(Trinidad Guardian) As the country bid a tearful but celebrative farewell to former prime minister Basdeo Panday yesterday, tales of his life as a warrior for the vulnerable, a visionary leader, and a tender father showed that his legacy will live on for generations.
Hundreds of mourners, including government officials, parliamentarians, businessmen and women, military personnel and foreign diplomats, converged at the Southern Academy for the Performing Arts (SAPA), San Fernando, for the state funeral that took many through an emotional morning of laughter, pride, and tears.
The countless names included Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Chief Justice Ivor Archie, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George, Senate President Nigel De Freitas, former presidents Paula-Mae Weekes and Anthony Carmona, Barbados Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kerrie Symmonds and Guyana Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hugh Hilton Todd.
The funeral drew old United National Congress colleagues like Winston Dookeran, Ganga Singh and Mervyn Assam to fresher faces like Anita Haynes and Saddam Hosein.
So impactful was Panday’s life that President Christine Kangaloo said his passing on New Year’s Day was more than T&T losing its fifth prime minister.
Facing the packed Sundarlal Popo Bahora Auditorium, she told mourners that the country lost one of the biggest and most colourful figures in the modern history of the Caribbean.
“We lost a man who blazed a trail like few others before him ever had and like few others ever will again. We lost a feisty fighter who faced every battle head-on, winning some and losing some along the way, at times hurting his opponents, at times hurting himself. We lost a man who yielded no ground during his 90 years. We lost a man who lived his life to the full and who, in the course of doing so, set the national landscape on fire,” Kangaloo said.
She said Panday fascinated the country and the Caribbean with his charm and enthralled the nation with his wit. She recalled that he also had a devastatingly caustic side that she observed when she sat opposite him in Parliament between 2007 and 2010.
“During that period, in what turned out to be the sunset years of his political career, he would, on occasion when he was not waxing lyrical in the course of a contribution, often sit with his head buried in a book, never looking up, almost daring those on the opposite side to interfere with his peace. Woe betide the unsuspecting soul who dared to do so. We all learned early on not to trouble the lion when he was at rest.”
Kangaloo said Panday had enough critics during his lifetime but likened him to a meteor blazing its trail across the sky, burning everything in its path. As the nation’s brightest meteor, she said it would not be surprising if, in his wake, he burned bridges at times. She said he had his family, whom he loved more than life, and his friends.
While Kangaloo, a former People’s National Movement MP for Pointe-a-Pierre, and Panday were political opponents in Parliament, they were family friends in life. She recalled meeting him at her home in San Fernando in 1984, during a party her father held to celebrate her brother Wendell’s call to the bar. She said it was not his charm or wit that impressed her but her observation of a man who was completely and utterly in love with life.
“He and his beloved Oma danced the evening away with complete abandon, moving to the music in a way that even then, in my youth, it was difficult for me and my friends to match. He was to show that same energy and some of those very dance moves almost 40 years later, when he mounted the stage at Brian Lara’s all-inclusive Carnival party recently, to the utter delight of an adoring audience.”
Kangaloo elicited laughter when she recalled meeting Panday at her inauguration in March 2023, and he disarmed her with praise: “Congratulations, that was an excellent speech.”
She told mourners, “Having got me where he wanted me, he then said, ‘I am afraid to tell you, though, that you will get nothing done’. He paused briefly and concluded, still smiling, ‘without constitutional reform’.”
Jovially, she said Panday was like a boa constrictor with its prey in its grip where it concerned constitutional reform.
Daughter: He was a pioneer and supportive father
While speakers shared their stories of Panday, the politician and friend, Mickela Panday’s voice cracked as she spoke of the tender father who supported his four daughters in all their choices without being judgemental. Mickela said while he was not always physically present during their childhood, he was always there when they needed him.
Supported by her sisters Niala, Nicola and Vastala, Mickela told mourners that when the family travelled abroad a month ago, they never expected they would not return home with their patriarch.
“It was not even a thought because of the sheer will, determination and fighting spirit with which he lived his life. Anyone who knows him will know that our father has never been someone to complain about anything because he never wanted anyone to worry about him.
