Guyana Times Sunday Magazine

Times

MAY 2015 FREE DISTRIBUTION

Indian Arrival Magazine

Indians and Politics

Politics of Subjects vs.

Politics of Objects

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

Facing bullets for their rights: politics on the sugar plantations

Indian Protests for Rights: Pre-Independence I

ndian political action during the indentureship period and its immediate aftermath was a struggle to have their rights under their indentureship contract enforced. This meant they had to struggle against "King Sugar" but because the unstated policy of the colony in Guyana, throughout the nineteenth century and up to the middle of the twentieth was, “what’s good for sugar is good for British Guiana (B.G.)”; this meant a struggle against the colonial state.

There was little irony in the folk wisdom that the common name for the country, "BG" meant "Bookers" rather than "British Guiana".

From this perspective, the Indians on the sugar plantations carried on the most sustained struggle against the imperial state in the post-emancipation era.

In effect they were the pioneers in the struggle for independence of their country.

1869: Leonora, West Coast Demerara In July of 1869, forty workers of the shovel gang at Plantation Leonora disputed the wages for work done, and it was alleged that they assaulted a manager.

The response was swift after their protest was supported by fellow workers: “Although the colony was the HQ of the 2nd West India Regiment, the police was charged with the first line of defence. In 1869 troops were sent to Pln. Leonora after police had been defeated, even though the governor said it was a police matter.

1870: countrywide Strikes and violence swept Plantations Uitvlugt, Hague, Zeelugt, Vergenoegen on the West Coast, and Success, Mon Repos and Non Pariel on the East Coast of Demerara. At issue were disputes over pay for “tasks”.

1872: Devonshire Castle, Essequibo Coast: 5 killed, 7 wounded Five immigrants killed, seven wounded.

The

Devonshire Castle protests would be a watershed event, as it represented the first time that Indian immigrants would be shot and killed by the police. It was obvious that the Royal Commission’s recommendations of 1870 were merely a palliative, and there were no lasting reforms of the system. From this point onwards, “strikes” would be deemed as “riots” at which the Riot Act could be read and the strikers shot dead.

At the Inquest, the policemen’s actions were exonerated as “justifiable homicide”.

1873: Skeldon, Corentyne, Berbice The underlying cause was, once again, the widespread mistrust of the judicial system by Indians, and the collusion of the drivers in their oppression. In this instance, a magistrate fined an immigrant for allegedly (accused by a driver) inciting others to be absent from work.

Aware of the unfairness of the charge, two hundred other immigrants demanded the release of the accused and the magistrate, in fear, complied.

1873: Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara The casus belli was low wages for fieldwork. The workers complained to the magistrate, who asked that they return to work and he would examine their complaint.

1896: Non Pariel. East Coast Demerara: 5 killed 59 wounded The dispute arose over rates for a task, after which the manager demanded that five workers be expelled from the plantation for “incitement”. He later obtained warrants and called in the police to execute. This expulsion of workers who objected to working conditions was to become a frequently used weapon in the planters’ arsenal. Black policemen were called in to execute these warrants. Without reading the Riot Act, the police fired into the massed crowds that

had gathered in solidarity with the accused.

1903: Friends, East Bank Berbice: 6 killed; 7 wounded May 1903, six killed and seven wounded. The dispute arose over payment for task work.

The workers wanted to lay their grievance before the Immigration agent but the manager had the workers arrested. The police were called in and they arrested six immigrants. The Riot Act was read, and when the crowd resisted, the police fired.

1912: Lusignan, East Coast Demerara: 1 killed Sept. 18, 1912: One killed. Shovelmen struck over a task dispute. The workers alleged that the manager fired a shot at the crowd of immigrants, wounding one worker, who later died. The manager was charged with murder but later acquitted.

1913: Rose Hall, Canje, Berbice: 14 Killed April 1913, 14 killed.

The dispute centred over a promised holiday granted to workers then rescinded by a manager. Seven individuals protested and the manager attempted to expel them from the plantation. Later, warrants were issued for some other immigrants. The police, including the Inspector-General from Georgetown himself, attempted to execute the war-

rants and the crowds resisted.

The Riot Act was read and the police fired; 14 immigrants were killed. One policeman was also killed.

It was the largest number of immigrants ever killed in one protest.

The killings at Rose Hall created a stir in India and helped to convince the Government of India to abolish the Indentureship Scheme in 1917.

1924: Ruimveldt, East Bank Demerara: 13 killed 18 wounded On April 1, 1824, a strike broke out in some Water Street firms in Georgetown.

On April 2, the manager’s house at Pln. Providence was attacked, but the police put down the disturbance with no violence. On April 3 a large crowd of some five thousand persons (10-15 per cent blacks and the remainder Indians) marched towards Georgetown from the East Bank plantations and were stopped by the police, under the command of the Inspector-General and members of the Militia, at Ruimveldt. The Riot Act was read by a magistrate and the order was given to fire.

Thirteen persons were killed – twelve Indians and one black – and eighteen wounded.

1930’s: Sugar Plantations

The Great Depression percolated down from the metropolitan countries into the colonies, and Guyana was wracked by strikes on the plantations, as workers’ wages and working conditions were squeezed mercilessly throughout the thirties.

“Unrest in British Guiana was so widespread that in 1933, Governor Denham instructed the press to suppress publication of news of labour disturbances in estates.”

1935: East Demerara A State of Emergency was proclaimed on the East Coast and East Bank of Demerara, but the situation was so combustible that the police felt it necessary to deploy so many of their personnel that they had to employ civilians in October for

routine tasks.

1937: Sugar Plantations Strikes broke out on the East Bank of Demerara and Blairmont, W.C. Berbice, where strikers were taken before the courts for allegedly assaulting a driver and overseer.

1938: Sugar Plantations Strikes continued on the East Bank and police reinforcements from Georgetown which were thought necessary to quell demonstrations. One hundred and forty seven persons were convicted on various charges.

1939: Leonora, West Coast Demerara: 4 dead; 4 injured The protests on the plantations continued unabated, and in February 1938 the police cracked down on behalf of the planters, even as the West Indian Commission (Moyne Commission) was conducting hearings on the phenomenon of violence that had engulfed the West Indies over the crisis in the sugar industry. In fact the strikers at Leonora had attempted to cross the Demerara River to meet the Commission and were prevented from doing so.

A f t e r the strikers (which included several blacks) resisted the local police’s efforts to disband them, reinforcements from Georgetown arrived and eventually the order to fire was given and three I n d i a n s and one black died.

As usual, a Commission of Inquiry exonerated the police from any blame.

The first

trade union, led by Mr Ayube Eden, an Indian, the ManPower Citizens Association (MPCA), was recognised as the bargaining agent for the sugar workers the next year, but very quickly their ardour for representing workers’ interests waned as the Sugar Producer’s Association (SPA) bought out some executives.

1948: Enmore, East Coast Demerara: 5 killed 9 injured In April 1948, there was a split in the MPCA, and a new union – the Guiana Industrial Workers’ Union (GIWI) - called a strike on the East Coast Demerara plantations over a change in the work rules for cane cutters. On June 15th three overseers were stripped and embarrassed by strikers. The next day police reinforcements were sent to the plantations; the strikers felt threatened and confrontations ensued. The police fired and five were killed and nine injured.

After the 1948 strikes and killings, the state felt that a new approach was needed to keep the Indians on the plantations in line. A “Special Branch”, which was patterned after Scotland Yard, was established. The officers in “plain clothes” could easier keep surveillance over the Indians, who were still defined as the greatest threat to the state.

The killings of the “Enmore Martyrs” led to the formation of the People’s Progressive Party in 1950, after Dr Cheddi Jagan swore at the graves of the workers that that he would dedicate the rest of his life to represent the poor and the powerless.

The Indians of Guyana, along with the rest of the country, had entered the modern political era.

British Guiana police

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

By Ravi Dev

I

t is trite to observe that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

Our present political conflict can be traced to several historical contingencies. Take the ending of Indian indentureship in 1917.

The event marked the beginning of a new era in more ways than one, and not only for Indians.

Up to this juncture, while there had been opposition from Africans and coloureds to the introduction of Indians into Guyana, the opposition had focused on the inequity, to the creole population, of bringing in competition in labour - and partially at their expense. Now the opposition would be pitched at much higher stakes – the highest political control of the country.

After the cessation of Indian indentureship, the planters still desired new Indian immigrants – for all the same reasons that had “justified” the old system.

However, in 1919, to preclude criticisms based on the old excesses, they proposed a system of indentureship that would involve settling large numbers of Indians immigrants as independent farmers, after they served a three-year contract.

J.A. Luckhoo, (solicitor and first Indian member of the Legislature) and a group of Indians re-launched the BGEIA in Georgetown in April 1919, after it had lapsed since its formation in Berbice in 1916. Mr Luckhoo and Dr Hewley Wharton, the first Indian doctor in Guyana, were authorised, on behalf of the BGEIA, to convince the Indian authorities of the feasibility of the scheme.

They reached India 1919-20 but opposed by Gandhi and others, they failed. However as part of the rationale to convince their Indian audience, they offered that their aim was “to induce more Indians from the motherland to join our ranks, increase our numbers and so help us make British Guiana an Indian Colony.”

In reaction to this assertion, which precipitated the inchoate concerns of the African/coloured leadership, the Negro Progress Convention (NPC) was formed on Aug. 1 1922. Nathaniel Critchlow, the noted labour leader, was a founding member of the convention, which took an aggressive stand against the colonisation scheme.

But since they advocated that if necessary, workers should also

A typical rally in Guyana

be imported in equal numbers from Africa, it was obvious, even if they did not state it explicitly, that they were concerned about the strategic implications of the Africans and coloureds becoming a minority in Guyana.

The question of local political control of the state – tilted in favour of the non-Indian middle class by the 1890 Constitution was now rising on the agendas of the two major ethnic groups.

In 1921, the Indians were just about 42 per cent of the population while Africans were 39 per cent and coloured – 10 per cent. Even though universal franchise was not even on the horizon, an Indian majority would have meant profound changes for those who expected to inherit power – the coloured and African elite.

In 1923-24, JA Luckhoo and Nunan (Attorney General) visited India once again to get the scheme approved, and this time they were successful. The NPC and BGLU, however, were determined to derail this initiative. Francis Kawall, president of the BGEIA at this point, and some others in the BGEIA, were now also bitterly opposed to the scheme. The record shows that from 1919 to 1924, the sugar workers on the East Bank had been in touch with Critchlow (and in 1924 with both Critchlow and Kawall) about their labour grievances.

The NPC had petitioned the Colonial Office on the colonisation scheme with their concerns about any increased Indian population. The petition adumbrated most of the arguments that would be used against Indians in the following decades, down to the present, about the African ethnic security dilemma.

The scheme was a “distinct act of discrimination” against blacks who were entitled to ‘first consideration’ since they were the ‘pioneer settlers’ of British Guiana.

Additionally, the scheme “would tend to rob (blacks) of their political potentialities, as they would be the minority in any voting contest – the Indian vote would become more than or equal to the votes of any two of the other sections of the community; it would be detrimental to good government and the preservation of the peace…”

“At the celebrations to mark the 5th anniversary of the BGLU, in Jan 1924, A.V. Crane, a black lawyer, asserted that “if the colony was flooded with thousands of people of one race, the vested in-

J A Luckhoo, solicitor and first Indian member of the legislative

terests of the other races would be affected.”

A.A. Thorne, a prominent headmaster and black leader, in a memorandum to the Colonial Office (a month before the Ruimveldt Tragedy) argued that the solonisation scheme had produced “much friction and aroused racial feeling in the colony”. He saw also saw it as injurious to black interests, and expressed fears that “the introduction of labourers of any favoured race at the expense of the others is both undesirable and dangerous.”

The tragic events at Ruimveldt, when 14 Indians and 1 African were killed while marching toGeorgetown in protest, made the colonisation scheme moot – but addressed, for the while, immediate concerns about the African security dilemma.

Indian support for the BGLU and Critchlow dried up after this tragedy and betrayal, and there were no more strikes recorded in the sugar belt until four years later.

While the colonisation scheme lapsed and the NPC faded, the coloured and African elite continued to organize themselves in seeking to protect and increase their gains in the power relations. In the zero-sum arrangements of the political system (in 1928 the British had imposed a Crown Colony government on Guyana) this meant organising against Indians who were making comparatively rapid economic strides in the 1930’s.

The United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) of Marcus Garvey out of the U.S. had formed several branches across Guyana by the thirties.

The London-originated League of Coloured People (LCP) howev-

Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow

er, became the most established organisation and had the most impact in Guyana from the thirties up to the fifties. They were in the forefront to confront what was seen as Indian encroachment on the coloured preserve during that time. In the words of Ashton Chase, “They were already envious of the economic strides the Indo-Guyanese had made and considered them a threat.”

