Gandhi was always a troublemaker

Oct 09, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

This great big fella Gandhi was always an agitator. It seems that every place he touched, he ended up being branded as some form of a troublemaker. And there was a disciple, perhaps a diplomatic provocateur, in the body of His Excellency, the Indian High Commissioner, doing the introductions in his own grand style. The humble one would have been proud, his history as a conscientious storm trooper now touches down in dear old Guyana. I hope that my German does not make me a blasphemer.
Make a call that a street ought not to be named after the little big man – among the biggest ever – and history books are dusted off. It is of who did what where and when, be such a matter of good politics, or good old-fashioned curry favouring of a different aroma, palatable texture. We are so good at these things that we have lost touch with good timeless commonsense. Further, precedent is exhumed and laid flat on its face, for all to take a good long look at the corpse that is the senselessness of our spirited and determined efforts. In the goodness of our blessed hearts, we have become very good at these things. It should be noticed that, for someone who avoids using the same word twice if I can help it, I keep using one much aligned word. It is ‘good.’
I hear Mandela, and nothing about the savage history of that infamous street somewhat off the middle of town. A self-destructive cosmopolitan city it is. But I say that Mandela is well said. Which is why I say also, let’s not do Gandhi and let’s undo Mandela. And as I do so, I wonder what the point is with all these thought provoking parallels, these profound research citations. But as I say no to Gandhi and no to Mandela, then let us go the whole nine nautical leagues and get rid of all of them. That would be all those names of villages and other places that remind of Dutch and French masters (not painters), and English ones, too. We got rid of a statue of the Empress of India, so I suggest looking in that other courtyard around Waterloo Street and considering the same. If this makes me Subhas Chandra Bose or Liaquat Ali Khan, then I must live with it. Please don’t extradite me to Baluchistan, for there is a real democracy, the Maoist kind.
I think of all this and I ponder how on this god’s green earth is called Guyana (apologies to atheists) are we ever going to build a country, stand for something that is our own. We can’t, if we continue to be Indian above all else, and out to prove that we are blacker than Stokely and Huey together. We either have a country worth cherishing; or we have a de facto partition that bares itself at times like these, with these truths that titillate, torture. One last time: not so good.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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