Bhadase Sagan Maraj (; 29 February 1920 – 21 October 1971) was a Trinidadian and Tobagonian politician, Hindu leader, civil rights activist, trade unionist, businessman, philanthropist, wrestler, and author. He founded the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha in 1952, which grew to be the largest and most influential Hindu organization in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean. He also founded the Caroni East Indian Association, the People's Democratic Party, the Democratic Labour Party, the Democratic Liberation Party, the Federation of Unions of Sugar Workers and Cane Farmers, and The Bomb newspaper. Early life Bhadase Sagan Maraj was born on the 29th of February 1920 into a Brahmin Hindu Indo-Trinidadian family who lived on Sagan Street in Caroni Village in the county of Caroni in central Trinidad in the British colony of Trinidad and Tobago. His parents were Baboonie and Mathew Sagan Maraj. His mother Baboonie was the daughter of Parmesar Maharaj. His father, Mathew Sagan Maraj, was an immigrant from India who came as an indentured laborer to Trinidad and Tobago. The elder Maraj was a devout Hindu, a mukhiya (village head), and a leader in the Hindu and Indian community of central Trinidad. At the time there was much tension between Hindu and Muslim Indo-Trinidadians in Caroni, and when Maraj was thirteen years old his father had been shot and killed by a Muslim gang while he was on his hammock on the porch of his home reading the Bhagawad Gita. His uncle was also killed when a Muslim gang had tied him to a stone and threw him into the Caroni River. After his father's death, Maraj went to live with his aaji (paternal grandmother). Many attempts were made on Maraj's life, so he took up wrestling and by the age of twenty he became an accomplished wrestler. He had attended the Caroni Canadian Mission School and the Pamphylian High School in Tunapuna. Maraj started off digging sand for construction purposes in the Caroni River. This was only the beginning, for soon the young Maraj had bought a truck and was in the transport business. The advent of the Second World War and the arrival of the American Armed Forces in the British colony threw Maraj into the big league. He was one of the biggest contractors on the American naval base at Chaguaramas and when the order came for the Americans to pull out their task force