Dear Editor,
Dr Baytoram Ramharack, by any definition an “Indian Intellectual” (interesting book on Balram Singh Rai as pro-Indian militant), has written a letter which you published in your edition of October 28, “bemoaning,” and the word is chosen for its connotations, his perceived absence of Indo-Guyanese intellectuals pushing a racial agenda and doing so to national applause. He states that this type of personality and personage is numerous in the Afro-Guyanese section of the society and quotes another Indian Intellectual, the Swami Aksharananda as noting that “a significant number of African intellectuals, scholars and activists” are at work on the other side.
A repeated observation that now forms part of the narrative of some Indian activists. It reminds one of the occasional lists of Blacks cited by writers such as Vishnu Bisram or “Sultan Mohamed”, Vassan Ramrachra, Ravi Dev and a few others who complain that the screech and whimper coming from the Indian side is not sustained enough, ethnic enough, and that it is due to an intimidation.. The letter from Baytoram is a repeat of an earlier plaint from Bisram carried in the Guyana Times on May 19. Bisram wrote “When Indians say they are proud of their identity they face vitriolic attacks from ignoramus and unintelligent people and are labelled racist.” Bisram was attacking Freddie Kissoon.
In other words, these boys need to be free to unfurl their ideas of “identity”, in whatever form it takes.
But when, a decade ago, I asked Dev to list ten things Indians lack in terms of egalitarian legislation or rights of practice ,and therefore, ten things that need to be remedied immediately, the response was a dead silence. In short, what we are asked to suffer is a cry without content, which, like a lot of this type of pleading is permitting the sufferer to void himself of an anguish that may be only tangentially linked to his objective racial or social condition. Rooted, often, in value systems that could be millennial in their origins, or the mere echo of a timeless refrain that defines the being of the Sufferer. Age-old repetitive narratives of deprivation and discontent that have been recorded and remarked upon in sections of the Jewish community or the world-wide Black experience. Often serving to articulate calls for revenge, reparations, self-redemption, privilege.
In response to something that Ryhaan Shah wrote at the time I wondered aloud whether the dominant narrative in some sections of the Indo-Guyanese community is not merely a continuation of a lament that would have had its origins in the caste-based miseries that marked their origins. But then, among themselves the oppressive discriminations continued. Often without comment from the very Indian Intellectuals being asked to condemn outside influence and perceptions.
When one writes of thought and thinkers issuing from the Black side it has to be noted that much of it has been self-critique. And it is not only the Black Intellectuals, but the community’s painters, calypsonians and artists in general have participated in one of history’s remarkable examples of self-examination. But it is not this type of works that Baytoram and others require of the Indian.
What is required by the writers of the Indian Intellectual is that he externalise the causes and consequences of Indian problems. It must be placed outside of the community and attributed to the White Man or the Black Man or whatever it is that will deflect attention from the changes and transmutations they live as they adapt. In short, Indians are the most active proponents of their own de-Indianisation. Not the colonial system, not the PNC with the dhall ban or the ambient Marxism. But the need to jettison forms of Islam and Hinduism or Kali philosophy, or social practice, prejudices and values that conflict with the ideals and styles of the world in which they now evolve. What then is the question?
Africans have also had their essence called into question. The obeah/cumfah religion, much in the range of social relations and definitions of the positive have similarly had to be let go of, silenced or denounced as we live the natural process of migration in space and time. One needs to look also at the positives that Indian coming here have had. From better conditions on the estates than blacks to a political process that permits their social ascension.
One notes however, that in spite of the need or desire to continue the chant, Indians in Guyana have been remarkably resilient and creative in those endeavours that interested them. Berbice may be the suicide capital of the globe, but it would have bred more world-class cricketers than any region of similar size. Things were bad for everyone in its own way. But the Blacks had no monopoly on the discourse of sufferation that is the speciality of some. The scholars, entrepreneurs, entertainers and politicians coming from the midst of the Indian community nail the lie to the caricature of an oppressed minority that the “Indian Intellectual” is being asked to present.
The common error of a lot of the names I mentioned above is that being Indian or Black automatically assumes that you should be singing a song of race-praise or race- defence. These writers fail to understand that, by my own definition, I comment from a Muslim point of view. By no means Afro-Guyanese. As I have written before. Writing in favour of issues based on principles that transcend race. Perhaps it is what some expect of themselves, not the monotony of a race chant that, with periods in government and a relentless creolisation, renders pitiably Aksharanda’s suffering about Hindu/Indian religious or cultural conversions. What is the definition of the Indian they wish to protect and preserve? The matter being promoted needs to be ventilated, or we end up with mere sentimental pleading.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