The threat was not only felt economically, but politically: socially, the Indians were still seen as backward”.

“When power was gradually seen to be passing from the colonial government to local groups in Guyana, a process commencing in the 1930’s but not really getting under way until after WW11, a great deal of attention became focused on ethnic or racial associations. For the Africans, the League of Coloured Peoples provided this outlet, while for the Indians, the Guiana East Indian Association, an organisation in existence since 1919, served to promote their interests.”

The coloureds, because of their white forbears, preferential recruitment into the junior bureaucratic positions of the civil service and their greater emulation of ‘English culture’, had conferred legitimacy upon themselves as the inheritors of the colonial mantle, with all its pretensions and privileges.

The African community had conceded this presumption, and in fact, buttressed it in seeking elevation of their status by entry into the coloured section through marriage, education, life style and money, which state jobs provided.

The arrival of an Indian middle class in the late thirties; the enlargement of the franchise to

include more Indians in 1947; the arrival of the universal franchise in l953, and the political mobilization of the East Indian masses by Dr Cheddi Jagan from l950, threatened that presumption and precipitated the ethnic security dilemma of the African Guyanese.

The British Guiana Constitutional Commission (1954) noted that the Indians’, “very success…has begun to awaken fears in the African section …and it cannot be denied that since India received her independence in 1947 there has been a marked self-assertedness amongst Indians in British Guiana.”

By 1950, with universal franchise on the horizon, this assertiveness included competing for political power by leveraging their demographic advantage to address their security concerns.

The potential for ethnic conflict, in Guyana or elsewhere, is stimulated when there are changes in the society that cause one or more ethnic groups in the given society to feel threatened by other groups.

There were changes aplenty in the thirties and forties.

Compounding this psychological insecurity was the demographic factor and the implications for participating in and eventually controlling the government: by the 1940s, the East Indians had a much greater birth rate than Africans and coloureds.

Combining their newly acquired economic strides with an imminent majority of voters, in a political arena to be governed by majority rule and universal suffrage, it was now quite clear to both Indian and African thinkers that as the leaders of the NPC had feared, the Indians could deny the Africans control of the government in perpetuity.

This structural condition created what we have labelled the “ethnic security dilemmas” in both the African and Indian sections.

For the African section, which felt that others who it had categorized as “backward” were bypassing it and that that group may also rule them in perpetuity under the rules of the political game, the situation was untenable.

It was rational that Africans would utilize whatever resource would help to equalize the playing field. Their trump card would be their serendipitous domination of the armed forces – precipitating and maintaining the Indian ethnic security dilemma.

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

S

ome Indians were able to combine their entrepreneurial gifts with an aptitude for colonisation, while leading an active public life in the interests of their compatriots. Peter Ruhoman observed that "in the reclaiming of waste lands and abandoned plantations the Indians stand unrivalled, and we have before our eyes sterling examples of his initiative and enterprise in this direction".

Probably the most outstanding example of colonist with a bewildering range of entrepreneurial interests was Caramat Ali McDoom, who was born in the colony on September 23 1890. His parents went to British Guiana as indentured labourers. McDoom became a distinguished merchant, saw-miller, landed proprietor, cattle rancher and rice farmer.

In 1921 he acquired Rome (East Bank Demerara), which was originally a part of Plantation Houston, and renamed it McDoom Village.

The following year, he decided to reclaim this derelict sugar land in order to create a settlement for Indians. He undertook the clearing of the impenetrable bush and the demarcation of lots, having secured the co-operation of the relevant government officers. In 1923, the first building was built; the second was erected by Mc Doom himself.

Soon afterwards, he induced several Indian settlers to throw up thatched cottages. By 1930, as Peter Ruhoman observed: "the trash buildings have complete-

A

Caramat Ali McDoom built the first stone mosque

ly disappeared and healthy, sanitary cottages, in some cases with architectural pretensions, may be seen dotted over the whole extent of the village...contended settlers... eke out a comfortable existence on the land by cultivating the soil and rearing cattle, and working, in the intervals, on the adjoining estates, whenever work is available".

McDoom scrupulously supervised the affairs of the settlement.

The sanitation was considered to be good - a rare achievement in a colony with an unenviable public health

s early as 1924, Dr Jung Bahadur Singh, OBE LRCP & S (Edinburgh), LRFP & S (Glasgow), as a member of the British Guiana East Indian Association (BGEIA), fought on behalf of workers in the Ruimveldt Massacre.

Between 1920 and 1949, he served as president of the BGEIA, six times.

He was a founder of the premier Hindu organization, the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, and served as its president from 1934 to 1955. He saw the necessity of such an organization for the preservation

record. He also built several cottages, and residents were required to repay on an instalment plan "proportionate to the value of the building erected and the capacity of the settler to pay." They paid a nominal rent for land lease; no rates or taxes were levied; those who bought their plot paid nothing. McDoom was described as a man of "much courtesy and affability", who saw his relationship to the villagers as that of a father to this family, while they looked to him for advice and protection.

His business achievements were equally impressive. He was the principal shareholder in the Demerara Greenheart and Trading Co., a saw-milling enterprise which was located in his village. In 1931, he acquired a cattle ranch and a rice estate in the Mahaicony District; in 1940 he bought Plantation Hampton Court, the last sugar estate in Essequibo, which had been abandoned in 1936.

Yet he devoted much time to the affairs of his people. He was the Vice-President of the British

Guiana East Indian Association (BGEIA) in 1922 and in early 1924 he represented the Association as a delegate on the Colonisation Deputation to India, seeking the beginning of a different system of Indian immigration to the colony.

In 1929 he was the president of the Indian Congress, a rival organisation to the BGEIA. In 1947 he was the president of the Rice Producers' Association, and in 1947 the government nominated him to the Legislative Council.

But McDoom was also deeply involved in religious affairs. In 19261927 he was instrumental in the construction of a mosque for the Muslim rep residents of his village. mit was opened in March 1927, during the month of Ramada. A "Delco" lighting plant was installed in the village around the same time. In September 1927, the Hindus of McDoom Village held a twelve-day Bhagwat Ma religious convocation, at which hundreds of people were fed daily.

McDoom was a strong supporter of these proceedings. He was a Muslim, but he treated Indians of both religions with commendable impartiality. This remarkable man achieved so much, while being responsible for eight sons and five daughters, his wife must have had considerable strength of character and self-confidence. (Excerpted from "Tiger in the Stars: The Anatomy of Indian Achievement in British Guiana 1919-29" by Clem Seecharan)

Senior Legislator and Indian Leader of their ancient and revered religion in the colony. He was also a founder of the Pandits Organization.

As a prominent Hindu, he fought for the right of a large, labouring population to practice its values with the same freedom and privileges accorded European values and Christianity by the Government of British Guiana.

During the colonial era, Hinduism was considered a heathen and pagan religion, its customs and traditions denigrated.

There was no public recognition of Hindu

festivals, their languages, customs and rituals. Hindus could not cremate their dead. Dr Singh, as head of the Sanatan Dharma movement, eventually reversed these prohibitions, and won an equal and respected place for Hindus in the country.

He fought long and hard for the legal recognition of Hindu and Muslim marriages. Hindu and Muslim priests, unlike Christian ministers, could not be stateregistered marriage officers.

In 1929, this leader of the Indian diaspora was host to the Reverend C.F. Andrews, a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi. He was to report on the conditions of Indians who had made their permanent home in British Guiana.

Dr. Singh launched into politics in 1931.

He was elected to the Legislative Council, and became the first Hindu to be elected to the country’s parliament. The Hindus bestowed on him a gold medal and the title of Vickram (Victorious/Courageous One). Later, he became a member of the Cabinet, the Executive Council, presided over by the British governor.

In his long career in the Legislature, Dr Singh served on many official committees and boards. As a member of the Franchise Commission, he advocated universal adult suffrage. He was a pioneer of land settlement schemes for independent farmers at Vergenoegen and Cane Grove.

His work and contribution to the development of his people extended to education, labour, health, drainage and irrigation, social welfare, information and publicity, and civil rights. In 1944, he was awarded the OBE. In his essay, "Our Place in Guiana: The East Indians" (1931) Dr Singh writes as follows on Indians and politics.

"In the political arena there is a definite sign of awakening, and many are now determined to exercise the franchise which was neglected in the past. In this

Honourable Dr Jung Bahadur Singh, a prominent East Indian member of the Legislative Council. (1931)

colony there is one common franchise for all classes, irrespective of race and that is a knowledge of one language. The ballot papers are now printed in Urdu, Hindi, and English. There are now three elected East Indian members in the Legislature, one of whom is also a nominated member of the Executive Council.

The British Guiana East Indian Association is the only political body in the colony which advocates the cause of the East Indians.

The East Indians, in general, by dint of industry and hard labour, have proved themselves an indispensable factor in shaping the destiny of British Guiana."

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Times Indian Arrival Magazine

5

Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

By Cheddi Jagan

The following consists of excerpts from a paper delivered by Dr. Cheddi Jagan to the Genesis of a Nation Activity in May, 1988, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indians into Guyana :

A

Royal Commission in 1870 pointed out than indentured Indian immigrant was trapped by the law "in the hands of a system which elaborately twists and turns him about, but always leaves him face to face with an impossibility."

But exploitation was not all. The new wage-slaves were also resented and despised. They were resented because they had been brought by their colonial/ plantation masters to undercut the position of the freed African population. The Africans had the feeling that "the coolie takes bread from the Negro labourer and lowers the price of labour".

The indentured Indians were also despised because they brought a culture alien to Western customs and values. The epithet "coolie" depicted the Indian immigrants' situation.

Indentureship finally came to an end in 1920. But not before there had been numerous demonstrations, skirmishes, riots and uprisings against starvation wages, appalling conditions and the abuse of women.

And the workers paid with their blood; for instance, in British Guiana at Devonshire Castle (September 1872) - 5 killed and 6 wounded; at Non Pariel (October 1896) - 6 killed and 58 wounded; at Friends (May 1903) - 5 killed and 7 wounded; at Lusignan (September 1912) - 1 killed; at Rose Hall (March 1913) - 15 killed; at Ruimveldt (April 1924) 13 killed; at Leonora (1939) - 4 killed; at Enmore (June 1948) - 5 killed and 8 wounded.

Race Relations

The black middle class, which had emerged earlier historically, was generally content with their "junior partner" role, and saw the emergent Indian middle strata as a threat. They perceived the lower rungs of the colonial administrative ladder as their preserve.

In Trinidad, Marxist historian Dr. Gordon Lewis referred to them as "the white collar proconsuls of the colonial structure". In this sense, they tended to be conservative, wanting a maintenance of the status quo.

And so, they assumed, for instance in Guyana, increasingly a conservative political posture and opposed reforms for adult suffrage and selfgovernment.

In the Caribbean region as a whole, black cultural nationalism manifested itself in both opportunist/reactionary and progressive stances.

In the Indian middle strata three trends developed - opportunist/ conservative, nationalist/reformist, and radical/ revolutionary.

These were reflective of the top, middle and bottom positions of the petty-bourgeois class. Like the "black white men", there were the "brown white men". Indians in this category, in return for "crumbs from the table", were prepared to defend the colonial system.

Some, resentful of barriers to the entry of Indians into the civil service and lack of promotional opportunities, championed universal adult suffrage. They saw, in this reform, more Indians becoming enfranchised and more Indians becoming parliamentarians. This was seen as a means for Indians, individually and collectively, wielding greater influence.

Those Indians, seeing not only inequality of opportunity but also national/cultural oppression, saw the need for change. They linked the call for adult suffrage to that of self government.

Political Mobilisation

The black/Indian rivalry and confrontation was manifested in different attitudes and political positions. With blacks in office in the colonial period, the middle-class Indians generally opposed federation of the West Indies in Guyana and Trinidad; in Surinam, they opposed independence, as the blacks in Guyana with the PPP in government in the 1957-64 period.

Indian/black confrontation gave way to co-operation through class collaboration at the petty bourgeois and bourgeois levels. In Guyana, the middle strataled East Indian Association and the League of Coloured People made an accommodation in the Labour Party in 1947 for the general elections that year.

Racial discrimination and "second-class" status have been the lot of Indians.

Like blacks in the USA, they suffer doubly: from discrimination because of their race and culture; from exploitation as members of the working class and peasantry.

In Guyana, after more than two decades of rule by the petty-bourgeois blackdominated People's National Congress (PNC), the vast majority of Indians feel "left out". Through electoral fraud and military intervention in elections, they have been virtually disenfranchised. And through political and racial discrimination under the doctrine of "PNC paramountcy", equality of opportunity is denied.

Consequently, many IndoGuyanese see their salvation in emigration mainly to North America.

