The Guyanese East Indian in 2011

May 05, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I am currently reading the book, “Cheddi Jagan and the politics of power: British Guiana’s struggle for Independence.” Colin Palmer, Univ. North Carolina Press, 2011. It is the latest book to come off the press on Jagan. I am about to complete it and will publish a review.
As usual, Jagan would come out as a man bent on what he believed in but a highly flawed human being.
There is a part of the book that makes my skin grow. Many of Jagan’s critics appeared in front of a British implemented commission and told the officials that Jagan would virtually rule forever if open, competitive elections are approved because the East Indians, a majority of which are illiterate, would vote for Jagan on the basis of race only (see chapters 2 and 3).
When you read this section of the book Forbes Burnham appears in dramatic fashion in front of your face
Burnham argued persuasively that once there were free elections, Indians would vote race and Jagan by virtue of a superior demography would forever be in control of Guyana. From reading Colin Palmer’s (Jamaican professor working at Princeton University), masterpiece it would appear that this has been a long held fear among opponents of the PPP and Cheddi Jagan.
Is that fear out of control in Guyana after four successive victories by the PPP in which over ninety five percent of the PPP’s ballots at those elections came from East Indians?
In the year 2011, the answer is yes. But it should also be no. Yes in the sense that people like Tacuma Ogunseye and many in ACDA are worried that if the PPP wins this year, there will be a continuation of government that excluded substantial input from African representative organizations.
No, in the sense that the East Indian demography has undergone radical restructuring over the past twenty years. First, there are literally thousands of very young Indians of voting age who are not interested in who was Cheddi Jagan and they really couldn’t be bothered with knowing that there was some bad man named Burnham that the heroic PPP fought against.
It is for this reason that Mr. Jagdeo went up to Berbice and urged Indians to pass on the knowledge they have of the PNC Government in the seventies. This will be the PPP’s plank for the elections and all of them will ride that tiger. As the months wear on, Mr. Jagdeo is going to repeat that advocacy in a different form and so will the key players.
Already Leslie Ramsammy has shamelessly done that. It is one of the survival kits for Freedom House in this election. Whether it will work will depend on how the opposition fights it.
Secondly, those young Indians were not schooled in the race game because of the overall influence of western culture in Guyana over the past twenty years. The worldwide web, face book and other forms of universal culture have dented the control of older Indian parents on these young minds.
The inter-racial mixing in schools and at the University has undermined the racial stereotypes that teenager Indians got from their parents
Thirdly, the PPP is facing a set of opponents who are Indians and who do not have baggage. We can start with Peter Ramsaroop. What is the PPP going to tell Berbicians about him? He does not belong to the seventies. He probably wasn’t in Guyana when Burnham ruled the land.
There is the AFC. Again there is a dilemma here. What dirt can they find on the AFC? The headaches have already begun in Freedom House. The AFC has about eight young, learned Indians who have no indecent history and are not vulnerable to the dirty campaign that the PPP is attempting with David Granger.
Matters will be most interesting if Nagamootoo joins the opposition.
Fourthly and more importantly, the East Indian population has a record of nineteen years on which to examine the performance of the PPP. It has been a horrible balance sheet that will repulse any decent mind.
Even long standing PPP leader Komal Chand, of GAWU made reference to corruption during the May Day rally last Sunday.
On this day of arrival every Indian must ask him/herself why he or she would want to put back these pathetically bankrupt PPP leaders.
Surely the fight between the PNC and PPP as the only game in town is now long gone. East Indians have a choice of voting in brand new people who morally should be given a chance after the PPP and PNC had more than fifty years at it.

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