Mr. Kwayana never made ‘daily’ visits to my home

Oct 29, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I was in Guyana when I read Vassan Ramracha’s letter (Kaieteur News of Sunday 03 October 2010) in which I am named as the Assistant Secretary to Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s PPP Council of Ministers.
Since I do not know Mr. Ramracha, I immediately called Ravi Dev at his Uitvlugt Ocean View home, to enquire if he knew the gentleman. Ravi told me Vassan Ramracha was of my spiritual/cultural heritage. He was a Trinidadian San Fernando Brahman, a good friend and mentor to many young Trinidadian and Guyanese students in New York, USA. He was also a teacher.
I wish to state that Mr. Eusi Kwayana (Sydney King) never made “daily” visits to my home at Buxton Front or at Annandale Sandreef in Guyana. It would have been very foolish of us to have him visit my home when he was a political figure of no party affiliation and was very critical of the Government of the day. At no time did my father, his two younger brothers or I seek any kind of protection from Kwayana for our families before or after horrible incidents of violence and arson erupted in Buxton soon after two elderly farmers, George Sealey and his wife Clothilde were killed on 21 May 1964 on their farm in the Friendship backlands.
The Sealeys were buried on 25 May 1964.
The night after the burial, eight or nine houses of East Indian families were destroyed by fires that were kindled by arsonists. The families lived in virtual isolation among Africans in the middle and southern parts of the village.
My family and other East Indian families in Buxton Front also experienced the intense trauma of great fear and insecurity although we lived in the northern part of the village in a larger and more cohesive community.
My father, his friend and our neighbour Harry Willis (Uncle Harry), and I were standing on the middle walk road opposite my father’s house in Buxton Front in the early hours of the night of 25 May 1964. Uncle Harry was also the uncle of two of my very good friends and Public Service colleagues.
The night was clear and we were able to see when the large Rampaul (not Ramphal) house at Buxton Public road was set ablaze. Mr. Rampaul was not killed. He died of natural causes about six or seven years before 1964. He was the patriarch of the Rampaul family.
Soon after the Rampaul house was completely destroyed, Rampaul’s son Shamnarine (Uncle Mannie) and his wife (Auntie Punni) were helped by their African neighbours to move their house and belongings to Lusignan, a majority East Indian community immediately west of Buxton. The very next morning after the Rampaul house was destroyed, my father decided that we should leave Buxton.
Up to this day, I never asked my father why he made that decision.
My Aja, an indentured Indian immigrant, died of old age and natural causes on 21 March 1964. I knew how deeply my father felt the loss of his father and the pain of the evils that erupted in the village. With other East Indian families in Buxton
Front, we left the village.
PPP Senator Pandit Chandr Sama Persaud and his sister Auntie Lurlene who lived at Buxton Line Top also left the village. Even in our terribly distressed and traumatic state of mind we did not “flee” Buxton as suggested in Ramracha’s letter. Every East Indian family who left Buxton in 1964 did so in a highly organised and orderly manner.
Mr. Kwayana’s respect for my paternal grandparents (my Aja and Ajie) and my parents are well known. His close friendship with my uncle Dudhnath Tiwari my father’s youngest brother, lasted from their early boyhood years in the 1920s through their later adult years up to 1984 when my uncle died of natural causes in his home at Annandale Sandreef – a friendship that survived and endured even after they had parted political company some time after 1955.
My grandfather, my father, my uncle Dudhnath, Shivsankar Sanjogee (Sadhu) who was an uncle of mine on my mother’s side, Sydney King (later Eusi Kwayana), Balram Singh Rai, Pandit Sama Persaud, Albert Ogle and Moulvi Sher Khan and some of their African friends who were workers and farmers helped to get Dr. Cheddi Jagan elected to the Legislative Council in 1947 as the parliamentary representative for the Central Demerara electoral district when East Indian voters in the district were almost an invisible minority because of a narrow restricted franchise.