“He was always cheerful, witty, charming and charismatic, so you would never know he was not feeling 100 per cent. Up until the last moment, nothing changed. He was always smiling and making everyone around him laugh,” Mickela said.
Though her watery eyes glistened under the stage lights, she found a smile, sharing how he responded to a doctor’s question about how he felt.
Mourners laughed at Panday’s reply “‘Doc, if I were feeling well, I would not be here’.”
Mickela said Panday was always full of spirit, which made everyone love him. This attribute made his passing ground-shattering for the family, leaving them with lives that would never be the same.
“The shock, pain and disbelief were numbing but when you grow up like my sisters and I, a sense of duty immediately kicks in. Yes, he is our dad, but he does not belong to us alone. He loved people, and people loved him.”
Mickela said her father was a forward-thinking visionary who always found solutions to problems. She said until his end, he became energised when engaged in political, social and economic issues, always willing to listen and advise when asked. She described him as a pioneer who genuinely believed in equality and non-discrimination, which was evident by the accomplishments of the government during his six-year tenure as prime minister. She said his government introduced the Equal Opportunity Act, Maternity Protection Act, and Freedom of Information Act and established the Interim Revenue Stabilisation Fund (now Heritage and Stabilisation Fund), the Dollar-for-Dollar programme, built schools, police stations, and homes, paved roads, provided water, paid off T&T’s debt to the International Monetary Fund, and oversaw the lowest crime rate.
“Dad never spoke the language of race, publicly or privately. He was equal in his treatment of everyone in both his public and private lives. He was a genuine patriot who believed in equality for all.”
She thanked Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Dr Amery Browne and his team for moving mountains to bring her father’s body back to T&T and those helping to host a state funeral a mere week after his passing.
Caricom pays tribute
Caricom Assistant Secretary-General Elizabeth Solomon also paid tribute, saying Panday dedicated five decades to improving citizens’ lives.
Solomon highlighted Panday’s contribution to regional integration, saying it was under his leadership that T&T signed an agreement with Caricom to establish the seat of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and the offices of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission in T&T in 1999. Solomon said the CCJ continues to provide Caricom states with the highest judicial excellence. She said it was also under Panday’s chairmanship of Caricom that the parliamentary opposition was accorded official recognition within the regional structure.
“Basdeo Panday was truly a man who walked with monarchs and never lost the common touch,” Solomon said.
Prayers for Panday
Yesterday’s final journey began at the house of mourning in Phillipine, San Fernando, where the family held a private service before the state event.
Parts of busy San Fernando stalled as police and the military led his body in a procession towards SAPA. Citizens lined the sidewalk to catch a glimpse while some looked on from their cars.
With the auditorium filled, a pundit began recitals and led the family in performing arti.
Panday’s wife, Oma, and his daughters placed malas on him and said prayers around his body.
Several religious leaders offered prayers, including Panday’s former minister of health, Imam Dr Hamza Rafeeq, who prayed for Allah to help the bereaved family through their grief. Presbyterian Church Rev Joy Abdul-Mohan thanked God for Panday’s life and asked that his legacy catalyse change.
Chief of the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community, Ricardo Barath-Hernandez, prayed for the spirits to comfort mourners, while Spiritual Baptist Rev Karl Patterson invited God’s presence into the auditorium. Pundit Doodnath Chadee prayed for Panday’s soul, and Orisha elder Baba Neal Ryan Rawlins prayed that Obatala cover the family with his blessing.
Catholic Archbishop Jason Gordon thanked God for Panday’s impulse to struggle for righteousness for workers and marginalised citizens, and Anglican Bishop Claude Berkley prayed for angels to welcome him home.
There was also a performance by Kees Dieffenthaller, who veered away from his usual soca genre to perform Frank Sinatra’s My Way. National Music Festival winner Adrianna Achaibar paid tribute on the steelpan.
The casket closed at 11.28 am, and military officers dutifully marched toward the casket and carefully draped the national flag over Panday’s casket for his final earthly journey to the Shore of Peace in South Oropouche for his cremation.
