In his address to the nation on July 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated President Chandrika Parasad Santokhi of Suriname on the occasion of his swearing in a president of the country.
“My dear countrymen, across the seven seas, thousands of miles away from India is a small country called “Suriname”. India has a very close relationship with ‘Suriname’. More than a hundred years ago, people from India went there, and made it their home. Today, the fourth or the fifth generation is there. Today in Suriname more than one fourth of the people are of Indian origin. Do you know? ‘Sarnami’ one of the common languages there is a dialect of Bhojpuri. We Indians feel very proud of these cultural relations.”
Recently, Mr. Santokhi was elected the new president of Suriname. He participated in the Person of Indian Origin (PIO) Parliamentary Conference organised in 2018.
Santokhi took the oath in Sanskrit while holding Vedas in his hand during the inauguration ceremony on July 16. While taking the oath, Santokhi repeated the Sanskrit verses chanted by the priest. The South American nation elected Santokhi as the new President, replacing former military strongman Desi Bouterse.
“I congratulate Chandrika Prasad Santokhi, and, wish him the best on behalf of 130 crore Indians, for serving his nation,” the Prime Minister said.
Santokhi, a former chief of police, was born on February 3, 1959, and grew up in the countryside as the youngest in a family of nine children. He studied at the Police Academy of the Netherlands in Apeldoorn for four years and returned to Suriname in September 1982 to work for the police. In 1991, Santokhi was appointed chief commissioner of police.
