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Arrival Day: Should I be ashamed to be an East Indian?
The Jagdeo presidency, his Government, their beneficiaries and supporters particularly Ravi Dev had belaboured the point ad nauseam (it is still happening this time under a new president) that I once wrote that I was ashamed to be an East Indian. What they left out was the context. And they did so deliberately.
I have no apologies to make on that judgement of mine made after the 2006 election results. I wrote then that based on the results I was ashamed to be an East Indian and that was how I felt at the time and I stand by that feeling in 2006.
The context was twofold – my experience between 1968 and 1992 and the behaviour of the PPP Government under Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP (Jagdeo was not the only dictator). Between 1968 and 1992 the political organizations I struggled in, with the exception of the PPP, had substantial African presence in their leadership.
In those decades, I saw the bravery and indomitable courage of African Guyanese in denouncing a government that was led by an African organization, the PNC. Those moments I will never forget, and my respect for the African race in Guyana based on their philosophical rejection of bad government will forever remain inside my soul.
Existing side by side with the decency of African Guyanese was the struggle of East Indians against discrimination and bad government. Everywhere you went from 1964 to the last day of the PNC Government in 1992, Indians would voice anger and angst at their denial of choice, opportunity, justice and freedom.
I am an Indian man and from 1968 to 1992, if my memory serves me right, I think or believe I was of Indian ethnicity in those days, so I know about the feelings of Indians back then, because they expressed their pessimism to me as someone who was politically radical (I hope I still am).
By some weird, psychic contortion, among the East Indians of Guyana, the pain of living with a bad government has suddenly disappeared. You have to be a complete fool to tell me that what you complained about, that is the terrible use of power by the government between1968 to 1992, is not happening today. You are either racist or a totally shameless, indecent creature to deny that what you cried about when President Burnham ruled this land is not recurring with even greater nastiness and morbidity.
It is in that context after the results of the 2006 elections I penned the statement that I was ashamed to be an East Indian. The Indians should have voted out the PPP in 2006 and in 2011. Today is Arrival Day and on this day I say most unapologetically, I feel ashamed about what my race has become in the land of my birth. My only redemption is that I have Indian friends that do not support what an Indian government is doing to Guyana. They are good people who have integrity of character and they remind me of the fantastic days when African Guyanese took to the streets to protest wrongdoing by their government without caring about the ethnic make-up of their rulers.
I do not feel all is lost among the Indian race in Guyana, because some Indian people have fought for us and I have been doing so at great sacrifice at the moment.
We must never forget that it was an Indian man who formed a party seven years ago to oppose PPP dictatorship. His name is Khemraj Ramjattan. He is someone I admire immensely. Moses Nagamootoo’s name should never be omitted in such a discussion.
In 2011, Guyanese East Indians made a small beginning. It is this moment we should celebrate as Arrival Day. In November 2011 in Berbice, Indians began to do what African Guyanese did under Walter Rodney. They rejected a government based on the depravity of power. Race was not in the equation.
On this day when Indians first came to this territory, they should try to redeem themselves (and yes, I say “redeem” without even an ounce of apology) and recapture the decency and integrity they were supposed to have when the PNC was in control from 1968 to 1992.
They must save their country, their children, their own future by stopping, not attempting to stop, but stopping the increasing abuse of power that has literally destroyed the soul of an Indian party that when in opposition promised them so much. In the meantime, as the PPP continues to wreak havoc over Guyana, I am ashamed to be an Indian in the context of Indian silence and complicity.
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