Freddie Kissoon
(story by kaiteurnews)
Today is the official holiday for the commemoration day of the arrival of indentured labourers from India. Like most ethnic communities around the world, there are groups, associations and educated leaders whose raison d’être is the protection of the race and the promulgation of their achievements. Guyana is no exception
In early 20th century British Guiana, there was the British Guiana East Indian Association (BGEA) of which Cheddi Jagan was a member. The Africans and coloured races had the League of Coloured People (LCP). In his book on Cheddi Jagan, Mohan Ragbeer (The Indelible Red Stain) made the point that while Jagan had it easy in finding a place in the BGEA, Burnham’s membership in the LCP faced formidable hurdles, a situation that played a pivotal role in the evolution of Burnham’s politics
After the split in the nationalist movement in the mid fifties, the political rampage against colonialism became racially divided with an African PNC, and an Indian PPP. The rest is now history and need not detain us further. The nature of the racial split in the fifties was essentially a struggle for power. In any election, the PPP would win the numbers game and did so twice until a system of proportional representation saw a coalition government that put the PPP in the Opposition.
From 1964, Guyana was a country of contest between an African versus an Indian replicated in the PPP versus the PNC. In 1970, Guyana began to experience a strange and non-traditional cataclysm in its political evolution. With colossal hopes and expectations which came with the fall of colonial rule gradually disappearing, the Guyanese people began to question the democratic credentials of their post-colonial leaders. In what was a phenomenal twist in ethnic politics, the African middle class, African security forces, the rural African peasantry and section of the African urban strata began to militate against their own government, influenced by a charismatic scholar, Walter Rodney.
The beneficiaries of this incredible break in the pattern of ethnic politics were the East Indians. From 1964 to 1992 when the PPP came to power, the Guyanese Indians ran away from PNC domination settling in far off countries around the world. The groups that stayed preached a continuous sermon of denunciations against racial discrimination, political control and dictatorship. Every act of the Burnham Government was seen in race terms. Even a priceless institution like the NIS was rejected.
The control of the African PNC came to an end in 1992 and the Indian PPP came into office. Just like the immediate post-colonial expectations, Guyanese expected great things from the party of Cheddi Jagan and it would be no exaggeration to say these desires definitely included the abolition of race preferences, a hegemonic party, State lawlessness etc. In other words, Guyanese expected from the PPP not ethnic supremacy but a democratic culture that would change Guyana in ways that bore no resemblance to what it was like before 1992
This was not to be. From 1992, East Indian attitudes to issues like ethnic hegemony, political domination, nepotism, judicial, police and civil service control, party paramountcy, media monopoly and other social depravities indicated that what Indians wanted during the decades of being victims of PNC rule was in fact power for the sake of power. What this country has seen is an exchange of PNC depravities with PPP immoralities but with greater extremism by the Indian people of this land.
The missing link is an Indian version of the WPA. While Burnham and the PNC had to contend with African rage against its authoritarian descent, there are hardly any WPA versions around since Mr. Jagdeo went down the pathways of political and ethnic rampage. Perhaps the closest thing to the WPA that the Indian governors have to deal with is the Alliance for Change. But there is a big BUT. But the WPA was prepared to struggle against Burnham in the streets. It was Rupert Roopnarine who publicly stated that the WPA was stockpiling arms for the fight against Burnham
It is doubtful (certainly it is not on the cards in the immediate future) that the AFC would want to confront Indian hegemony outside of Parliament. This is the essential difference between Guyana under the PNC and Guyana under the PPP. Indians are not prepared to dissolve their hypocrisy and fight for a democratic Guyana. It would seem that from 1964 to 1992, their voices for change was based on hypocrisy and the lust for power. Unless Indian people change their ontology, I believe Guyana is doomed. Indians didn’t accept African ownership of Guyana so why should Africans to accept Indian ownership?
