When Burnham and Jagan exploited race

Oct 30, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
I read Mike Persaud’s letter, “Rashleigh Jackson needs to be more explicit,” (KN 10-29-13) in which he stated that I had said that Brig Granger possessed the values of Hindu Dieties. I have never said or written that. I have written that he had all the requiste qualities of a king or leader as prescribed by Vedic scriptures.
I trust Mike will accept this correction. Other than that I agree with Mike’s views on the PPP and PNC power sharing farce and that Guyana needs democracy not shared governance or power sharing.
As I read more of the Indelible Red Stain by Dr Mohan Ragbeer, I came to realize that our political strife was initiated when Jagan introduced confrontational politics in 1947, and Burnham stepped it up with mob politics in 1962 in their quest for personal power. They led us into racial hostilities and the parties they founded are still trapped in the aura of their egomania psychology.
That is why the PNC has resisted efforts at reform by Winston Murray and Stanley Ming. Mike gave some advice on how the PNC can attract Indian votes. It is not the first time such advice is being given. Burnham himself had an Indian adviser in from 1957 to 1964.
Dr Ragbeer in The Indelible Red Stain wrote of a Singh who served in the RAF in the Second World War with Barbados’s Errol Barrow who flew 45 bombing missions. After the war both men enrolled at the London School of Economics (LSE). At the LSE Singh also met Michael Manley of Jamaica, Pierre Trudeau of Canada, and Lee Kwan Yu of Singapore.
Singh met Burnham several times at meetings of the West Indian Students Union (WISU). They were billeted together in Paris at a World Youth Festival. Singh returned to Guyana in late 1956. He served behind the scenes as an economic and fiscal adviser to Jagan in 1957 but his budget guidelines were rejected as “too bourgeois.”
Jagan severed ties with Singh and Burnham soon approached Singh. They established a secret arrangement whereby Burnham would consult with him on Indian matters, usually over a bottle of JB whisky.
On one such occasion in 1962, after Burnham had drunk one third of a bottle, Singh told him that to win over Indian support he should accept Jagan’s offer to share power, support Jagan in Parliament but expose his anti-Indian policies, call for more Indians in the Police and Public Service, propose policies to help rice and cane farmers, stop targeting Indians, call off the mobs, declare belief in peaceful struggle, openly acknowledge the religions and teachings of Indians especially the Bhagwat Gita.
Burnham put his drink down and exclaimed, “Bhata what! Look we are not here to joke!” Singh explained that the Bhagwat Gita was a Holy Book for Hindus and that they tried to live by its principles. Burnham asked, “If I do the things you say how will it take me to get power,” and Singh replied, “One full term. Two at most.”
Burnham retorted, “ Too long.” He calmly said, “Two years at most. Cheddi is too blind with ideology to see my trap. Besides he picked the wrong side in this Cold War.”
Burnham also spoke of Jagan and Indians, “ Cheddi is promising government control of production and of the means of production, but they don’t know language enough to understand what he is saying. So they believe each will get free tools to do what they like with, instead of state ownership of everything, even their labour. That’s the mentality we are dealing with. Primitive. Almost bestial. We know it we exploit it; but the poor suckers don’t know it.”
Malcolm Harripaul

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