Dear Editor,
Mr. Ellis in his letter captioned “The new political culture Mr. Dev called for in 1989 is necessary,” (07.02.21) introduces some very important issues of racial battles, racial parity, political power sharing, and economic development for the races. He also sees the reduction of development pain by giving us a little hint of his style of governance ‘if we allow’ East Indians and Africans to develop in accordance with their distinctive cultural features (paragraph 9).
The solution he proposes comes from a change in rural governance, which he claims that the PNC and the PPP both oppose because of the two major political parties strong preferences for top-down, instead of a bottom-up approach to development. There is a certain top-down logic in the Ellis solution, given his style of governance to ‘allow’ and perhaps to disallow development for the races. I believe ‘allowing’ makes top-down or bottom-up approaches weak or appropriating of one’s economic rights.
It is therefore necessary to look deeper at the social institutions we have created to govern society in order to lead the way for social transformation. Guyana tried socialism with dictatorship and that did not work.
Since 1992, we have avowed capitalism and democracy and we are sputtering along. It is politics and economics that does not work Mr. Ellis, not Hinduism as you have alluded to in your letter.
There is no known Hindu mantra or Christian or Muslim verse that provides any reassurance of success in ‘everyday practices,’ not in Guyana, India or Africa, where for over two centuries of exploitation Africa is still underdeveloped. Hinduism does not supply the mantra for economic development and one would be looking in the wrong direction for guidance. It does, however, provide the mantras for self-liberation as you have correctly observed. Even more powerful as a moral compass for development and issues of racial battles is the standard in the second book of the Gita that combines duty with freedoms, as we know the latter in the western capitalist world.
Our freedoms to choose in the market place and to secure realistic governance are pre-requisites for reaching harmony and social balance in society.
We should make it our duty to advocate for the protection of our social and economic freedoms, including the receipt and distribution of a fair share of Guyana’s liquidated wealth under top-down or bottom up approaches to economic development. That is how we must see the battle field in order to win the war on poverty alleviation through guarding our bundle of rights using the instrument of distributive justice.
I was really amused at the challenge he posed to the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO). GOPIO is not GDF, the Guyana Defense Force or the GPF, the Guyana Police Force. Therefore, we should treat GOPIO as we would a Jewish, an Afro-American, and a Chinese etc. organization seeking to accomplish specific social or economic empowerment objectives. We should not expect such an organization to cover broad social objectives or to tackle the many issues dealing with criminality, narcotics or drug lords. I believe we have superior approaches to deal with those sorts of problems in western-type law enforcement agencies and very strong legal systems that we must advocate. It is removal of weaknesses in these institutions that are important for the common good. It is the two major political parties that we must seek to influence not GOPIO or Mr. Yesu Persaud for social reforms. Similarly, we must focus on drug consumption and production and be ashamed of the social harm that these activities inflict on society, from north to south, issues that the late Cheddi Jagan spoke about at the first Global Human Order conference held in Georgetown, Guyana, June 1996.
Finally, Mr. Ellis, I believe that you were on the right track for economic development of the races when you mentioned to me at the Bank of Guyana in 1977 that if you had your way, you would use the two house lots your sister owned to grow ‘bora’ and sell it in the market-place. That would have been a good example of economic liberation, because it involved property ownership by a household for commercial purposes, beyond the less charitable approach of merely owning a house lot and no land to engage in commercial production and legal supplementary income generation in a low wage market economy. The ‘poor shall not inherit the earth’ Mr. Ellis, unless we first secure the fundamentals for economic transformation without exploitation and impoverishment as a duty to our fellow Guyanese, under the enshrinement of all of our freedoms, a la Gita.
Yours faithfully,
Ganga Prasad Ramdas
