It was Burnham himself who was responsible for that statue of Gandhi in the Promenade Gardens

Oct 09, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

I refer to the letter by Elijay Bijay, “By what authority could the suggestion be conceived that Promenade Gardens be renamed for foreigner who has no connection to this country?” SN 10/6/21. He, of course, was referring to Mahatma Gandhi in reference to a recent suggestion that Promenade Gardens and adjoining Middle St be renamed in his honour.
It should be trite history to all Guyanese by now that Gandhi played a key role in the abolition of Indentureship of Indians in Guyana and elsewhere in the British Empire. That is one critical connection to Guyana, especially to African Guyanese like Mr. Bijay (and Hamilton Green in another letter) who had complained bitterly since 1838 about Indentured Indians undercutting the wages of the freed African slaves.
Mr. Gandhi was also the person within the Indian National Congress, who nixed the proposal of two delegations (1920 and 1924) from then British Guiana, for the resumption of Indentureship after its cessation in 1917. Gandhi’s intervention has since been the source of much debate in the Indian Guyanese community, since if it were not for him, continued immigration would have given them a supermajority here – as in Mauritius. This is another reason why Gandhi should be honoured – this time by African Guyanese, – in addition to being a role model to Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
The statue of Gandhi in the Promenade Gardens was installed in 1969 by the PM Forbes Burnham, who had just rigged the 1968 elections, the same year that Indian PM India Gandhi visited Guyana. Burnham was very much cognisant of the history of Promenade Gardens and Parade Ground and not only because he had held several massive rallies there during the 1960’s, when he invoked that history. Yet he had no problem locating the Gandhi statue there as he profusely praised the Mahatma for the technique of struggle that Nkrumah had called “positive force” in Ghana.
Or are the objections on Gandhi merely a trope for another political protest?

Sincerely,
Ravi Dev

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