The Indian mind and the forensic audits

Apr 07, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Dr. David Hinds published a candid letter in KN (March 28) which also took the form of a plausible political evaluation of the findings of some of the discoveries of land sales by President Jagdeo during the PPP Government. I have known Hinds for more than forty years. We were very young men active in the Working People’s Alliance in the seventies.
We share a very close social friendship and have an intimate political connection. I have read many commentaries in the newspapers over the past ten years and more about Dr. Hinds being overtly Afro-centric and a preacher of ethnic politics.
These expressions have come from people who either don’t know about his long praxis or have an agenda which comes naturally to them because of their upbringing in, and understanding of Guyana’s sociology of racial competition
I have had to remind several Indian persons, one of whom was Donald Ramotar, when he was General Secretary of the PPP that people like David Hinds and Tacuma Ogunseye were dedicated activists against the Burnham regime and never for a moment did they entertain the thoughts of leaving Burnham Government untouched because he was a Black leader. The praxis of Hinds and others like Ogunseye led to the currents that generated the politics of change whose climax was the PPP’s election victory in1992
It is against this brief background, that one must examine Hinds’s call for Guyanese not to deny themselves the opportunity to discuss, debate and polemicize on the race problematic in Guyana. He feels race as a Guyanese problem has to be confronted. He thinks that the reason for this lack of open discussion on race is because people are fearful of being accused of being racist.
In other words, Hinds is saying that if you practise race politics and I accuse you of doing so, you will turn around and call me a racist and I would not want anyone to so label me.
In his letter, Hinds does what others are afraid to do –discuss race in the context of what the audit results show. In terms of land sale, it is now public knowledge that Mr. Jagdeo was incredibly incestuous in how his government sold off the natural resources of Guyana. Two points are then advanced by David. Because of the cabals with which Mr. Jagdeo surrounded himself, the beneficiaries of such humongous giveaways, are Indians.
Secondly, other ethnic groups are bound to invoke resentment. But there is a third point that Hinds chose not to elaborate on but did mention – although the beneficiaries are Indians this does not translate to the poorer classes of Indians receiving these generosities
Out of this polemic comes the question – given the potency of the ethnic factor throughout Guyanese history, should Indian people condemn the land giveaways? This is a question Hinds did not ask but it was there in his letter for readers to see. It would seem to me that if one seriously wants to see a harmonious sociology in Guyana that will create a pleasant, purposeful future for the present generation of Guyanese, then the rapacious and reckless land sales of President Jagdeo need to be condemned by decent Indian minds
An Indian cannot use political, party and race criteria in his/her attitude to the massive corruptibility that characterized the last five years of Mr. Jagdeo’s rule. And one fundamental reason is compellingly powerful. It goes like this; if an Indian can endorse what Mr. Jagdeo did then that Indian has to ask him/herself what is left in Guyana for their children? This is what I mean by compelling.
You cannot use racial loyalty to support a leader or government that sells out cheaply the resources of your country.
Ethnic fidelity and political allegiance have to be relegated in your scheme of things where the resources of one’s country are being wasted by corrupt government. The simple obligation of a citizen is to protect the resources of his/her country so that his/her children and grandchildren can benefit from such resources. There can be no benefit if the country’s resources are sold out.
An Indian Guyanese is entitled to embrace Mr. Jagdeo and PPP leaders if they accept the political and ethnic divisions of Guyana is a reality that would not go away. But the embrace of the PPP for whatever reason should not allow one to condone the selling out of Guyana.
The brutal truth of Mr. Jagdeo regime is that the lands that are part of the natural resources of Guyana have now gone. They went in ways that were illegal. They should be reclaimed by the state.

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The Indian mind and the forensic audits

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