Maha Sabha: No offence with use of the word ‘c****e’

Sto­ries by Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) has no is­sue with the use of the word c****e. 

With the in­creased pub­lic use of the word, some­times in a deroga­to­ry man­ner to de­scribe those of East In­di­an de­scent, Guardian Me­dia reached out to SDMS Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj to get the views of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, which is the largest rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Hin­dus in T&T. 

Ma­haraj ref­er­enced the colo­nial ori­gins of the word, which was ini­tial­ly used to de­scribe labour­ers from Chi­na, In­dia, Por­tu­gal and the Mid­dle East who were brought to the re­gion to pro­vide field labour fol­low­ing the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. 

“I don’t see it as a deroga­to­ry word,” Ma­haraj said. 

“If some per­sons want to use it as deroga­to­ry for their own ed­i­fi­ca­tion, that is up to them. But the Ma­ha Sab­ha has nev­er run away from the fact that we are re­gard­ed just like all the Chi­nese, Por­tuguese and oth­er that came to work on the plan­ta­tion as c****es or labour­ers. I don’t take of­fence to it,” he added. 

Ma­haraj con­firmed that the re­cent in­crease in the use of the word was dis­cussed by him and oth­er SDMS lead­ers at a re­cent meet­ing, but they all came to the same con­clu­sion.  

“We talked about it, but no­body was of­fend­ed about it, and that is the hi­er­ar­chy of the Ma­ha Sab­ha,” he said. 

Ma­haraj said that he un­der­stood why it was be­ing used by politi­cians. 

“If those in high of­fice take of­fence to it be­cause they want to give and they don’t want to get back words of crit­i­cism,” Ma­haraj said. 

“I think politi­cians will take it to heart be­cause it has been used as a po­lit­i­cal whip­ping boy,” he added. 

Ma­haraj not­ed that when there was pub­lic de­bate about the term “one per cent” be­ing used to de­scribe mem­bers of the Syr­i­an and Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty, he point­ed out that there were mem­bers of the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty that could be as­so­ci­at­ed with the term based on their vast wealth. 

“Peo­ple didn’t like that com­ment. A lot of politi­cians and a lot of busi­ness­peo­ple didn’t like that com­ment, but that is a fact of life,” Ma­haraj said. 

Ma­haraj’s com­ments came a day af­ter for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter and cur­rent Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne an­nounced that he re­port­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EOC) over her fre­quent re­cent use of the word in her so­cial me­dia posts. 

Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­gan us­ing the word af­ter it was re­peat­ed­ly used by cheese­mak­er Star Sab­ga in a leaked record­ed con­ver­sa­tion be­tween her and her rel­a­tive Geneview Hadeed. The Hadeeds and Sab­ga were de­tained over a pur­port­ed plot to al­leged­ly kill gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar. 

Ex­plain­ing his de­ci­sion to make the re­port on his Face­book page, Browne said: “ Since Au­gust 1, 2026, and in­clud­ing and up to to­day, the Prime Min­is­ter has re­peat­ed­ly and in­ces­sant­ly used dis­gust­ing racial slurs via her pub­lic Face­book ac­count in a man­ner that is in­sult­ing, of­fen­sive, and de­signed to in­cite an­i­mos­i­ty and ha­tred.”

“To­day, based on the pub­lic con­duct of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in clear breach of the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I filed an of­fi­cial com­plaint against the Prime Min­is­ter with the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion,” he said. 

Mean­while, So­ca artiste Rod­ney “Ben­jai” Le Blanc came un­der stiff crit­i­cism yes­ter­day af­ter mak­ing a racial­ly charged Face­book rant. 

“SLOW­LY ALL AFRICAN TRA­DI­TIONS ARE BE­ING IN­FIL­TRAT­ED BY IN­DI­ANS WHO BE­LIEVE THAT ITS (sic) THEIR RIGHT TO DO SO! (SO­CA, EMAN­CI­PA­TION) WAIT A MINUTE THEY WILL SAY THEY WAS SLAVES TOO!!!” he said. 

Le Blanc re­ceived back­lash from nu­mer­ous users of the so­cial me­dia plat­form, many of whom point­ed out the so­ca genre of mu­sic was de­vel­oped by Ras Short I by blend­ing East In­di­an and West African rhythms.