SUBHAS: MY BROTHER, BASDEO

SUBHAS Panday remembers the grinding poverty he, his brother Basdeo and other siblings faced.

“Bas was born in 1933, just 16 years after the end of indentureship and my parents had been ‘bound coolies’ (contracted workers),” Subhas related when we spoke this afternoon.

Parents Sookchand and Krishendaye Panday were illiterate workers who endured hardship that was typical of the era.

Subhas said that that adversity impacted Panday throughout his life, and explains why he struggled for a better deal for sugar workers and, as Prime Minister, introduced pro-working class measures.

“He had a genuine love for the poor.”
Panday also did symbolic things to identify with common people, Subhas said.

They included placing cane cutter Dora Bridgemohan and religious leader Barbara Burke in the Senate.

“He wanted the country to know anyone could aspire to high office.”

Years before, Bas had walked barefooted “three, four miles” to school, and when he later passed exams for Presentation College, the family was unable to send him.

A relative helped.

In between, Bas worked the cocoa fields and at a Williamsville sugar cane scale, all the time restless and wondering whether this was his fate in life.

He was a school teacher, after which he was a note-taker in the magistrate’s court of Noor Hassanali, who later became the country’s Head of State.

“Mr. Hassanali had great influence on him,” Subhas said.

With a scholarship, he boarded S.S. Sorento for Italy and then travelled to England to study law.

He toiled for his upkeep, including at one time, 16 hours a day as an electrician helper.

In T&T, Bas had worked in the theatre, in a group headed by Lloyd Phillip, who, in 1971, became the PNM-sponsored Member of Parliament for Princes Town.

In England, he used his thespian craft to earn money to put food on the table and pay rent.

He got work in several theatre productions and bit parts in three movies – The Prophet of Kandahar, Man in the Middle, and Nine Hours to Rama.

“He was finally able to begin his studies,” Subhas reflected.

He later graduated from the prestigious University of London with a degree in politics, philosophy and economics.

Bas landed a PhD scholarship to study in India.

He travelled home to meet his mother and linked up with left-wing activists of the era, C.L.R. James, Stephen Maharaj, Nuevo Diaz and others.

They convinced Bas to enter domestic politics instead of spending further years in a classroom.

“That is how he put down his political bucket,” Subhas said.

So, how does Subhas, 16 years younger, recall his distinguished elder brother?

“We came from poverty and he never forgot the poor and common people.

“Our early years were hard and he devoted his entire life in the service of the people.

“He spent his life elevating others.

“That is how I will remember my brother.”