Dear Editor,
Reference is made to Mr Mohamed Khan’s letter, ‘Dr Jagan was a working-class intellectual and agitator’ published in Stabroek News, on March 1. Dr Jagan’s contributions to Guyana’s development and underdevelopment must be duly recorded – not overstated or understated. An honest recording of our history is past overdue. The media can help in this regard.
While Mr Khan is entitled to his own opinion, he is not entitled to his own facts. It is factually incorrect to say, “The awesome one-man crusade for the colony’s under-privileged workers was launched by Dr Cheddi Jagan during his initial legislative tenure, 1947-1953, against both the colonial administration and big business.”
In 1905, a young man named Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow launched “the awesome one-man crusade for the colony’s under-privileged workers.” That was 42 years before Dr Jagan went to the legislature. In fact, Dr Jagan had not even been born. That young man, also in 1947, won a seat in the legislature, defeating Mrs Frances Stafford, and took his working class fight to the legislature against the “colonial administration and big business.” So he was Dr Jagan’s co-legislator, thereby eliminating the notion of Dr Jagan being the first. Lest it be forgotten, it was Critchlow who launched the fight for universal adult suffrage which the Jagans, Burnham, et al, subsequently adopted.
It becomes very clear from these historical facts, that while Dr Jagan played a role in agitating for the working class and standing up to the colonial administration and big business, by no stretch of the imagination was he the one who “launched the awesome one-man crusade for the colony’s under-privileged workers during his initial legislative tenure, 1947-1953.”
Yours faithfully,
M A Bacchus
