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Post-elections violence of 1997 caused me to realise my ‘Indianness’

Jun 01, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

In response to Freddie Kissoon’s request for an understanding of my ‘Indianness’, I would have to say that I did not really know I was Indian until I returned home to Guyana in 1997.

Sure, I grew up on the Corentyne with my Indian Muslim family and attended school and had mostly Indian friends because the primary and secondary schools I attended had a majority of Indian pupils. I grew up in Rose Hall Village and was aware of Africans, Chinese, Portuguese and ‘dougla’ people and was aware at a certain level of cultural and racial differences and was also aware of the race riots of the 1960s.

Any awareness of myself as Indian, I took for granted. Perhaps, this was partly youthful innocence and, partly, an underdevelopment of a political consciousness. There was certainly no demand from anyone for an explanation about who I was.

When I emigrated to the United States in the mid-70s, fleeing the PNC dictatorship like thousands of others, it was the start of a 20-year journey in foreign parts. I lived, studied and worked in the US, the UK, and the Cayman Islands. These are first world countries peopled mostly by whites. I consider my time abroad as a success. I experienced no overt or adverse prejudices because of my ethnicity. I believe I was treated fairly and would even go so far as to say that my ethnicity perhaps played a positive role in landing me a job in the UK because of affirmative action policies.

Again, I was never called on to explain myself vis a vis my ethnicity. It was never an issue. It was my return to Guyana in 1997 and the terror of the post elections violence that erupted in the city streets that shocked me into the realisation that I was Indian. The African Guyanese mobs were chanting and calling out for the “coolie”.

I had been aware of the anti-Indian racism that drove the Burnham dictatorship but had left and left it behind, and this return was my baptism of fire, so to speak, and it made me realise fully who I was and what this meant for me in my very own country of birth. It was that shock, after years of living peacefully abroad among strangers, that brought me up sharp and started me on my investigation into my heritage, took me on a journey of discovery into my culture and ethnicity, and helped shape my political consciousness about myself, my people and what this means in the context of our country. In short, I needed to try and make sense of the situation where I and every other Indian Guyanese was – and continue to be –targets for African Guyanese violence and violations.

My ‘Indianness’ is not just a personal understanding of myself but extends to that wider humanity whereby one cannot help but feel empathy and compassion for anyone in your community who is wronged and unjustly treated. I share a DNA not only of biology but of history and culture with my Indian community. This is perhaps the only surety of ourselves that we ever have about who we are.

Sincerely,

Ryhaan Shah

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