Indian attitudes

Dismay has been expressed at the support for the Pakistani team by Indians during the recent Pakistani/ West Indian cricket test match. This was seen not only as disconcerting, but also as downright disloyal. It is wrong and dangerous to blow up these incidents. They must be understood in proper perspective: the social psychology of Indians; their second-class status; the discrimination meted out to them.

A comparable attitude is demonstrated by West Indians domiciled in Britain at MCC/West Indies cricket matches. Even more vociferous was their support for the West Indies team. And we do not blame them.

It must not be forgotten also that Marcus Garvey, suffering under secondclass status for blacks in the United States, idealized Africa and started the "Back to Africa" movement.

Though hounded at the time, he is today regarded as a West Indian hero.

If Indians glorify India's

Dr. Cheddi Jagan

civilization and culture, celebrate joyfully the independence of India and Pakistan, and rally for the Indian and Pakistani cricket team, it must be seen as compensation for a sense of persecution, an inferiority complex which has been forced an their psyche over the years.

As regards Indian so called disloyalty and racism, certain facts must be noted. Firstly, very few Indians opted for citizenship of India and Pakistan on their independence from Britain.

Secondly, a few Indians who wanted to make India their home felt like "fish

out of water" there. One prominent individual went from Guyana to India, but left soon after to settle in England. Thirdly, looked at from a class perspective, Indians in Guyana supported non-Indians on several occasions.

It is short-sighted to see the "Caribbean man" only as a "black man� and Caribbean culture as African culture. Apart from the different countries of their origin, both our black slave and Indian indenture ancestors watered the sugar cane with their blood. Through their struggles and sacrifices, they have made valuable contributions to our historical and social development.

For us in the PPP, it is necessary to view Caribbean reality and nationhood from a world perspective and with a class approach. Class is more fundamental than race. This does not mean that there is no such thing as ethnicity, that there is no racial problem. There is a problem. And it must be addressed. It must be neither underestimated nor over-estimated. It must not be swept under the carpet, with the pretence that it does not exist. At the same time, it must not be seen as an unsolvable problem.

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

The Bare Facts

P

resident Bharrat Jagdeo was born Jan 23, 1964 in the village of Unity on the East Coast of Demerara, Guyana.

He joined the Progressive Youth Organisation as a youth and after completing his high school studies, pursued higher education in Russia.

Becoming an economist by profession, President Jagdeo earned a Master’s Degree in Economics from the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.

Returning to Guyana in 1990, he worked in the state planning secretariat and continued with PPP work. After the "free and fair" elections of 1992, he was appointed junior minister within the Ministry of Finance from where he was quickly promoted.

President Jagdeo served as Minister of Finance from 1995 to 1999 when, at age 35, he was appointed Guyana’s president, after violent street protests by the PNCR forced President Janet Jagan to resign due to ill health. While finance minister, and as president, he headed the negotiations that led to the write off the US$2.1 million debt the PNC had left around the neck of Guyana.

He was one of the youngest heads of government in the world and the PNCR decided to test his mettle with continued street protests, under Desmond Hoyte's strategy of "slow fyaah; mo fyaah". In 2001, Jagdeo was elected as president, but the violence was ratcheted up with five escaped prisoners

launching a full scale war against the state and the perceived Indian supporters of the PPPC in surrounding villages. Yet the economy continued to grow under his guidance.

He was re-elected in September 2006 and the violence surged from everyday attacks against Indians and the police to the gang launching gruesome massacres - at Agricola, on the East Bank Demerara, Lusignan on the East Coast Demerara, Lindo Creek in the Hinterland and at Bartica President Jagdeo signed into law, for the first time in Guyana, a two-term limit for a president. Against all odds the economy grew faster than that of any other regional economy.

In 2011, President Jagdeo completed his second term as president and stepped down - to the consternation of his detractors who had confidently predicted that he was seeking a "third term".

In September 2005, President Jagdeo was elected chairman of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group, a position he occupied until September 2006.

He was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award by the Government of India in 2004 and the Pushkin Medal by the Government of Russia in 2008.

In 2010, President Jagdeo was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate by the People’s Friendship University of Russia and in 2011 he also received an

Former President Bharrat Jagdeo

Honorary Doctorate from the DY Patil University of Mumbai, India.

President Jagdeo was named by Time Magazine and CNN as one of their “Heroes of the Environment 2008”, and in 2010 he was awarded by the United Nations as a “Champion of the Earth”.

In 2011 President Jagdeo was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for Global Tropical Forest by the Leaders of the Amazonian, Congo and Borneo-Mekong forest basins.

Moses Nagamootoo

From someone who knew him: Introduction

by Moses Nagamootoo

Speech at Good Hope, ECD PPP Rally, 19 August, 2006 "When BJ came to office in 1999, he was tested by fire of POLITICAL ARSONISTS WHO SET THE CITY ON FIRE; THEN HE WAS CHALLENGED BY THE CRIMINAL GANG AND THEIR BACKERS. But he arose from the ashes and,

like a Phoenix, he emerged victorious in the 2001 elections. He stamped his own style of leadership, one that saw him in the trenches – out in front.

If he was tested by fire, by 2002 he was challenged by terrorism from the prison escapees – the like of which was never seen in this land before. It was brutal, senseless, and cold-blooded. Then by floods. Someone told me he was the “Teflon Guy” – water does not penetrate him.

But he stood the test of time, and we now know that he is made of the good stuff.

Like MOSES, he parted the flood waters and made this land dry and wholesome again!

Bharrat Jagdeo deserves credit for his leadership.

Reward him with a second term. It is always sweeter than the first. He is hardworking and capable. He has his fingers on the pulse of the nation’s problems and, in all cases, he has delivered solutions.

I have watched Bharrat Jagdeo with unbiased eyes.

I see in him a good person, who loves his country dearly, who portrays love of all races, love of children and our youth, and concern for the elderly. Moreover, I see in him as a leader with an agenda to push development. I share his broad vision to modernize this country, so we may create more jobs, more opportunities, and raise the standard of living of all."

Jagdeo against antiIndian racism

At the funeral of PPP leader Reepu Daman Persaud, in April 2013, Jagdeo, the former president pointed out: “in the mean politics of Guyana, a resurgence in a hidden way” of anti-Indian Guyanese sentiment is unfolding.

He illustrated his point by noting: “Recently, 38 persons… of East Indian descent were used in a case to say that the PPP, because they (are) employed in the public service, is practicing discrimination – that we are giving people of Indianorigin preferences.”

The case Jagdeo was referring to was one he had filed against the Kaieteur News and its columnist Freddie Kissoon for libel allegedly contained in his column. Kissoon’s defence was that the former president and his administration were practicing ‘ideological racism’.

Addressing the specific allegation on the hiring of East Indians as public servants, the Stabroek News admitted that Jagdeo defended his point by stating: “Now a lot of those people have served either 30 years in the public service, even when we were in the opposition but the only reason their names were in the list… is because of their origin; their East Indian origin”.

“What is the message to people of East Indian origin?” the former president asked. The answer, he posited was that, “If you’re PPP or PNC; if you’re Christian, Hindu or Muslim; if you’re sugar worker or a professional, once you’re of Indian origin, you should keep your children home, don’t send them to school. Because, if, heaven forbid, they become qualified and they get a job and the PPP is in office, then it has to be not because of our merit but rather our race.”

No one can contest the truth that during the period of Indian indentureship and its immediate aftermath, it was the policy of the colonial government to keep the Indians on the sugar plantations – more specifically, as stated by one

planter in front of a Royal Commission, if not in the fields, then either in jail or in the hospital.

The colonial government turned a blind eye to the open violation of the law of the land that all children should attend school, and acquiesced in their exploitation of the aptly named “creole gang” in which they were trained for the jobs thought suitable for them: hewers of wood and haulers of water.

Entry into the Civil Service, seen as the apex of colonial vocational aspiration, was circumscribed because of the “old boy” referral system of the British and coloured elites and their stereotypes of the role of the “coolie”.

As late as 1935, after Cheddi Jagan graduated from Queen’s College, he could not obtain a job in the civil service. He recounted that his father asked the then Indian leader and member of the legislature, Dr Jang Bahadur Singh, to assist and was told that he would be better off sending the young Jagan ‘abroad’.

It was this kind of discrimination against Indians in the state sector that forced them to fall back on their own resources to survive in the private sector.

Their premise is that, once an Indian Guyanese is appointed or promoted, then it is automatically a matter of “favouritism” or “cronyism”. This is what prompted Jagdeo’s ironic comment that the message to Indian parents is that they should not bother to educate their children.

Every Guyanese ought to have equal opportunity, and everyone should be treated with dignity and not be judged because of their ethnicity.

Former President Jagdeo had the courage to raise an issue that should not be covered up but discussed openly.

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

P

resident Donald Ramotar was presented with the prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award. This honour is endowed on individuals of exceptional merit and is in appreciation of their roles in India’s growth.

He was honoured for his immense contribution in the field of public service and for fostering ties between India and Guyana. He was among 15 non-residential Indians (NRIs) who were honoured.

The award is conferred on persons of Indian origin or an organisation or institution established and run

by NRIs or persons of Indian origin, who have made significant contribution in any one of the following fields: better understanding abroad of India, support to India’s causes and concerns in a tangible way, building closer links between India, the overseas Indian community and their country of residence, social and humanitarian causes in India or abroad, welfare of the local Indian community, and philanthropic and charitable work, eminence in one’s field or outstanding work.

The award ceremony, held in Mahatma Mandir Gandhinagar, Gujarat,

India, concluded the threeday Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) Convention, which was attended by approximately 4,000 delegates from different countries.

The convention is an initiative to connect India to its vast overseas diaspora, and bring their knowledge, expertise and skills, to a common platform. This flagship event has been coordinated by the Government of India, through the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), since 2003.

PBD is celebrated on January 9 every year, to mark the contribution of the overseas Indian community in the development of India. This date was chosen as the day to celebrate this occasion, in memory of Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest Pravasi, who returned to India from South Africa on this day in 1915, and who led India’s freedom struggle, which changed the lives of Indians forever.

These conventions provide a platform to the overseas Indian community, allowing them to engage with the government and people of the country, as part of their ancestral history and for mutually beneficial activities.

Indian gov’t bestows President Ramotar with prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, Jan 9, 2015

President Ramotar secured a loan for a road, help for the sugar industry and a gift of two ferries.

Mr Donald Rabindranauth Ramotar was sworn-in as the Seventh Executive President of the Republic of Guyana on December 3rd, 2011.

He was born in Guyana,

President Ramotar chats with Indian President Narendra Modi at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention

South America Oct 22, 1950 in the village of Caria Caria (in the county of Essequibo) on the Essequibo River, to Sam Ramotar and s Olive Constantine.

His father, originally from Uitvlugt on the West Coast of Demerara, was a timber grant operator and his mother a housewife, born in the interior of mixed parentage. He is the fourth of nine children.

Mr Ramotar received his primary education at Caria Caria Congregational School and the St. Andrews Primary School in Georgetown. He later pursued studies at the Government Technical Institute before becoming a graduate of the Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Guyana. He also pursued studies in the former Soviet Union.

Mr Ramotar began his working career on his father’s timber grant on the Essequibo River, after which he worked at the Guyana Import and Export Co. Ltd. (GIMPEX), the com-

President Donald Ramotar addressing the audience at the Dharmic Sabha’s 40th Anniversary

mercial arm of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), between 1966 and 1975.

In 1975 he was appointed manager of Freedom House, the Party’s headquarters; a position which he held for eight years. He would remain in the PPP engaged in political work. From 1983 to 1988, he served as a member of the editorial council of the magazine Problems of Peace and Socialism.

Returning to Guyana, he served as the international secretary of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) between 1988 and 1993. In this position, he gained invaluable experience and insight into the travails of the sugar workers who remained predominantly Indian in origin.

Having joined the PPP as a youth in 1967, he has been in the party’s leadership since 1979 after his election to the Central Committee of the party. Mr Ramotar became a member of the Executive Committee of the Party in 1983 and assumed the position of executive secretary one year after the PPP/Civic was elected to form the government in 1992. He became the General Secretary of the par-

ty in March 1997 after the death of the then General Secretary Dr Cheddi Jagan - the founder of the PPP. Mr Ramotar has had extensive experience within the party, and has represented the party on numerous occasions overseas. He has published a number of articles in the local newspapers and was a regular columnist for the Mirror newspaper, a publication of the People’s Progressive Party.

He has served on corporate Boards, and was also a member of the African Caribbean and Pacific European Union (ACPEU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly and served as the vice president and a bureau member of that organisation. Mr Ramotar has been a member of Guyana’s Parliament since 1992.

In 2011, after President Bharrat Jagdeo stepped down from the presidency after fulfilling his two terms, Donald Ramotar became the PPPC's presidential candidate and was elected to the presidency at the elections of Nov 11.

He is married to Mrs Deolatchmee Ramotar and is the father of three children.