At the time, I was reading for my Junior Cambridge examination in December 1947 and I sacrificed much of my home studies time to work for Dr. Jagan in his election campaign. My father had earlier also prompted Sydney King with help from his work mates Daniel Pollard (Uncle Dan) and Byron Lewis (Uncle Byron) to be the Chairman for an open air public political meeting (perhaps, the first in his 1947 election campaign) that Dr. Jagan held in Buxton one evening and late into the night in 1947 at Buxton Line Top. Sydney King actively remained with Dr. Jagan until some time after 1955 when they parted political company.
Sydney King was virtually an honorary member of the Indian National Congress (INC) of Buxton in the 40s when Pandit Sama Persaud, a leading member of the INC demanded that the “British should Quit BG”. The other leading voices in the INC were Fred Roopchand, Randall Butisingh, Durga Persaud and Moulvi Sher Khan.
Soon after, I assumed duties in his Office, Dr. Jagan asked me to help in compiling information for his book “The West on Trial” as he remembered how much work I did in his 1947 election campaign in Buxton. He also remembered the strong support he received from Balram Singh Rai and Sydney King in the campaign and spoke feelingly of his admiration for their personal qualities, learning and experience.
He told me to get as much information as I could on Rai and King for inclusion in the book. I did the best I could and helped in editing many pages of manuscripts for the book. I sensed Dr. Jagan’s feelings of regret over the sharp differences that developed between him, Sydney King and Balram Singh Rai in later years. My edited manuscript pages were typed in draft for Dr. Jagan by a young lady who worked in Annandale Secondary School, one of several schools which were built in the Guyana countryside, when Balram Singh Rai was Minister of Community Development and Education in the 1957 PPP Government.
Buxton was a special place for Dr. Jagan. Evidence of this was visibly shown when his funeral procession was on its way in March 1997 from Georgetown to Port Mourant on the Corentyne Coast. Many Buxtonians assembled on the Public Road in the village and stopped the procession to pay their solemn tribute and say their last farewell to him in a spontaneous show of respect and affection. Here I leave my comments in respect of Ramracha’s statements in his letter in regard to Eusi Kwayana and his relationships and visits to my family and to the families of Pandit Sama Persaud and Shamnarine Rampaul.
The rest or more is for Kwayana to pursue if he wishes to do so. It was he and my uncles and other members of the Buxton Discussion Circle who promoted the PPP as a political party in January 1950; and as a result, the Circle became the Buxton Group of the PPP and perhaps, the earliest of the founding groups of the PPP. The rest is now history.
I must now deal with my own perception of the subtleties and the belief which I think an ordinary citizen may be inclined to hold in regard to Ramracha’s statement that Eusi Kwayana visited my home “daily” when I was the Assistant Secretary to Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s PPP Council of Ministers. It was in the Council that important matters of State were discussed in my presence on Tuesday of every week from January 1963 up to December 1964. It was my duty to faithfully record everything that was discussed in the meetings. It was also my duty to convey the general details and conclusions to the Governor and to Ministers and Permanent Secretaries of subject Ministries.
I remained in the Office of the Premier and Council of Ministers under the Honorable L.F.S. Burnham, Q.C., until June 1965 when I was transferred on promotion to the newly established Ministry of External Affairs.
While it seems that I personally was not the primary target of Ramracha’s letter, his reference to my status in the Council of Ministers has caused me to feel as if I had compromised my status during Kwayana’s alleged “daily” visits to my home. Records are available to clearly show that at all times I discharged my duties and responsibilities with dedication, decorum and distinction during my tenure in the Premier’s Office and Council of Ministers and in other offices in which I served in the Public Service.
I remained in service until my retirement in December 1983 with a commendation for outstanding services to the State. I will therefore, take a very serious view of any suggestion that I had compromised my status and integrity through any of my public and private relationships in family, community and country.
Rampersaud Tiwari

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