India PM Modi thanks T&T for ORTT honour

Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­[email protected]

In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di has be­come the first world leader and sec­ond non-na­tion­al to re­ceive Trinidad and To­ba­go’s high­est na­tion­al ho­n­our, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic (ORTT). He re­ceived the ho­n­our yes­ter­day, in recog­ni­tion of his “leg­endary” kind­ness and gen­eros­i­ty to­ward the coun­try.

With the medal around his neck at Pres­i­dent’s House in Port-of-Spain, Mo­di told those in at­ten­dance that the ORTT “is a sym­bol of the deep and eter­nal friend­ship be­tween our two coun­tries.”

He hailed both Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as the great­est brand am­bas­sadors of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra, with the for­mer (Kan­ga­loo) re­veal­ing that he (Mo­di) end­ed a “se­ri­ous ta­ban­ca” that has been plagu­ing her.

Speak­ing in his na­tive lan­guage while stop­ping at in­ter­vals for the Eng­lish trans­la­tion to be read, Mo­di ded­i­cat­ed the award to the 1.4 bil­lion peo­ple of In­dia.

“The ties be­tween In­dia and Trinidad and To­ba­go are root­ed in our shared his­to­ry and cul­tur­al her­itage. It was 180 years ago that the peo­ple from In­dia, for the very first time, came to these shores, lay­ing the foun­da­tions of our ever­last­ing friend­ship. Though their hands were emp­ty, their hearts were full, en­riched with the val­ues, tra­di­tions, and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty of the In­di­an civil­i­sa­tion,” Mo­di said.

He added that the seeds of har­mo­ny and good­will that they sowed have to­day blos­somed in­to the progress and pros­per­i­ty of T&T.

The In­dia Prime Min­is­ter said Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s an­ces­tors were from Tamil Nadu, the land of po­et and philoso­pher Saint Thiru­val­lu­var.

Ref­er­enc­ing Thiru­val­lu­var, Mo­di said, “A strong na­tion pos­sess­es six qual­i­ties. A brave army, pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens, good re­sources, good lead­er­ship, a strong de­fence, and re­li­able, friend­ly coun­tries that al­ways stand by them. Trinidad and To­ba­go is such a friend for In­dia.”

In­ject­ing hu­mour in­to his re­marks, Mo­di said the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship is pow­ered by the ex­cite­ment of crick­et and the flavour of Trinidad pep­per.

“When the rhythms of the ca­lyp­so meets the (sic) treats (beats) of the tabla, our re­la­tion­ship be­comes an ex­quis­ite sym­pho­ny. The deep cul­tur­al con­nect be­tween our two peo­ples is one of the great­est strengths of our part­ner­ship,” Mo­di re­marked.

He de­clared that for In­dia, T&T is not just an im­por­tant part­ner in Cari­com, but al­so a very vi­tal glob­al part­ner.

“Our part­ner­ship holds great sig­nif­i­cance for the en­tire glob­al South. As two vi­brant democ­ra­cies, we will con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er for the well-be­ing of not just our own peo­ple, but al­so for the greater good of hu­man­i­ty.”

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said the ar­rival of Mo­di has cured a “ta­ban­ca” that she has been car­ry­ing for some time.

“Heav­en had smiled on me and blessed me with the in­cred­i­ble ho­n­our of be­ing the chief guest at the Re­pub­lic of In­dia’s 18th Pravasi Bharatiya Di­vas Con­ven­tion. I wasn’t able to at­tend. Cir­cum­stances con­spired and made it im­pos­si­ble for me to do so. I was ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed, and I con­fess that I have been car­ry­ing some­thing of a resid­ual sad­ness about it since then,” Kan­ga­loo said.

“For­give me for break­ing from for­mal­i­ty for just a mo­ment and to say, as we Trin­bag­o­ni­ans might put it, that I think I have been nurs­ing a se­ri­ous ta­ban­ca over it. With the ar­rival in Trinidad and To­ba­go of the Ho­n­ourable Shri Naren­dra Mo­di, all of that resid­ual sad­ness left me.”

The Pres­i­dent said she was sure all of T&T felt an im­mense glad­ness.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said this coun­try is im­mense­ly glad to be­stow the ORTT up­on Mo­di in recog­ni­tion of the tremen­dous work that he has done for this na­tion and for the kind­ness shown to its peo­ple.

“Your kind­ness and gen­eros­i­ty to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are leg­endary. They have been shown time and time again, in­clud­ing, as we have heard, dur­ing the cri­sis of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, when 40,000 dos­es of COVID-19 vac­cines ar­rived in Trinidad and To­ba­go as a re­sult of your per­son­al in­ter­ven­tion and ac­tion. That act of kind­ness on­ly fur­ther strength­ened the long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the gov­ern­ments and peo­ple of both of our coun­tries.”

Kan­ga­loo added that the award has so­lid­i­fied the in­de­struc­tible bond be­tween the two coun­tries.

Mo­di lat­er de­part­ed this coun­try to con­tin­ue his mul­ti-coun­try tour with a vis­it to Ar­genti­na.

T&T be­comes the 24th na­tion to be­stow its high­est award to Mo­di, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Cari­com part­ners Do­mini­ca, Guyana and Bar­ba­dos.

To re­ceive the ORTT, a per­son must have ren­dered dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to the na­tion. Any­one can sub­mit a nom­i­na­tion to the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, which then makes rec­om­men­da­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter, who in turn ad­vis­es the Pres­i­dent. The Pres­i­dent then con­fers the award.

A non-na­tion­al can be award­ed the ORTT. In 2023, Pro­fes­sor Path­manathan Uma­ha­ran, a Sri Lankan na­tion­al, was con­ferred with the award.