Singing with superstar Sonu Nigam Indian Arrival Day Concert May 2012 ...doing a cover of Momhammed Rafi's Patthar ke Sanam

8 Times Indian Arrival Magazine

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Indians and Politics in Guyana

F

ollowing the December 1997 elections in Guyana - the first one held in following the first free and fair elections in 28 years - 1992 the losing PNC protested the results and launched massive street protests in Georgetown.

On Jan 12 1998, in what was described by the Stabroek News as "Terror in the city", hundreds of citizens were beaten, robbed and molested in broad daylight and full sight of the police. There was absolutely no provocation for the attacks - the Indian Guyanese were merely being used as political objects to make a point.

When there was no investigation into the outrage, a group of Indian professionals formed the "Guyanese Indian Foundation Trust (GIFT)" and conducted a private Inquiry and Report.

Even Eusi Kwayana, who disputed some analysis in the report, found that the facts presented were credible.

Below are excerpts from

and robbery. Among these were a significant number of school children. Based on these accounts, and using the lower estimate we find that the number of persons who suffered actual violations must be in excess of one thousand (1000).

The testimonies state that thousands of Indian Guyanese had to be locked in their place of work or take refuge in safe places.

We estimate that these were in excess of 10,000. It must be recognised that all these people suffered mental terror because they were victims since they were under the threat of violence had their freedom taken away.

Each of these persons had to be evacuated from the city by special and extraordinary means. The persons, who were involved in this evacuation were themselves exposed to grave danger. They were all victims.

2. Ethnicity Of the 228 testimonies, 224 identified themselves as Indian Guyanese. The remaining four did not answer

were 85 (37.3 per cent) women victims. In analysing violations of these 85 women we have found that 51 (60 per cent) were robbed and 41 (48.2 per cent) suffered verbal abuse.

Of the total number of 228 victims, there were 85 women victims 44 (51.8 per cent) were physically and sexually abused.

Here we must understand that touching a female without her permission constitutes a violation of her sexual privacy, that is, sexual molestation. In this regard women were twice vic-

Table 1

the GIFT Report: Section 1: Introduction On January 12, 1998, to quote the Stabroek News of the following day, there was "terror in the city." Almost simultaneously in different parts of the city mobs unleashed widespread acts of beating, robbery and sexual molestation. The similarity with the previous disorders is uncanny. Once again the PPP won a general election.

And once again the PNC did not see it fit to work within the Rule of Law, but instead chose to embark on a course of action and tactics, the logical consequence of which was January 12, according to the Guyana Human Rights Association.

Section 2: Results 1.

Number of Respondents: The names of 303 victims were identified to us but testimonies were obtained from 228.

Of the 228 statements, there were 143 males and 85 females. 170 individuals reported seeing other Indians, either individually or in groups of 8-10, and in a significant number of cases entire bus loads, being subjected to physical molestation

this question.

3. Reason for the assault In response to the question why victims felt that they were attacked we have obtained the following responses. (Table 1) 4. Comments made during the attacks: The comments made during the attacks again indicate that race was the principal factor in these violations: ... we go kill a you coolie [Ramnarine Arjune 0516]; we’re gonna kill you coolie ---- [Niaz Al Mansoor A3806]; let’s wuk up this bus it gat coolies [Virendra V3806]; coolie gon dead today [Jayashri Sinha S3964]; black people a run country, na coolie [Nita Bahadur B9087]; bus he head, you coolie s---- [Lenny Cork C 2418] 5. Type of Violations Among the 228 victims, there were 144 (63.1 per cent) cases of robbery, 97 (42.54 per cent) cases of verbal abuse, and 129 (56.58 per cent) cases of physical abuse.

6. Women Victims Of the total number there

tims. As Indians they were victims and as women they were victims. Here is one example of many, based on the women’s testimonies, of the kinds of violations that Indian women suffered on January 12.

“I refused to do so and he placed the knife at my throat and scrambled my clothes. I retaliated but he continued to grab on to my clothing... he tore off my blouse and I was left naked. My brother had to cover me.” [Begum Arifa A33676] The above testimony suffices to demonstrate a pervasive tactic in the disturbance was to humiliate the Indian female.

9. Loss and Damages The documentation shows that there was widespread destruction of property including damage to vehicles and business properties. Theft from victims and businesses was prevalent. A preliminary quantification based on the present testimonies show that a sum of over $3,235,000 in cash was stolen from victims as they were systematically robbed. Further, the documentation has shown that several stallholders in

Bourda Market and other victims were looted of goods and other valuables to the amount of over $10,000,000.

This does not include the value of jewellery, handbags etc., stolen from victims and destruction to private property such as windscreens.

Section 3: The Perpetrators

1. Number involved in attacks Respondents have given principally two sets of numbers. In one case numbers ranged from 5-20 and in the other 20 and more. A few of the statements show that there have also been individual assailants. The statements speak of gangs of young blacks sweeping across the city with amazing speed and this would be possible if the gangs were kept at an appropriate size, that is, large enough to overpower single individuals and small enough to move swiftly.

2. Racial Breakdown Each of the 228 cases examined show that the perpetrators were entirely blacks, eliminating all doubts whatsoever about the racist nature of the disorder.

3. Gender classification Of the 228 statements, in 92 cases the gangs were mixed with both males and females. In 108 cases it was men alone and in 4 cases it was women alone. 14 of the statements made no mention of the attackers. What strikes one reviewing these statements is the large number of women assailants and the viciousness with which they attacked not only men but their fellow women as well. Here are some statements in part of the acts of violence committed by Black women in exclusively Black gangs: 4. Age The average age of the attackers ranged between 20 and 30. However a significant number of statements reveal that even black boys and girls, with ages ranging from 14-17, were involved in the gangs. The presence of children engaging in acts of

terror must constitute one of the more perturbing aspects of January 12 and points to a deeper social and cultural malaise.

5. How they were armed In every case people in the gangs were armed with guns, knives, cutlasses, sticks and clubs, broken bottles, bricks, iron rods, and galvanised pipes, in short any object that could inflict pain and injury and which could be used for the purposes of intimidation and terror.

Section 4: The Role of the Police

1. Extent of police presence The police were conspicuous by their absence. Of the 228 statements examined regarding police presence and assistance fully 170 state that the police were nowhere to be seen. In 26 cases the police were present but rendered no assistance. In 6 cases the police were present and helped. 26 of the respondents did not comment on police presence or absence.

Section 5: Conclusion

What does this documentation of the victims’ experience tell us?

It tells us that January 12 was not a minor infraction by a "few" hooligans.

It tells us that the perpetrators came well prepared and well armed. It tells us that January 12 was a well orchestrated efficiently executed exercise in terror of major proportions.

It tells us that it was nakedly and explicitly racist.

Indian Guyanese were consciously selected out for brutalisation. They were attacked not for their political persuasions. They were attacked not because of their religious persuasions. They were attacked not for anything else but that they were seen to be Indians. Such deliberate, unabashed racism presents a most frightening spectre and bodes ill for the future.

It tells us that a large number of women and even children were victims.

Traditionally in conflicts

and confrontations women and children have always been held to be sacrosanct, and are to be spared and protected. This time honoured tradition was broken on January 12. It reveals a deep and frightening cruelty. Indian women were doubly violated, first because of their very womanhood and second because of their race.

It tells us that African Guyanese women could find it within themselves to degrade and brutalise their fellow Indian Guyanese women.

It tells us that these attacks were always unprovoked.

It tells us that the police were conspicuous by their absence. This is remarkable and mysterious. We must remember that after the December 15 general elections the PNC had engaged in a relentless build-up of racist hysteria and ‘confrontationalism’.

The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Laurie Lewis, is quoted in the Sunday Chronicle January 11, 1998 condemning the violent behaviour of PNC supporters thus: "It is not peaceful to make children fearful, it is not peaceful to curse people, and it is not peaceful to bang on doors calling persons by name and saying they have ten minutes to get out of the building."

January 12 could not have been unanticipated, thus the apparent unpreparedness of the police and failure to minimise or prevent this disorder demands an explanation.

It tells us that the very livelihood of Indian Guyanese was threatened.

More than 60 per cent of the victims were in the city because of their jobs.

It tells us that at least there were six African Guyanese who exposed themselves to risks to help Indian Guyanese during the dark events of this terrible day. In one of these six cases an African male took a wounded Indian Guyanese boy to the hospital, waited until he was treated and then ensured his safe exit out of the city. There must still be hope.

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

“I

East Coast Violence: The GIHA Crime Report

’m doing this because I don’t like coolie.” These were the words Anita Singh heard as she was held in her North Melanie home with a knife to her throat by an African Guyanese terrorist. The day was August 2 and the year 2002. What the African proceeded to do was to cut off Anita’s long hair, the pride of many Indian women, in an act of cultural rape.

A photograph of Anita with her shortened hair and the vile words spoken to her serve as the epigraph of the GIHA Crime Report published in 2002. The Guyana Indian Heritage Association’s report entitled “Indians Betrayed: Black on Indian Violence” included first-hand accounts such as Anita’s, analyses of the history that led to the atrocities and reports of the incidents themselves that were done

by Indian leaders such as Swami Aksharananda, Ravi Dev, Ryhaan Shah, and Indian Guyanese in the diaspora including Dr Ramesh Gampat and Dr Somdat Mahabir.

The period investigated spanned one year starting from February 23, 2002 with the jailbreak of five prisoners that quickly devolved into PNC political violence and ignited a spree of terrorist violation and banditry against Indians along the East Coast in particular.

This only abated with the advent of what is known in local folklore as the “phantoms.”

During the year that was investigated, there was an almost daily run of atrocities. The report also included some of the worst horrors that occurred prior to this period in the 2001 post elections violence like that of Mala Phagoo’s.

Mala was set on fire when a channa bomb was hurled into the bus in which she was travelling. This was done in Buxton. Her long hair caught fire and as she ran down the road screaming, she recalled that the women of Buxton lined the road and laughed and jeered. She said that it appeared that the whole scene was like a movie script being enacted for their entertainment. Mala eventually went overseas for medical attention and still bears the scars of her ordeal.

On August 28, 2002, Non Pariel was attacked by a group of about 12 young terrorists. In that attack, Haroon Rasheed, 65, was doused with kerosene and set alight. He died in hospital from his burns on September 1, 2002.

On October 25, 2002, goldsmith Kumardat Ramprashad of Cove and John, and his daughter

Gomattie, 14, were kidnapped and held in Buxton and a ransom demanded for their safe return. They were only released when the family gathered up enough money and jewellery to satisfy the kidnappers. They were given a message to take to the government.

This was the message: that all the crime was only

31, 2002, the body of Jinga Motilall of Annandale was found in the backdam. He had been kidnapped the previous day. On Christmas Eve 2002, Mohabir Lall was shot at his home in Non Pariel and died four days later. On January 8, 2003, PC Nandkumar Mohabir was shot dead as he was driving through Buxton. On

2008 notorious killer Rondel 'Fineman' Rawlins

a beginning of the reign of terror to get the government to resign; that they would go into Indian communities and slaughter Indian business people like animals; that they controlled up to 70 percent of the army and police; that the president must resign and allow a black man to rule; that they wanted more guns; and that they wanted every black boy in Buxton to have a gun to rob and kill Indians and get rich.

This family has since emigrated.

On May 11, 2002, businessman Ramdeo Persaud and his wife Sita, of KC Candy, Annandale, were shot dead in their home. On June 26, 2002, Mohamed Kayan Baksh of MetenMeer-Zorg was killed at his home. On July 22, 2002, a group of heavily armed bandits terrorized Rose Hall Town, Corentyne, just after the conclusion of a PPP/C general conference.

The spree ended with three dead: PC Outar Kissoon, PC Ramphal Pardat, and Balram Kanhai, 18, of Essequibo who was a delegate at the conference. On October 29, 2002, Ramdial Desai was shot and killed. On October

January 19, 2003, Ralph Bassoo of Better Hope was killed. On January 22, 2003, Leonard Parjohn was shot dead. On January 24, 2003, Yacoob Mohamed of Better Hope was shot in the head and killed.

This is by no means a complete list of the atrocities, which included rape, assaults, kidnappings and robberies. It was a time of runaway terror and everyone lived in fear of the bullets. The terrorists were well armed with AK-47s and other guns and rifles, and there was no doubt that the PNC was in collusion or in charge of the operations.

Swami Aksharananda in his article in the GIHA Crime Report addressed the black on Indian violence in Guyana and wrote about the role of the police and army in that violence. He referenced the GIFT (Guyana Indian Foundation Trust) report compiled in the aftermath of the post January 1998 violence in Georgetown. Of the 228 statements examining the role of the police, 170 persons said the police were nowhere to be seen and in the 26 instances when police was present they offered no assistance to the Indian victims.

