Modi praises Kamla, Kangaloo’s contributions to T&T: Daughters of the diaspora

In a land­mark mo­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s diplo­mat­ic his­to­ry, In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di ad­dressed a joint ses­sion of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, de­liv­er­ing a pow­er­ful mes­sage de­nounc­ing ter­ror­ism and cel­e­brat­ing the en­dur­ing bonds be­tween the two na­tions.

The cer­e­mo­ni­al pro­ceed­ings be­gan with a for­mal guard of ho­n­our out­side the Red House in Port-of-Spain short­ly be­fore noon, where a red-car­pet wel­come await­ed the vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary.

In­side the cham­ber, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, Sen­a­tors, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and in­vit­ed dig­ni­taries gath­ered in an­tic­i­pa­tion of what was hailed as a his­toric event.

The In­di­an leader ad­mired the build­ing’s ar­chi­tec­ture as a wit­ness to the na­tion’s jour­ney through strug­gles and sac­ri­fices for free­dom and recog­nised the role of women in the jour­ney.

“Over the past six decades, it has stood strong as you built a just, in­clu­sive, and pros­per­ous democ­ra­cy,” Mo­di told the House.

“Friends, the peo­ple of this great na­tion have cho­sen the re­mark­able women lead­ers, the Pres­i­dent (Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo) and Prime Min­is­ter (Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar). They proud­ly call them­selves the daugh­ters of the di­as­po­ra. They take pride in their In­di­an her­itage. In In­dia, we ad­mire their lead­er­ship, grit, and de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

He added, “We are strength­en­ing the hands of women to build our mod­ern In­dia. From space to sports, start-ups to sci­ence, ed­u­ca­tion to en­ter­prise, avi­a­tion to armed forces—they are lead­ing In­dia to a new fu­ture in var­i­ous do­mains.”

Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di al­so drew par­al­lels be­tween the his­to­ries of both ter­ri­to­ries.

“Both our na­tions rose from the shad­ows of colo­nial rule to write our own sto­ries with courage as our ink and democ­ra­cy as our pen. To­day, both of our na­tions stand as proud democ­ra­cies and pil­lars of strength in the mod­ern world.”

He high­light­ed that for In­di­ans, democ­ra­cy is more than just a po­lit­i­cal sys­tem, but rather a way of life deeply root­ed in a rich and an­cient her­itage. He point­ed out that many par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have an­ces­tral con­nec­tions to Bi­har, a re­gion his­tor­i­cal­ly known for its Ma­ha­jana­padas, some of the ear­li­est known re­publics in the world.

He al­so con­demned glob­al ter­ror­ism and re­called the trag­ic his­to­ry of vi­o­lence with­in the walls of the Red House.

“This very Red House has it­self wit­nessed the wounds of ter­ror and the loss of in­no­cent blood. We must stand unit­ed to de­ny ter­ror­ism any shel­ter or space,” Mo­di said.

He called for re­form of glob­al gov­er­nance and for the Glob­al South to be giv­en its due. He com­mit­ted to fur­ther strength­en­ing In­dia-Cari­com ties.

His ad­dress was al­so marked by mo­ments that light­ened the tone of the ses­sion.

“In­di­ans are among the most pas­sion­ate fans of the West In­dies team; we cheer for them with all our hearts, ex­cept when they are play­ing against In­dia.”

Fol­low­ing his ad­dress, Mo­di was pre­sent­ed with a com­mem­o­ra­tive gift sym­bol­is­ing the friend­ship be­tween the two coun­tries.

Af­ter the ex­change, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di plant­ed trees out­side the Par­lia­ment build­ing. This was aimed at en­hanc­ing sus­tain­able growth and out­lin­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the trees in the coun­tries.