DAURIUS FIGUEIRA on CAPILDEO
EXPLODING THE MYTH OF OPPOSITION UNITED FRONT –PDP – DLP – ULF – UNC - ?
THE RISE OF THE NEEMAKHARAM

Has there really been an “opposition” in the infantile politics of Trinidad and Tobago. Who created, laid the basis and sustained the myth. What are the causes of this great Afro-Indo debate Read Figueira: Bhadase gambled on a final result in which the PDP would have done much better in the 1956 general elections than it actually did. Bhadase gambled that the PDP would have won between 12 to 14 seats and would have formed the next government by creating a coalition if it was necessary.
Regardless of the horse-trading that would have ensued in the era of post 1956 general elections there was to be no Williams/PNM racist hegemony. The thirty-nine years, in which the Hindu Indo-Trinbagonian population bore the brunt, the assault of racist Williams/PNM hegemony would never have been.
The colonial overlord would have been forced to either end the path to full internal self-government, thence independence under PNM hegemony or bend to the wishes of the electorate and install a government of national unity in 1956 with the foremost promoter of national unity elected to the legislative council in 1956 being Simbhoonath Capildeo.
The karmic reverberations of Bhadase Sagan Maraj’s act of self-immolation changed the history of Trinbago irrevocably from 1956 to 2002. For Afro and Indo hegemonists are now locked in a battle for state power. Bhadase’s action gave room, vent, space to a political system and moreso governance premised upon racist hegemony and the winner takes all. Bhadase must therefore stand before the bar of Trinbagonian history charged and convicted as the perpetrator of the most potent blow against the promise and possibility of a sustainable democratic Trinbagonian social order free of racist hegemony. The general elections of 1956 stand therefore as the watershed in the history of race relations and the political and constitutional development of Trinbago.
Where then does Simbhoonath Capildeo feature in this watershed and the years leading up to 1956 and thereafter?
The PoS Gazette of 20th May, 1956 provides the answer:
“The brain of the movement, Simbhoonath Capildeo, a dark, little lawyer with glasses who looks like a fakir dressed up in western clothes, did skillfully what he had been hurriedly summoned to do.”
“Capildeo himself (the Brain) is standing in Caroni South. A power addict he hopes to move into the No. 1 spot when it is convenient to do so-that is when Joseph has been ousted. Maraj, the real boss, is a man who instinctively moves in the background at all times and is not likely to be lured out-even by the rosy premiership.”
The rise of the neemakharam had begun. Simbhoonath Capildeo was soon to be eliminated.

Front Cover   Introduction    Extract 1    Extract 3    Extract 4
Extract 5

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