Swami added that what GIFT discovered was already known from 34 years earlier during the Wismar Massacre in May 1964 when the Black population and the Black police colluded and never rendered any help to the Indians who were being assaulted, raped and murdered.

In their report on the criminal transfer of wealth during the 2002-2003 period, Dr Gampat and Dr Mahabir carried out indepth analyses of the crimes and concluded that all 18 of the kidnap victims were Indians and all the perpetrators were Africans. Two of the kidnapped were killed, 6 escaped and 9 released on the payment of a total of $85 million in ransom.

The entire loot carried off by the bandits is estimated at $176.8 million. Of that amount, 84 per cent was stolen from Indians, 9 per cent from Africans, 2.9 per cent from others, and another 2.9 per cent from organizations or unknown subjects. The total loss in property damage is estimated at $231.9 million, of which 80 per cent was suffered by Indians.

In her article, which examined the way the media handled the reports of the crimes, Ryhaan Shah showed how evasive language was used throughout the period to shield the racial identity of the perpetrators. She noted their failure to report ethnic violence as ethnic violence with editorial language that helped shape public opinion and created an impression that all races were involved in the terrorism in equal measure.

Even though all the victims of kidnappings were Indians, Stabroek News in an editorial of October 28, 2002, stated that kidnapping was a “problem for the hapless men and women and children who have been snatched ….” We were always hapless and innocent but we were never Indian.

With no public record and acknowledgement of the facts, the terrorism was easily rewritten, as happened in 2001 with the publication of the Emancipation magazine, published by “historian” David Granger. The magazine cover was emblazoned with the title “Buxton Uprising” and carried a report that glorified the terrorism as an African revolution. It made no mention of the channa bombs thrown in buses, and of the rapes, kidnappings and murders of Indians.

In his article in the Crime Report, Mr Dev dealt with Guyana’s ethnic security dilemma between Indians and Africans and stated that because the rules of our

political system allocates executive control of the government to the party with the most votes, Africans feel they are doomed to remain in the opposition forever. For the African population, this is untenable hence their propensity to initiate violence against the people they see as standing in their way of power and control.

He proposed the creation of new institutions that would offer incentives to both ethnic groups that would move them forward from the present “win-lose” scenario to a “win-win” one.

He did not see this as a totality of the needed changes but a beginning that would address the insecurities of both groups and lead to more reforms and changes in the way we govern ourselves.

The preliminary findings of the GIHA Crime Report were presented at the Hotel Tower on June 2, 2003, and were met with denial and criticism from the PNC. The PNC has never

admitted the engineering and execution of ethnic terrorism in any of its political history though the truth of this is common knowledge.

An editorial in Stabroek News of August 11, 2002, asked the PNC: “Has the leading opposition party forgotten so quickly the sense of oppression which the Indians felt during its long years in office …?

Give the parameters, exactly what is it the PNC wants? Its leadership is not so unsophisticated as not to know that achieving power by force is not an option ….”

The answer to SN’s question as to what it is the PNC wants is, of course, power, a return to power.

Through its AFC partners, Messrs Moses Nagamootoo and Kemraj Ramjattan, the PNC wants Indians to forget its past and vote for the coalition in order to win a return to that past through the ballot boxes.

Summary of Politics since 1997 by the CIA Polity IV Country Report 2010: Guyana Political Instability Task Force (PITF). The PITF is funded by the Central Intelligence Agency.

December 1997 elections, the now named People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) again polled the majority of legislative seats and Janet Jagan, Cheddi Jagan’s widow, was named president. Although the opposition PNC alleged that the December 1997 elections were rigged, international observers declared them to be “free and fair.” While the elections were free from violence, the months immediately following the voting were filled with street protests and sporadic political violence.

Bharrat Jagdeo assumed the presidency in 1999 following the resignation of Janet Jagan. The ruling PPP/C was returned to power in March 2001 elections when it secured 52 percent of the popular vote, compared to 42 percent for the People's National Congress/ Reform (PNC/R).

However, the results were disputed and there were violent clashes in the capital between rival groups of supporters. The PNC/R refused to concede defeat and appealed to the High Court to prevent the inauguration of President-elect Bharrat Jagdeo. However, the election was judged to have been basically fair, despite administrative and procedural inadequacies, by international observers. It was announced on 21 March 2001 that former US President Jimmy Carter had brokered an agreement between the two parties which committed the two parties to a program of constitutional and electoral reform. However, the PNC/R boycotted legislative proceedings for 14 months between March 2002 and May 2003.

The potential for ethnic instability in this country can be seen most recently in the aftermath of the 1997 elections. Claiming the PPP won through fraud, the PNC mobilized its supporters into street protests as its members in parliament staged a seven-month boycott of the National Assembly.

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Beyond history or historical amnesia?

By Swami Aksharananda

A

lot has been already said by politicians on both sides in this current campaign to cause consternation, but the one thing that surpasses them all is the call made by one of the leaders of the AFC, Mr Khemraj Ramjattan, “to move beyond the history of the PNC,” (SN 4/3/2015). This is like granting unconditional amnesty on the one hand, and an invitation to historical amnesia on the other. After all, amnesty is amnesia. The two are related.

The PNC has had a long and chequered history in Guyana since its inception almost sixty years ago, including those tumultuous years in government of party paramountcy, when there was no difference between party, state and government.

Since Mr Ramjattan himself knows only too well this history, it would have been helpful to us if he had stated which specific events and which period in the history of the PNC he has in mind.

We agree that invoking history for the purposes of the present political discourse can be fraught with danger.

Olivier Nyirubugara, the author of “Complexities and Dangers of Remembering and Forgetting in Rwanda” speaks of the ways in which “ethnic identities and related memories constitute a deadly trap that needs to be torn apart if mass violence is to be eradicated in that country.”

He shows how “memories” follow ethnic lines and lead to a state of “cultural hypocrisy” and permanent conflict.

We see how politicians and demagogues, scholars and intellectuals around the world always want us to remember the “lessons of history” to justify policy, influence opinion and win votes.

Khemraj Ramjattan

Americans are reminded of Pearl Harbour as an annual ritual, and China uses every dispute with its neighbours to remind its population of Japanese atrocities.

Here in Guyana, our intellectuals talk of the “second enslavement” of blacks, presumably by Indians, and a while ago when Indian students topped the CXC both at CAPE and CSEC we heard about “apartheid in education.” Since 1992, we never cease to hear about the “twenty eight years.”

Having accepted the view that history is often manipulated for propaganda purposes, I am unaware of the call anywhere in the world to forget history without any accountability. To underscore the importance of history, the inimitable George Orwell is reputed to have said: “Whoever controls the past controls the future. Whoever controls the present controls the past.”

History is wound up in the very theologies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And as far as the Jews are concerned, we know no people has insisted more that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny.

We can’t simply wish away the Holocaust of Jews, the horrors of the Atlantic

Slave Trade, the Soviet programme under Stalin, the Kurdish genocide, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Rwanda genocide, the American destruction of Vietnam, the European decimation of the indigenous populations of the Americas and the Caribbean, and particularly the genocide of the Native American Indians.

We have a duty to remember history.

Pope Francis has recently reminded the world of the Armenian genocide much to the annoyance of current Turkish leaders, as the world is marking its 100th anniversary.

It has been reported that the Chinese President Xi Jinping is calling on Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to take responsibility of Japanese atrocities both before and during the Second World War, and Abe is expected to make a major statement to mark the 70th anniversary marking the end of the war. Nazi war criminals and the perpetrators of the Bosnian genocide are hunted down and brought to justice.

Those of us who follow events in the United States will know that no American politician, including Obama, speaks without invoking, “our founding fathers,” many of whom were slave owners. Only recently, days after Mr Ramjattan’s bizarre call, President Obama, paying homage to John Lewis and other heroes of the Civil Rights movement, stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the event that was the turning point in the Civil Rights movement.

In Guyana, we have our own version of Black History Month and Guyanese are involved in the struggle for reparations for slavery which, hopefully, will be-

Rural dwelling, West Coast Demerara. Logies of Leonora Estate, once occupied by plantation workers (Photo courtesy of National Trust of Guyana)

come a reality one day. We observe Emancipation Day and Arrival Month. We remember the Berbice Slave Rebellion and have set up one of the most imposing monuments, at the Square of the Revolution, in its memory, and we teach our children about the Demerara Martyr, John Smith. We remember the Enmore Martyrs. We never forget the Haitian Revolution that shook empires all around the world.

Mere remembering, however, without healing and closure will only ensure permanent suspicion and conflict. Nelson Mandela has shown how we can remember and heal at the same time. Under the guidance of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africans have been engaged in one of the most momentous experiments in world history aiming at truth and reconciliation. The lesson for us in Guyana is that either we seek reconciliation or live in perpetual fear of one another.

Let us bear in mind that reconciliation is not what Mr Ramjattan is advocating. He is not calling for us to guard against the “malady of history” in the Nietzschean sense, where it can be manipulated for cheap political gains, nor is he pointing out to us the pitfalls of “historicism” as described by Karl Popper.

He is simply urging an arbitrary blanket, ugly one-sided cover-up of a sordid phase of our history. But exactly, which particular events of PNC history he wants us to forget?

Does he have in mind for example the accommodation the PNC had with Britain and the United States to remove the PPP from office? Does he have in mind the massacre of Indians in Wismar, or the rigged elections from 1968 to 1985,

Swami Aksharananda

with thousands of dead people voting? Does he have in mind the terror unleashed on this nation by the thugs of the House of Israel, or when being “caught” with a loaf of bread was a criminal offence?

Or the terror when a prominent trade unionist was taken aboard a GDF plane and threatened to be thrown overboard or the in famous Knowledge Sharing Institutes when women had to barter their bodies for food for their children? Or, does he have in mind the many political murders culminating with the murder of Walter Rodney?

There are other questions that surround Mr. Ramjattan’s call. Who, for example, is his target audience? He obviously could not be asking the PNC and the authors and perpetrators of that history to move beyond their own history. After all, the PNC stands adamantly defiant regarding its history.

Time and again, the current leader of the PNC, who himself boasts of the credentials of a historian, has said in no uncertain terms that there is nothing to apologize for. On the contrary, there is talk of building a memorial for the victims of the ill-fated Sun Chapman. What is there to move beyond when there is nothing to apologize for? So it is reasonable to conclude that he is asking the Indians of this country, who to a large extent perceive themselves as the victims of that history, to forget it. I believe that Mr Ramjattan lost a golden opportunity. If he wanted Indians to forget PNC atroci-

ties, the least he could have done was to call for PNC accountability. After all there is the precedent of Mr. Raphael Trotman who urged the PNC to apologize for its excesses. Had he shown the same courage and fortitude, then the Indians of this country could begin to take him seriously. Otherwise, political ambitions apart, we would simply be piling injustice upon injustice.

It is interesting to note that the coalition campaign fancies success because of the large number of young voters who have no knowledge of the PNC era. Would it not be better for young voters to be educated about our history? To gleefully exploit and prey upon young people’s alleged ignorance is one thing. To conspire to enable ignorance is quite another. This is what Mr Ramjattan’s invitation to historical amnesia will ensure.

In conclusion, I am not sure whether Mr Ramjattan’s call reflected a genuine desire for reconciliation, in which case, onesided as it is, it could have warranted some serious consideration. It is obvious that he sees the history of the PNC as a major impediment to his political aspirations. But, in directly calling on Indians to move beyond this history of the PNC, he is asking Indians to negate and deny their own experiences. He could go down in history as yet another Indian politician sacrificing Indians on the altar of political expediency and his personal ambition.

Cane carrier and mill dock, Plantation Skeldon

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

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n May 5 1838, the first group of Indian indentured workers, some 244 persons (five died on the 112-day sea voyage) arrived in British Guiana, bringing with them their religious traditions.

One hundred and seventy-seven years ago saw the beginning of Indian immigration of Hindu and Muslim Indians. They had arrived to replace African slave labour on the plantations of what was then British Guiana.

Among indentured labourers, 83.6 per cent were Hindus while some 16.3 per cent were Muslims; by the end of indentureship, some 90 per cent of the Indian population on the colony comprised Muslims and Hindus.

During the long sea voyage, the concept of sisterhood and brotherhood (jahajis and jahajins - ship brothers/sisters) emerged, collectively viewed as mati, said to be a likely reference to (ship) mates.

With the shared trials and hardships of indentureship on the colony, both Hindus and Muslims, work-

ing together in the fields and crowded into logies, developed stronger ties, mostly severing the ever-present Muslim-Hindu tensions of their Motherland. Among the Hindus put to labour regardless of caste, their caste system too declined.

Separation from the Motherland did not however diminish their devotion to their religions. Though they may have had to cast off old traditions and systems, their religion did not remain static nor was it forgotten.

Instead, it was renewed and adapted to their new circumstances.

