stand­ing friend, guest, par­tic­i­pant and pre­sen­ter at the Na­gar, said his de­ci­sion to serve was root­ed in po­lit­i­cal neu­tral­i­ty.

“When I ac­cept­ed this po­si­tion on the board, I did so to pro­vide non-par­ti­san na­tion­al ser­vice. In my opin­ion, the un­cor­rect­ed nar­ra­tive has brought the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and her Of­fice in­to na­tion­al dis­re­pute.”

He said he com­mu­ni­cat­ed his po­si­tion dur­ing a board meet­ing that evening be­fore con­clud­ing: “I, there­fore, re­sign from the board with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the lat­est res­ig­na­tion, Man­ga­roo de­clined com­ment, telling Guardian Me­dia, “At this point, I am not in a po­si­tion to give any com­ment.”

The res­ig­na­tion comes amid scruti­ny of the NCIC’s spon­sor­ship arrange­ments and re­port­ed dis­agree­ments over its han­dling of Blue Wa­ters’ in­volve­ment this year, af­ter state en­ti­ties with­drew their spon­sor­ship from the event.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ridiculed the spon­sor­ship, de­scrib­ing the arrange­ment as iron­ic and claim­ing Man­ga­roo “was ac­tu­al­ly duped in­to host­ing a pub­lic re­la­tions press con­fer­ence” to an­nounce the com­pa­ny’s sup­port, re­port­ed to be at least $250,000, last week.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so de­fend­ed re­duc­tions in State spon­sor­ship, ar­gu­ing that tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey should pri­ori­tise wages, med­i­cines, pen­sions and oth­er pub­lic needs.

Man­ga­roo pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions of a board rift or po­lit­i­cal agen­da, main­tain­ing that the NCIC was a cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tion and that Blue Wa­ters had been ap­proached for spon­sor­ship since Ju­ly.

He al­so stressed that all elect­ed board mem­bers re­mained in place when he ad­dressed the ear­li­er res­ig­na­tions. In­vi­ta­tions, he said, had been ex­tend­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter, Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans on both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide.