Dear Editor
In recent times (and not so recent) there has been a number of pronouncements suggesting that the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan was anointed ‘Father of the nation’.
It is uncertain however at what point in our nation’s history this event took place and what was the mechanism used to effect this virtual deification.
Those who rush to embrace this confirmation probably have little or no acquaintance with the more than 600-paged volume produced by Dr. Clem Seecharan, titled: ‘Sweetening Bitter Sugar’. It purports to be the story of Jock Campbell, the Booker Reformer in British Guiana, 1934 – 1966. But analysis will show that it is ostensibly about Cheddi Jagan, trade unionist, political activist and Premier of this country, with Jock Campbell in collaborative, if not supporting, role.
While hundreds of pages have legitimately been devoted to our respected Cheddi’s known passion, commitment, tenacity and integrity, there are also interesting commentaries on other aspects of his character which tend towards counterbalancing these attributes. Perhaps, this is one of several reasons why ‘Sweetening Bitter Sugar’ has not been a bestseller in Guyana, and certainly amongst Jagan’s doting followers.
There are too many to be listed in this brief note, but it might be useful to mention the following quotes which refer particularly to the time when British Guiana verged on independence, and obtain a glimpse of where stood Jagan and how he was perceived:
“They had to move quickly. The Conference convened in London on October 22, 1963 and, true to the script, Burnham and D’Aguiar refused to compromise with Jagan on the three outstanding issues: (i) the electoral system; (ii) election before independence; (iii) the voting age. Duncan Sandys then postponed the plenary sessions, while holding separate discussions with each of the three leaders. It was evident that Sandys’s threat of an imposition loomed over the deliberations. At the meeting with Jagan, on October 23, Sandys had told him that there were three alternatives: (i) they reached agreement [he did not mean that]; (ii) adjourn without an agreement [and unilateral imposition]; (iii) or the Secretary of State was ‘asked to make an arbitral decision [imposition by invitation]’. Jagan responded that he had come ‘more or less’ to the same conclusion. He therefore decided to make a further effort to reach an agreement with Burnham (this was inherently futile.) – ‘[f]ailing agreement he was prepared to accept that the Secretary of State would have to impose a decision’.” – Page 545
“Apparently, on the evening of October 24, 1963, Sandys contacted Jagan and requested that they meet the next morning at Lancaster House, but emphasised that he should come alone. Jagan suspecting nothing untoward, did not consult Dr. Ramsahoye or any of his other delegates, and went to see Sandys, accompanied only by the secretary of the British Guiana Office in London, Mrs. Lee Akbar (the late Lee Samuel, MBE). She has related to me the somewhat bizarre atmosphere at Lancaster House that morning of October 25, 1963. Burnham and D’Aguiar were there, too, but, significantly, they had all their delegates with them, including their legal advisers. She sat alone, behind Dr. Jagan. She knew that something was being hatched: she suggested to Cheddi that she should go to the office in Cockspur St. (not far away), and get Dr. Ramsahoye and Brindley Benn, two of his delegates, to come. She repeated the offer to him as he sat alone, but he rejected it again. Samuel recalls that a document was passed around which Dr. Jagan signed, followed by Burnham and D’Aguiar. Her instincts and the general feel of the place bred a deep foreboding, so much so that as soon as she returned to the office she told Jagan’s delegates, who had been waiting unaware of the transactions, that their chief had just given everything away, without realising it.” – Page 547
“TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES
At your request we have made further efforts to resolve the differences between us on the constitutional issues which require to be settled before British Guiana secures independence, in particular, the electoral system, the voting age, and the question whether fresh elections should be held before independence.
We regret to have to report to you that we have not succeeded in reaching agreement; and we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no prospect of an agreed solution. Another adjournment of the Conference for further discussions between ourselves would therefore serve no useful purpose and would result in further delaying British Guiana’s independence and in continued uncertainty in the country.
In these circumstances we are agree to ask the British Government to settle on their authority all outstanding constitutional issues, and we undertake to accept these decisions [emphasis added].
Signed:
CHEDDI JAGAN
L.F.S. BURNHAM
P.S. D’AGUIAR”
Pages 546 – 547
“Jagan’s own Party’s newspaper was not charitable either. When he agreed to the imposition, Mirror had asked caustically: ‘Why this admission of Guianese inferiority, and why the supine and humiliating acceptance of white supremacy, and acknowledgment of a mater race?… We … hope that all is not irretrievably lost. And that out of this ignominious moral capitulation may yet be carved splendid victory.’ When the Sandys decision was delivered, the paper sought solace in philosophical reflections, which they commended to an innocent Jagan:
“(I)n this hour of travail he must find the balm of consolation in the philosophical sayings and practical maxims which, through the centuries, have served to stimulate man’s interest for good … ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity’; ‘I am the master of my faith, I am the captain of my soul’; ‘A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’; and ‘The menace of the years finds, and shall find me unafraid’.”
Pages 549 – 550
“Cheddi went, through New York, to the Constitutional talks at which he was tricked by Duncan Sandys. When we were in New York Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit, India’s permanent representative to the U.S., Nehru’s sister, asked Cheddi to go and see her. He and I alone went … to the exquisite hotel Carlisle, where the Indians were based. He had a chat with Mrs. Pandit …. She said that Lester Pearson, the Canadian Prime Minister, had been on to her. She gathered from him that the British were planning something to get Cheddi out of office, and that he ought to be very careful. She was a tall woman, broad shoulders, with the aristocratic bearing of the Nehrus, but she was warm and she came down to street level to see us off in our taxi. But Cheddi said to me: ‘Lloyd, you can’t really bother with the Nehrus. They have always been rich, wealthy people’, or something to that effect. He wasn’t addressing what she had just told him about British machinations. The woman had been almost motherly to him, but he could not see beyond her family’s wealth and upper caste. That was Cheddi – very closed up. And, of course, he went on to London and was duly tricked.” – Pages 550 – 551
“Thus was born Jagan’s fatal resistance in early 1964 to the imposition which he had, indeed, agreed to abide by. The PPP staged a countrywide march in early February to galvanise their supporters to continue the fight for early independence.” – Page 573
“At the completion of the march, on February 9, 1964, Jagan addressed his Indian supporters, at the edge of Georgetown. Strangely, he renewed his call for a PPP–PNC coalition in order to defeat the ‘fascists’, the united Force, and unite Africans and Indians, a new conference to fix a date for independence; and rejection of the Sandys plan. What he said beyond that, however, was designated to foster the cohesion of Indian racial forces to stifle the plan, not to promote racial harmony. The racist tone could not be concealed; it was not a tactful speech in any circumstances; in a volatile environment, it was potentially combustible, a virtual call to arms”.
In all fairness it is appropriate to mention that the late Forbes Burnham is portrayed in this book in even less flattering terms.
Yours faithfully,
Mark Ibrahim