Methodist proselytizer H.V.P. Bronkhurst, who wrote often on 19th century Guianese life, noted the difficulty in converting the Muslim and Hindu immigrants to Christianity. Most Muslims remained staunchly unmoved by Christian efforts of conversion.

By 1931, almost 74 per cent of the Indian population were Hindu while almost 17 per cent were Muslim, as compared to the 6.9 per cent who converted

Of significance is the fact that it was the British Guiana Brahmans who embraced all castes into the Sanatan Dharma, the Hindu mainstream.

Historians note this newfound equality encouraged the low castes in particular to retain the Hindu faith.

to Christianity. Some suggest many also converted for the social benefits such as teaching jobs.

South Asian Islam in British Guiana

While Islam is said to have been introduced into British Guiana from the African Mandingo and Fulani Muslims brought by slavery, South Asian Islam was introduced during the period of indentureship with the arrival of more than 90 Sunni Muslims.

With the harsh conditions of slavery all but wiping out traces of African Islam, the South Asian indentureship saw Urduspeaking Muslims, many well educated, arriving on the colony.

A common language developed in the Indian subcontinent from a cultural and linguistic blend, Urdu was brought to Guyana by Muslims who came from different areas of the Indian subcontinent such as Uttar Pradesh, Sind, the Punjab, the Deccan, Kashmir and the North West Frontier

Maintaining religious unity

“Mohammedan priest” in British Guiana circa 1900s (Stark’s Guide and History of British Guiana)

(Afghan areas).

One of Guyana's oldest mosques, the Queenstown Jama Masjid, was founded by the Afghan community, which is said to have arrived from India.

However, by 1950, Urdu started fading with the introduction of Islamic texts in English, and it has today almost disappeared. The association of Arabic with Muslims is new in Guyana, and Muslim children today are taught Arabic and Urdu in a religious context at Muslim schools.

The United Sad'r Islamic Anjuman, described as the oldest surviving Islamic organization in Guyana, offers Urdu in its instructional programme for teaching the qasida (hymns that sing praises to God and the Prophet).

they were revered among the Guianese Hindu religious.

In the face of Christian proselytizing, Brahmans visited homes on the plantations, performing Hindu religious ceremonies and rituals, and also acting as advisors to families and communities wishing to retain their Hindu faith.

Over the years, both Hindu and Muslim religions retain an important presence in Guyanese society.

Along with Christianity, these main religions have seen Guyana provide a stellar example of religious tolerance better than many places in the world.

Despite the continuing conversion of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity, many Hindus and Muslims in Guyana still maintain strong bonds with their traditional religious heritages.

Some, from following generations, also reconvert to the Hinduism or Islam of their immigrant ancestors.

With the freedom to open and maintain their own schools and places of worship, as well as access to TV, radio and internet programming to broadcast their own religious and cultural shows, Guyana can boast of equal opportunities for religious groups across the country.

Brought together by an insensitive system, the strong Indian religious heritage in Guyana stands testament to a proud, faithful and resilient people.

The role of the Hindu Brahman

Sugar factory at work, Plantation Skeldon n.d. (Berbice Gazette)

A photograph of The Clyde, which brought indentured immigrants from Calcutta to Demerara (Photo by the British Library)

At the beginning of the 20th century, Brahman immigrants and other high castes comprised 13.6 per cent in British Guiana. The Brahmans traditionally earned a living in the priesthood; but arriving in the colony, with its focus on agriculture, many were now cultivators, though they had with them the holy books of their religion.

According to historians, among the Hindus, it was the Brahman pandits of British Guiana, who attended to the spiritual needs of the plantation labourers that helped maintain the Hindu heritage.

In British Guiana, Brahmans retained their privileged position in Indian society. As the only link to the Hindu religion because of their priestly knowledge,

The late Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud played a pivotal role among Hindus of independent Guyana

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e ought not to be ashamed of appreciating the truth and of obtaining it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us.” Al-Kindi, ninthcentury Muslim scholar who studied in Baghdad, Iraq (“1001 Inventions The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization”, Third Ed) In March 2006, a small exhibition called ‘1001 Inventions’ toured the UK, to

later become a major worldwide travelling exhibition that continues today.

After the colonial era and its legacy of eurocentrism, its aim was to educate people on the valuable role and contributions of the Muslims to the world. This would become especially significant after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. The exhibition covers a thousand years of scientific and cultural achievements from Muslim civilisation from the 7th century

onwards, and illustrates how those contributions helped create the foundations of our modern world.

The book that accompanies the exhibition is also called “1001 Inventions The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization”.

Now in its third edition, it is published by the National Geographic, with a foreword

by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Its chief editor, Professor Salim T.S. Al-Hassani, notes in the introduction his hope that the book inspires both Muslims and non-Muslims.

For those unable to attend the event, the feature presented here is based on three of the book’s many detailed and informative chapters.

Chemistry

The distillation process shown in an 18th-century Arabic treatise on chemistry. The text refers to the various vessels and the alembic, describing how the condensation is conveyed

With the invention of materials such as plastic, gasoline and artificial rubber, as well as medicines like insulin and penicillin, some early Muslim scientists are described as chemistry revolutionaries.

The word “chemistry” in Arabic is kimia and, with the Arabic definitive article al, becomes alkimia (the chemistry). The West has since seen the word become “alchemy” in English.

For Islamic scientists of what was at the time the European medieval period, chemistry was not about the occult or folklore. From rose water to hair dye to soap to paint, early Muslim chemists brought many inven-

The Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, Egypt was the first organised hospital

tions and discoveries into the world.

Chemists like Jabir ibn Hayyan, (722-ca815 Iran) devised and perfected such processes as crystallization, filtration, distillation, oxidation, evaporation, purification and liquefaction.

He also discovered acids such as hydrochloric and sulphuric acid.

His successor, Muhammad ibn Zakariya (864-925 Iran), is credited with his exact classification of natural substances, dividing them into earthly, vege-

table and animal substances, along with artificially obtained materials such as caustic soda and lead oxide.

He also designed and used lab equipment such as the crucible, cucurbit or retort for distillation, still in use today.

Early Islamic chemists also began commercial chemistry when they started to distil the thick crude oil known as naft to produce kerosene. Distillation remains essential in today’s refineries.

Another Islamic chemist, Al-Kindi (801-873 Iran) became famous for his perfume distillations when he wrote one of his books: “Book of Perfume and Distillations” in the ninth century.

Medical care

Three thousand years ago, medical care was free and its treatments highly sophisticated in the Islamic world. Facilities were custom-designed, and several surgical instruments used at the time remain in use today.

Forceps are just one of the surgical instruments used by early Muslim surgeons that have endured to modern times. Cataract op-

erations, regular vaccinations and bone setting are said to have been standard procedures in early Islamic hospitals.

Islamic hospitals began in eight-century Baghdad, but the first organized facility for treating the sick was built in Cairo circa 872874. The Ahmad ibn Tulun Hospital provided free treatments and medicines.

The ninth-century AlQayrawan hospital in Qayrawan, Tunisia, was a state-of-the-art institute equipped with waiting rooms and regular attending physicians, along with a ward for lepers at a time when elsewhere leprosy was considered untreatable and a sign of evil.

From these early institutions, hospitals would spread around the Muslim world to reach Spain, Sicily and North Africa. Europeans would later adapt similar systems.

Al-Zahrawi

Tenth-century Spanish Muslim surgeon Abul Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas al- Zahrawi, known as Abulcasis in Europe, wrote ”Al Tasrif”, a 30-volume medical encyclopaedia in which his treatise on surgery would introduce more than 200 surgical tools that were so accurate they have changed little over the centuries, and laid the foundation for European surgery.

He also introduced catgut for internal stitching that is still used in surgeries today. His surgical tools like scalpels, scrapers and drills, forceps for crushing urinary bladder stones and infant delivery forceps, also remain in use.

“1001 Inventions…” contains a wide-ranging number of scientific, technological and social achievements of early Muslims in history.

It is a must-read for any student wishing to know more of their history than what is written in current textbooks, and is a valuable trove of historical information for those interested in a past that is not centred on European achievements.

In a manuscript describing Al-Zahwrawi’s surgical instruments are illustrations of various sized saws (Minshar) and scrapers (Mijrad) used in orthopaedic surgeries

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration The Shaping of Guyanese Literature

ple including his jahaji bhai, Shankar, who was well read, Kwame, a freed African, a folk healer, and Ar’wak, an Amerindian, skilled in the ways of survival.

The novel is action packed, perhaps moving too fast to develop memorable characters. The writer seems anxious to toss in every bit of information, some not germane to the plot, but which can be justified in a travelogue.

The author also slowed down the pace just enough to add colour to the story,

By Petamber Persaud

S

ugar was still king when slavery was abolished in the British West Indies. The resulting shortage of cheap labour to churn out enormous profits for the colonist/planter meant a loss of economic bargaining power among other benefits.

To secure their status quo and to ensure there was no lost in profitability, the colonist/planter turned to indentured labour, trying different sources like Portugal, China, and other countries to a lesser extent of experimentation.

However, when those sources proved unsuccessful, the colonist/planter turned to India where the experiment took hold, proving to be very successful.

Although it was a success for one party, it spelt hardship akin to slavery for the other party.

The indentured labourers suffered on various levels; wrenched from their family, ancestral homes and culture, succumbing to diseases crossing the ‘kala pani’, a journey that sometimes took over three months, arriving in a strange land where the speakers of English again took advantage of them, robbing them of fair wage, extending their contracted period, withholding benefits like land and return trip for those who qualified, depriving them of their women which led to disfigurement of the women, death to rival men and even death to spouses.

Eventually, many of them triumphed over those ills and obstacles to become significant contributors to the country in various human endeavours.

“A Dip at the Sangam” captures the above outline and goes further than similar accounts in the protracted and elaborate description

of departure (from India taking up almost 100 pages) and arrival at a sugar plantation in Demerara.

The protagonist (Raja/ Roger) was duped and transported to British Guiana, but able to make good and return to India, reconnect with his wife and family -- a very sad affair with no closure.

Finally it was decided best for him to return to his new family in British Guiana, which he did, and where he died having completed two cycles, one spiritual (returning to his ancestral home and family) and the other physical (returning to his adopted home where he spent most of his life).

One day in 1869, Raja left home, his new bride, elderly parents, and siblings, to go on a pilgrimage to the Kumba Mela and to have a dip in the Sangam in order to be guided by the gods.

A number of tribulations befell him; he was robbed and, ironically, ended up in the hands of the police from where he was sold to labour recruiters.

Onboard the ship S.S. Arlot to Demerara, British Guiana, his overriding obsession was to escape and return to his family. The dreaded journey hardened his resolve. Even when he landed in Demerara and was working his way up, his burning desire was to return home, to his wife, parents and siblings, eschewing all manner of temptations, even female company.

By the by, he moved out of the cane field into self-employment – becoming a respected rice farmer and cattle dealer with expanding prosperity and property.

All the while, many of his principles and ethics underwent grudging changes – his culture, his language and even his religion. He was help along by some good peo-

with reference to birds like the eagle representing ‘freedom, strength and grace’ and the jumbie bird an omen of evil. More colour was added with the dancing girls, the game of cricket, and the horse race meet -- all lending to the narrative. An addition hundred pages would surely make a better read.

Although the manuscript was tested at various forums including writers groups, there is still something missing: the telling struggle to bring to life the story, a story being told so

many times before in different ways. Nevertheless, kudos to the writer for investing so much in recreating the trials and triumphs of his ancestors.

The story is neat; too neat despite the conflicts and resolutions therein.

Moreover, this goes to the very end of the novel where after that amount of trauma and trials, there was redemption.

In fact, it could be called redemptive novel; the protagonist, a born Hindu, dies (in 1927 British Guiana)

smiling, requesting his daughter, Rena, to sing “Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear”.

“A Dip in the Sangam” is also a story where two myths collided – the myth of Sangam and the myth of El Dorado, leaving people unfulfilled, still searching. Leaving writers still searching for new ways to tap into the past.

Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@ yahoo.com

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

A husband applies sindoor to his bride's forehead

Ceremonial offerings by the bride and groom

M

The garments of the bride and groom are knotted, a tradition that originated in India

A typical setting during the religious aspect of a Hindu wedding

any of the traditions we uphold today were passed down from our ancestors.

One such tradition is the Hindu wedding. The religious aspects of the wedding are intriguing, and originated from those who came as indentured servants from India. Although the Hindu wedding ceremony became elaborated as time went by, the basic structure has remained the same.

It was the parents of the parties concerned who first decided that their children should be married to each other. A pandit (or priest) was then consulted as to an auspicious day for the celebration of the nuptials. A few days before the wed-

ding, the bride and groom each organize a haldi ceremony (sometimes called pithi ceremony) at their respected homes where the lagan (date) is fixed.

