SUNITY JUMPING UP IN STEELBAND

THE steelband was invented in the 1930s and is a product of Trinidad and Tobago ingenuity.

This tremendous artform was belatedly incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1986, and named in 1992 by then-Prime Minister Patrick Manning as the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago.

In 2023, amid problems such as crime, poverty, and a declining economy, brand-new Senator Sunity Maharaj has brought a parliamentary motion about pan being the national instrument.

That gives a broad indication of the type of matters Senator Maharaj would pursue as a member of the Upper House.

It is also a pointer of, as the calypsonians say, “wey pan reach.”

Black Stalin famously sang “pan gone and the panman stay,” an observation that the steelband is commercially successful the world over while its local performers are still seeing tough times.

There have been successive plans for the development and marketing of the musical instrument, but they have never been actively pursued.

Over the years, there has been standardisation of pan and the setting up of small factories to produce steelbands.

But international markets have made the instrument a highly profitable business while Pan Trinbago occupies a rented Port of Spain office and depends on the Government or annual handouts.

Steelbands still operate from under breadfruit trees.

Some local breakout panists get gigs with foreign musical bands and artistes, but the steelband largely remains centred around the annual Carnival competition of Panorama.

This is a failure of governments, pan administration and the private sector.

It is the result of an absence of vision and commercial acumen.

Now comes Maharaj – whose late husband Lloyd Best had developed a development plan for pan – to raise the subject almost 100 years after the founding of the instrument.

The senator’s prioritisation of this matter suggests that it is much more important to her than the runaway crime spree, high cost of living, financial hardship of many, vanishing middle class, and other urgent issues.

It also seems to answer the concerns of many people who had wondered about the expected performances of new senators appointed by President Christine Kangaloo.

Even with T&T’s deep troubles, Senator Maharaj is jumping up in steelband.