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Balram Singh Rai passes on
Kaieteur News – Former Home Affairs Minister of British Guiana, Dr. Balram Singh Rai has passed away in London at the age of 100.
Singh Rai passed a few days ago in Oxford on the outskirts of London, England. Mr. Rai was a great statesman, par excellence in Guyanese politics, of astute political mind, a very brave and an ardent Arya Samajist who upheld the principles of Arya Semaj, Kris Kooblall of Toronto, Canada wrote in a letter to this newspaper.
“I wish to send our deepest condolences to Dr. Balram Singh Rai’s family. He would have been 101 years on the 21st February. We salute and bid you farewell Dr. Balram Singh Rai. We thank you for your principled and outstanding service to public life in British Guiana and Guyana,” Kooblall wrote.
Dr. Rai was denied a public parliamentary pension, to which he is entitled, by the Government of Guyana. His leadership and presentation skills were unmatched, Kooblall said, adding that Dr. Rai has two sons, one of whom is a medical doctor. In his last days, he was under the care of his son.
Dr. Balram Singh Rai
British Guiana and Guyana were blessed to have such a distinguished Son in its service. He upheld the highest and impeccable standards and this stands to his overwhelming credit,” Kooblall said.
Dr. Baytoram Ramharack in a letter to Stabroek News last year had described Rai as an iconic political figure, dating back to the pre-independence years. Together with Ashton Chase and Eusi Kwayana, he is one of few political leaders from the 1947 era who supported the brash young radical Cheddi Jagan in a successful bid for a seat in the colonial legislature. Rai was an attorney and a devout member of the Arya Samaj Hindu faith. Clem Seecharan recalled how Rai was viewed in his Berbice village of Palmyra, 12 miles away from Jagan’s birthplace in Plantation Port Mourant: “he was an icon…brilliant, fearless and confident…a true ‘Kshatriya…After Jagan, Rai was certainly the most popular Indian leader in the colony”.
Rai rose to political prominence in 1957 after winning a seat to the colonial legislature as a PPP candidate by defeating Sydney King (Eusi Kwayana) in a close election for the Central Demerara constituency. He served as Minister of Education (1959-61) and later, as Minister of Home Affairs (1961-62). As a PPP minister, he respected cultural diversity, advocated for the liberalization of local government and promoted “balance” in the police force through targeted Indian recruitment. He played a major role at the historical 1960 Constitutional Conference in London where the issue of self-government was discussed (other delegates included Cheddi Jagan, L.F.S. Burnham, W.O.R. Kendall, Brindley Benn, Jai Narine Singh, Robin Davis and Rahman B. Gajraj).
During his tenure, dual-control of Christian-run schools was abolished. On February 16, 1962 (“Black Friday”), when British Guiana was in the throes of anti-budget demonstrations in Georgetown, led by Forbes Burnham and Peter D’ Aguiar, Minister Rai oversaw the crisis while every other PPP minister, including the Jagans, went into hiding. Mr. Rai countermanded an order by the police commissioner to shoot protestors if warranted. Had this happened, British Guiana would have descended further into a state of ethnic strife.
Mr. Rai’s term as Guyana’s first Home Affairs Minister was short-lived after Dr. Jagan asked Governor Ralph Grey to revoke his ministerial portfolio in June 1962. This was subsequent to Mr. Rai, who was Deputy (Vice) Chairman of the PPP, being expelled by Dr. and Mrs Jagan, because of his refusal to retract his public statement that the Jagans manipulated the PPP elections for Party Chairman.
Rai challenged a popular African Guyanese and former Minister of Natural Resources, Brindley Benn (father of current minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn) for the post of Chairman at the PPP’s Congress in 1962. Rai’s complaints about the electoral irregularities, to then Attorney General Fenton Ramsahoye, evoked the cryptic response: “Comrade, why worry. The party works in devious ways.” Together with another PPP stalwart, Jai Narine Singh, Rai later formed the Justice Party, but could not secure enough votes to win a seat in the 1964 elections.
During the 1964 elections, he warned his supporters that the imposed Proportional Representation system would result in the PPP being excluded from government. Rai remained incorruptible, migrating to the UK in 1970. He rejected Burnham’s entreaties and lucrative offers, even as some of the PPP’s brightest Marxist theoreticians, including Ranji Chandisingh, accepted Burnham’s carrots.
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