On the day of the wedding, the bridegroom was taken in procession to the bride’s parents’ house and conducted to a tent specially erected for the wedding.

In due time, the bride, “being shrouded in thick folds of muslin or variegated hues and patterns”, joined the groom and the ceremony commenced in the presence of the bride’s relatives, invited guests and the bridegroom’s baraat (a bridegroom's wedding procession made up of relatives and friends).

The ceremony sometimes lasts for hours. During this time, the bride and groom sit in a square marked out in the centre of the tent in front of the ceremonial fire.

In front of them, sits the officiating pandit.

The pandit reads passages from the saved books, and offers a prayer that the deotas (deities) will witness the union and bless it with happiness and make it fruitful.

The father of the bride gives her to the bridegroom with appropriate words, and the garments of the couple are knotted together; they then make a circuit of the bamboo a stated number of times, and returning in their seats, the bridegroom touches the head of the bride with sindoor( a vermillion powder).

The application of the sindoor to the parting of the bride’s hair is the climax of the ceremony; it was also the first time, perhaps, that the bridegroom glimpsed his future wife’s face as he raised

the purdah (veil) covering her face, to apply the sindoor.

The ceremony outlined resembles the shaadi ceremony of a northern India caste of those times.

Another caste marriage ceremony was the dola. In the dola, the marriage ceremony took place at the bridegroom’s residence, to which the bride came on the day before the ceremony.

Her coming was marked by an attitude of humility befitting a party importuning marriage on behalf of a poor girl.

In British Guiana, because of the scarcity of suitable girls for marriage, there was little need for a father to importune on behalf of their daughters; consequently, the dola was hardly practised.

But practices associated with the dola survived.

These included the ceremony of matikore or “dig dutty”, the ceremony of thappa lagana, in which the drum is featured, and the worship of Sharti Mata (Mother Earth.)

In all of these ceremonies, women are featured prominently. The dola further lent its name to the bride and groom who were called dolahin and dolaha respectively.

In the ceremony that evolved on the plantation, the dola rites were regarded as preparatory to the marriage ceremony itself. What seemed to have happened on the estate was that the dola and the shaadi were fused in the development of a ceremony that became widely used. By the 1890s, this fusion had already taken place. (From the text by the late Dale Bisnauth)

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

By Isahak Basir, CCH

W

ith the emancipation of slaves in 1838, indentured workers were brought, many with promises of better life, to the West Indies from India. After a lengthy and arduous ocean voyage, months in ships across what many of them called the Kala Pani, a large number of these jahaji (a Hindi word roughly equating to “ship brother”), were distributed along the coastal breadth of Guyana to work on sugar

plantations.

A dream held by the majority of the East Indian immigrants was the eventual return to Mother India.

Their contracts to work on the plantations provided, at least on paper, the means to an end with a clause that stipulated deductions made from their wages were to be contributed into a fund to facilitate at least part of the return voyage home.

After the mandatory five years of labour in the fields however, the return process dragged out to months,

sometimes years, waiting simply to be cleared for repatriation. Many Indians vowed that they would return, across the Kala Pani, to India - by any means necessary. In the end, threequarters of them were forced to remain. Some took their vows more seriously though.

Five immigrants from Hampton Court on the Essequibo coast, their contracts over and growing homesick, decided to make the voyage, starting on foot.

All men, between the ages of 40 and 45 years, they made

'Coolie dwelling' circa early 1900s (Courtesy of Charles Kennard)

Photo taken from 'On Land and Sea – on Green and River' by Henry W Case, 1910, and is captioned 'Typical East Indian Coolies house, Essequibo'

good preparation for the voyage back: sacks were filled with roti, datwan, satwa, ghee, matches, tobacco, an extra dhoti, phagri, a lotha, and one brass cooking pan.

Early one morning at 4:30 am, they took their five guthrie on their heads, and proceeded in a north-westerly direction from Hampton Court. This took them across the existing canals and into a five-mile stretch of wet savannah.

After three weeks of either tracking left or right or going in circles; travelling through dense swamps or thick overheads, two of the five were discovered in an area alongside the bank of

the Pomeroon river, known as "Mucko-Mucko" Point, about 12 miles from Charity.

The other three had died from either overexposure or fatigue.

A group of Amerindians traveling in a canoe had heard a strange, weak voice and had decided to inspect the thick flora of the embankment. They found two virtually naked men speechless and too weak to even stand on their own. Their skins had become pale and decorated with blisters and insect bites. Unable to communicate with the Hindi-speaking survivors of the failed voyage, the Amerindians pulled them

into the canoe and, after ten days, managed to get them to Anna Regina through the Tapakuma River, the only gate to the Essequibo coast.

The Indian Immigrant officer (known to some indentured labourers as "Cross de Babu") at Suddie took control of the survivors, from whom he learnt about their doomed trek.

With many of the indentured labourers deciding to settle in Guyana, much of the Indian immigration fund was, for a long time, left unused. It was eventually “donated” towards the construction of the National Cultural Centre in Georgetown.

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

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he Indian indentureship era may have been considered a clever business decision for colonial planters and subsequently the British government who also profited from the sugar plantations of British Guiana, but for many others like the indentured workers and those who opposed the system, it was not; it was an inhuman, deceptive scheme.

Many from overseas and a few in the colony resorted to protesting the system the only way they could, and that was by writing letters to governments, newspapers, anyone else willing to listen and through their recorded testimonies.

Excerpts of these letters and communications of protest remain as historical documents that are sometimes the only way of knowing about our ancestors’ hardships through firsthand accounts from persons who witnessed the appalling conditions of the indentureship system.

Article in the AntiSlavery Society in England’s official newsletter The British Emancipator written Jan 9, 1839 I see the British public has been deceived with the idea that the coolies are doing “well”; such is the fact: the poor friendless creatures are miserably treated, at least I can speak confidently of planation Bellevue. On this estate they have made two attempts to escape, as they say, to go to Calcutta.

In the first, 22 succeeded by night to cross the river, landing on the opposite

Sugar cane cultivation (Stark’s Guide and History of British Guiana circa 1990)

shore, they attempted to explore the woods, but after undergoing much fatigue and hunger, they were retaken at the back of planation Herstelling, and conveyed again to the estate. In the last attempt they were discovered by the watch of the night and driven back. I saw a gang of them last week in the custody of the police who were taking them to the Public Buildings; their offence I did not learn; I enquired of Mr Barkley, who is a teacher on the place [sic] respecting food; he said they had enough of rice, and I think “fat” or lard. Deaths, he said more than ten have died on this one place Bellevue and the manager (Russell) refused to give a rag of clothes to bury them in. I had one of these coolies in my own place, who is capable of say-

Coolie Belle

ing a few words in English; he told me, “Russell no good; coolie sick salt, salt no more”. He was all but naked; and a friend present gave him a few old raiments, which seemed highly to please him. They are paid here with the Company’s rupees, five rupees a month. Is not this scandalous? They have been offered by the merchants two bits a piece for them. I do not believe they can get its value in the colony. Ought not the planters be compelled to give their value in Demerara silver currency? I have heard that two from Gladstone’s estate escaped through the bush and were captured

by Captain Fallant at Fort Island, in the Essequibo River, and brought back to the plantation. Surely these things are far from being “well”; the one alluded to

above told me “Calcutta better”.

Dispatch by Lord John Russell to Governor Light, dated Feb 15, 1840 I confess I should be unwilling to adopt any measure to favour the transfer of labourers from British India to British Guiana, after the failure of the former experiment. Admitting that the mortality of the Hill coolies first sent may seem accidental, I am not prepared to encounter the responsibility of a measure which may lead to a dead loss of life on the one hand, or, on the other, to a new system of slavery. Corporal punishment is not unknown to these poor people and I have heard no argument used in favour of enabling the crowded population of India to take advantage of the high wages of Guiana, which remove alto-

Coolie woman servant

gether the danger I apprehend One of the more notable letter writers, according to Clem Seecharan in his book “ Bechu: 'bound Coolie' Radical in British Guiana, 1894-1901”, Bechu became a regular letter writer to the newspapers of the time.

In his first letter to the colony’s Daily Chronicle newspaper ( Nov 1, 1896) after the October shooting deaths of five Indian workers and wounding of 59 at Non Pareil plantation, he wrote: In this colony… an agreement appears to be binding on one side only, for we constantly see coolies being brought up for ‘neglecting to attend work’ for ‘not completing the task’ and for such trivial breaches of contract, but not in a single instance have I seen a ‘protector’ charge an employer for not fulfilling his part of the contract towards an indentured immigrant. Is this fair play?

His critical gaze looked at not only the inhuman labour system but also the immorality of the colonial social system brought about by the overseers or managers’ sexual relationships with Indian women.

I am in a position to state that a fellow shipmate of mine, a Punjabi, was at one time making overtures to a woman with a view to matrimony, but he was deterred from doing so, as he came to hear that she had gotten in tow with an overseer, who eventually gave her the money to purchase her freedom… This is an-

other ground for discontent and sometimes leads to riots, yet Immigration officials close their eyes to the matter.

(Report of a Commission of Enquiry into the sugar industry of British Guiana (J.A. Venn chairman (1949)) Providing evidence of ill-treatment, in another testimony given at the Commission of Enquiry, a labourer named Elizabeth Caesar stated: The coolies were locked up in the sick house and next morning they were flogged with a cat ‘o’ nine tails; the manager was in the house, and they flogged the people under his house; they were tied to the post of the gallery of the manager’s house; I cannot tell you how many licks; he gave them enough.

I saw blood. When they were flogged at the manager’s house they rubbed salt pickle on their backs.

However, according to “The West on Trial” by Cheddi Jagan, whose parents were indentured labourers who had arrived in 1901, a few sympathetic individuals and commissions of enquiry were not enough to ameliorate the abominable conditions under which the immigrants lived, or the ill-treatment meted out to them.

The indentured system was finally abolished in 1917 after falling prices for sugar made the many estates on the colony no longer profitable. The reduced wages and unemployment that followed led to continuous labour protests and strikes.

The so-called Golden Age of King Sugar was at its end.

Cutting the canes

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Recipe of the Week

Chickpea Curry

Ingredients: 15 oz can chickpeas drained 1 tbsp curry powder ¼ tsp garam masala ¼ tsp coriander powder ½ tsp cumin ½ tsp green seasoning

2 tbsp water 2 tbsp canola oil ½ onion, finely chopped 1 tsp salt 1 beef/vegetable bouillon(optional) 3 cups water

In many world societies, cultural and/or religious artwork provides inspiration for home décor, and Indian décor is no different. Home décor may also feature folk art in textiles, wall décor, furniture, metalwork or ceramic vases.

Method: In small bowl mix curry powder, garam masala, coriander powder, cumin, green seasoning and 2 tablespoon water to form a paste.

In a medium size pot, heat oil over medium fire. When oil is hot add curry paste and onion and cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. If the paste becomes dry, about a tablespoon of water to prevent it from burning.

Next, add chickpeas, salt and remaining 4 cups of water. Cook until the chickpeas are tender. Add water as needed.

Serve with rice, roti or doubles. (Recipe and photos from jehancancook. com)

Bygan Choka

Oil paintings such as this Islamic font rendered in gold calligraphy often decorate culturally inspired living rooms

Ingredients: 1 large eggplant 1 small chipped onion 2 cloves of garlic

1 oz margarine 1 small chilli pepper, chipped 1 small tomato, diced Salt to taste

Rich textures and textiles along with colours are essential in Indian inspired décor

Hand carved furniture is a popular choice in home décor. Here, an Indian hand carved wooden screen serves as a dramatic headboard

Method: Cut small slits in the side of the eggplant and push in garlic.

Roast eggplant in microwave for 20 minutes.

Remove roasted eggplant and slice it down the middle while it is hot.

Scoop out cooked inside with spoon and place in a plate.

Add margarine, salt, onion, tomato and pepper.

Mix well with a fork.

NB: Roasting can also be done over an open fire. (Recipe from “A Taste of Guyana” by Dr Odeen Ishmael)

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

owner or overseer would be liable for fines and criminal charges.

The vagrancy and pass laws prevented Asian labourers from filing complaints against planters and overseers, and from socializing beyond those on their own plantations.

In order to file a complaint, a person had to go to the Immigration Office which was located in Georgetown, the capital of British Guiana. For many labourers, the plantations were located several miles from Georgetown so that in order to actually file a complaint they would have to receive a “pass” from the overseer or planter, the very people they were often filing the complaint against.

According to Parbattie Ramsarran, in her article ‘The Indentured contract and its Impact on Labor Relationship and Community Reconstruction

A

in British Guiana’ (International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 2008, 177188), the indentureship contract sustained the flow of labour and legitimized many restrictive labour practices in British Guiana, as well as codified labour relationship. It underwrote collective bargaining procedures, the enforcement of labour laws, back to work legislations, subsistence requirements and wages.

It was also an instrument to control the movement of labourers away from, and off plantations, as it stipulated that labourers needed a special pass.

The indenture contract, in its legal implementation, made indentured labourers temporary residents of the Caribbean; thus enabling and constraining them in the labour market and within the social hierarchy.

Group of East Indians

fter Gladstone’s now well-known letter requesting indentured labourers be sent to British Guiana for his plantations, contracts had to be drawn up - usually to the benefit of planters like Gladstone - for the new labour force.

Workers were required to sign a contract for a term of five years. After the fiveyear term, immigrants were given a certificate of “industrial residence” which allowed them to remain within the colony, or re-indenture for another five-

year contract.

Under the 1843 regulations, the first regulations after the reestablishment of the indentured system from both India and China, contracts between worker and employer could be terminated at the end of six months or one year as a security against abuses.

Meleisa Ono-George notes in ‘“Coolies”, Containment, and Resistance The Indentured System in British Guiana’ that this changed so that labourers could terminate

that contract only after repayment of the costs of introduction less an amount equivalent to their wages for their time of service.

In an 1852 ordinance “ any labourer entering into a contract for five years, and desiring to cancel it at the end of the first year, and work where he pleases, can do so on repayment of four fifths of the passage money….” or they could terminate it at the end of a year if they paid a periodic tax.

Commutation payments increased dramatically be-

Immigration Depot, Georgetown (circa 1900)

Interior view of sugar factory, Georgetown n.d. (Photo from 'British Guiana Picture Postcards' by Terence Dickinson)

tween 1859 and 1862, indicating that many immigrants chose to buy out of their contracts.

In response to the growing loss of labour, the Immigration Ordinance was amended in 1862 so that “[n]o such immigrant shall be entitled to change his employer, or to pay in commutation of service, during and portion of the said term of five years for which he shall have been so indentured. ...”

In addition to the contracts, local immigration legislation in British Guiana had the purpose of restricting “coolie” labour to the plantations and of actually preventing integration into the larger society.

In the 1864 Immigration Ordinance a vagrancy clause was implemented in British Guiana that restricted “immigrants” to a two-mile radius of plantations. Furthermore, any “immigrant” found beyond two miles of his or her plantation without written permission from the plantation

Indian woman’s emigration pass 1908

Labourers' dwellings on sugar plantation (Photo by J. Williams)

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

Following are groups of three words.

Can you figure out the common link within each group?

Example: Hurricane, camera, needle (answer: eyes) 1: Barber, rooster, beehive 2: Bowling alley, tailor, wrestling match 3: Telephone, deck of cards, car trunk 4: Fishing rod, actor, checkout counter 5: Watermelon, tennis tournament, idea see solution on page 23

see solution on page 23

see solution on page 23

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration Creature Corner

GEOZONE

Binturong

T

he Binturong,(Arctitis binturong) also known as the Bear Cat, lives in the tropical and subtropical regions of the south and south east Asia. They can grow up to 3.2 ft and weigh up to 31 lbs.

Despite referring to them as bearcats, they are related to neither bears nor cats but instead belong to the civet and mongoose family.

A nocturnal hunter, a binturong spends

most of its time in the trees foraging for fruits, leaves and small animals. Although it is classified as a carnivore, the bearcat primarily eats fruit.

It uses its prehensile tail as an anchor around tree limbs while pulling food into its mouth with its forepaws.

Binturongs are able to climb headfirst down a tree because of their ability to turn their ankles so they can still grip the trunk with their claws.

Colouring Fun

India

I

ndia lies in southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan. It borders the six countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, Nepal and Pakistan.

Its geography comprises the upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in the south then runs flat to rolling plains along the Ganges, deserts in the west and the Himalayas in the north. One of its mountains, Mt Kanchenjunga, which lies on the border with Nepal, is the third tallest mountain in the world.

India’s capital city is New Delhi and its currency is the Indian rupee.

Narendra Modi is the country’s prime minister, andits president is Pranab Mukherjee. India is said to have two official languages: Hindi and English.

MAZE DAZE Can you help the ship find its way through the maze?

please see solution on page 23

The objective of the game is to fill all the blank squares in a game with the correct numbers. Every row of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order.

Every column of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order. Every 3 by 3 subsection of the 9 by 9 square must include all digits 1 through 9.

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

T

he prestigious fashion event in India Lakme Fashion Week, held in March, displayed an array of fashionable designs by veteran designers.

The collections ranged from designs inspired by traditional Indian wear to modern chic.

The Mondrian patterns made a splash at the event.

There were sightings of colour-blocking, layered hues and tiled versions.

Arcade fire reminded those at the show that the eighties never officially go out of style. The era was revisited

via colours and patterns that bring to mind video game parlours, arcade machines and retro jukeboxes.

Architectural digest showcased sharply constructed coats, jackets and gowns et al and made way for breezy crop tops and minis for doses of design with a touch of architectural flair.

Tailored separates (always with a touch of homme) were given an off-beat treatment at the event.

Razor sharp cuts, sleek as they are, can't beat how slick you can look with this

season's slouchy separates.

The key is in the pairings.

Unorganised, unaligned and seemingly riotous: these are the keywords for the print lover this season.

With illusionary geometric peek-a-boos and cut-away dresses sashaying down, the runway definitely had a naughty spring to its steps.

The star moment was Gauri Khan (Shah Rukh Khan’s wife) for Satya Paul for a collection infused with feral energy, and a ramp that heightened the same.

Gauri Khan leads the models on the runway

V

Geometric peekaboos and cut-away dresses were a huge hit on the catwalk

Arcade fire

Celebrating colours on the runway

Modern chic

Florals were a big hit on the runway

Mondrian patterns

eerasammy Permaul is a 22-year-old left-arm spinner who took up cricket in 2002. He made his first-class debut for Guyana in the 2006-07 Carib Beer Series and picked up four wickets against the Windward Islands and also scalped his first five-for against Jamaica in the KFC Cup one-day competition.

Permaul has ambitions of playing for West Indies in the future and he is one step closer to attaining that dream as he is now the regular captain of the West Indies A team. The Albionborn spinner attended the Sagicor High Performance Centre in Barbados and has also represented the West Indies at the Under-19 level. Permaul, who also has an interest in teaching, has bagged 148 wickets from 44 firstclass games matches at an average of 24.76 and 34 wickets from 26 limited-over matches at a miserly average of 22.11. He is also a capable lowerorder batsman with a highest score of 66 in first-class cricket. Permaul continues to excel in his cricketing career and hopes to etch his name among the legends one day.

Star of the week

Veerasammy Permaul

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Celebrating 177 years of Indian Immigration

Golden Fleece Estate

By Isahak Basir, CC

G

olden Fleece Sugar Estate was one of some 55 estates developed by the Dutch in the 17th century and closed by the British owner John Dodds in 1910. The estate’s owner and his political influence saw the end of sugar cane cultivation and the last sugar factory closure in 1934 in Essequibo.

The estate is located about six miles from Adventure and the main residential area is located

on a sand reef about a kilometre inland, west of the public road. The old sugar factory site is now a very modern rice-milling complex.

Its first owner was a Muslim individual who bought the estate from the British Guiana Trustees.

This was the only alternative for departing British estate owners to leave their estate in trusteeship.

History has also recorded that the Trustees were forced to sell several estates to meet drainage and irrigaAerial shot of Golden Fleece Estate with rice mill in center view

Tall palm trees in the Golden Fleece area

Brain Teaser Answer 1: Combs 2: Pins 3: Jacks

4: Lines 5: Seeds

SUDOKU

KID SUDOKU

CROSSWORD

tion expenses. On one occasion in early 1909, Pareekan Singh purchased several abandoned sugar estates in Essequibo.

The second owner of Golden Fleece Estate was C. R. Chan, followed by Kader Bacchus from Wakenaam; its presently owned by Nazeemul Hakh.

Golden Fleece estate is predominantly rice producing, and the present owner hails from a rice-growing family. They are in the business since 1938 on the West Coast of Demerara.

Over the years, the landscape of Golden Fleece has changed. It is developing due to the construction of a modern rice complex, which has contributed to the social and economic gain of community. Access via sections of paved roads can allow tourists a one-mile ride between orchards and new buildings that have replaced mud houses made with thatched roofs, troolie palms and walls made out of wattles.

Some symbols of early Dutch occupancy are still visible in Golden Fleece.

The Anglican Church is adorned with century-old palm trees, which were used to guide sugar punts in and out of the area. The main estate road is elevated ten feet above the rice fields and is commonly known as Truck Line.

The kilometre long rail carriage that facilitated the transport of sugar and molasses to the waterfront in the backlands of Golden Fleece and Zorg is an elevated formation of white clay.

This clay, when dissolved in water, was used extensively by indentured Indians to “white-wash” their logies and other house facilities. The alkaline white clay was distributed all over the county of Essequibo and island of Wakenaam.

It was a household need for weddings and religious functions.

Consequently, the constant removal of this clay created a tunnel, which eventually caved in.

In 1938, a resident, Anand Barose of Golden Fleece, was removing clay and was crushed and killed.

Like all sugar produc-

tions, water supply was a prime necessity. As such, a huge water reservoir was created at the extreme west end of Golden Fleece and Perseverance. This reserve is filled by a natural spring known as “washer woman”.

In the vicinity lies a Dutch tomb that has a huge padlock, which can be seen still. The sandy soil of the housing area allowed the propagation of many fruits; one of which was the olive plant known as “Nulluck catcher”. This tree would bear fruits from its roots upward. Sadly, it has been used many times for suicide by hanging.

At one time in the history of sugar in Essequibo,

British plutocracy was so impressed with the productivity of indentured works that an estate owner decided to examine one of the workers’ lunch bowl. He discovered shelled hassar and sijan sticks. In alarm, he referred to the diet as “sticks and crocodile”.

By 1935 a religious organization by the name of The Canadian Mission saw the need to advance Christianity, and, as such, the Fisher Primary School was built. In 2010 the school was replaced by a modern structure under the PPP/C government.

Golden Fleece Estate is a well laid out village, having had the full support of the

Golden Fleece rice mill (Photo by Nigel A Singh)

Rice harvester in the fields (Photo by Nigel A Singh)

current government, with well-paved streets, a school, playfield, modern pubs and fast food restaurants.

The proprietor of Golden Fleece Rice Complex offers subsidies transportation of burnt paddy husk to residents who wish to cultivate other crops. The Golden Fleece Rice Complex not only endured hard days, but produced and exported high quality rice while creating employment for scores of workers.

Golden Fleece Estate can be easily identified at nights with its illumination and under the flight path of aircraft to the Caribbean, USA and Canada. (Photos

by Marco Basir)

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Archie

Romance is heating up, and you will be in perfect har(March 21mony with a potential life April 26) partner. It’s a good time to make plans that will cut your overhead and lead to greater stability.

ARIES

Your confidence will grow if TAURUS you make personal adjustments (April 20that are geared toward obtaining May 20) a better position. The increased prestige will generate an interesting business proposal. Be prepared for some keen negotiation.

You have the know-how GEMINI necessary to be a success.

(May 21Don’t be intimidated by anyJune 20) one trying to convince you to change your plans. If you follow your intuition, you won’t go wrong.

CANCER (June 21July 22)

Your distinctive style has caught the eye of a potential partner. You can win over your most stubborn opponents with charisma and charm. Love is on the rise.

LEO It’s up to you to resolve any (July 23personal issues. Your friends Aug. 22) will offer meaningful advice, but in the end, you have to do what is best for you.

Dilbert

An impromptu journey VIRGO will bring you closer to a pro(Aug. 23motion. Your ability to comSept. 22) municate with people will be a valuable asset when presenting your insight and ideas.

LIBRA Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Dedication and (Sept. 23Oct. 23) hard work will help you get ahead. Be prepared to walk away from a bad deal. Look after minor health problems with alacrity.

Peanuts

Don’t expect someone to SCORPIO (Oct. 24- give you a break. Have faith Nov. 22) in your ability to make things happen. The best way to make an impression is to take charge.

You should be more acSAGITTARIUS cepting of others’ opinions.

(Nov. 23Don’t be too quick to critiDec. 21) cize people’s suggestions.

Fleshing out a plan in collaboration with another will be your best alternative.

Calvin and Hobbes

CAPRICORN If you feel restricted by (Dec. 22- your current position, head Jan. 19) in a new direction. Don’t limit your options. You have access to all the information you need to improve your life.

AQUARIUS Don’t go broke trying to (Jan. 20- impress someone. Your sense Feb. 19) of humor and friendliness will make a much better impression than you picking up the tab for the evening.

PISCES You will feel let down and (Feb. 20- frustrated. Clearing out a March 20) cluttered closet or basement will give you a sense of accomplishment. Improve your overall well-being by starting a diet or exercise regimen.