Dear Editor,
It was widely reported that the PPP sent 17 of its members of parliament to the first People of Indian Origin (PIO) Parliamentarian Conference in New Delhi, India. This is a welcome development but it comes 75 years too late. Given the PPP’s historical embrace of communism and the Soviet Union what contribution could the PPP have made to the conference? Could the PPP really speak for and on behalf of Indo-Guyanese? What was the real purpose of the visit? To understand one must look at the anti-Indian history of the PPP and the current situation the party finds itself in.
Ever since the PPP’s founder leader Cheddi Jagan returned to British Guiana in 1943 he had embraced communist ideology and the Soviet Union at the expense of the welfare and well-being of Indo-Guyanese and all Guyana. He took Guyanese into the Cold War with his anti-USA/British posturing and his frenetic support of the Soviet Union and it led to social/racial unrest that set Guyana on a path of racial polarization and dictatorship politics. Much destruction was done to the Indo-Guyanese cause by the PPP.
Dr Jagan and the PPP helped to destroy Indian culture and values by denigrating all Indian intellectuals, degrading Hindu leadership, sending thousands of mainly Hindu youths to the Soviet Union for ideological brainwashing, and establishing a Peoples Culture Corps that promoted Russian and Cuban revolutionary songs, music, and plays. Hindu youths were gustily singing the International and Guantanamera! Indo-youths were socialized by the PPP to discard their Indian identity and culture. Indians were discouraged from engaging in intellectual discourse on ethnic issues and encouraged to simply parrot Marxist phraseology promoting working class identity. Even with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist empire by 1990 the PPP persisted with the communist ideology.
The consequences of failed Jagan/PPP/Jagdeo leadership are reflected in the state of Indo-Guyanese many of whom have largely descended into the sub culture abuses of rum, noise, domestic violence, wife beating, rum violence at wedding houses, drunk driving, vehicular accidents and the glorification of theft of public funds, drug trafficking, money laundering, gold smuggling, and trafficking in people. If there were any doubt of the degeneration of Indian values one only has to look at the video footage of PPP parliamentarians disobeying the Speaker, disobeying the Sergeant of Arms, and assaulting police officers in the chambers of parliament while screaming like disorderly drunks.
The consequences of failed Jagan/PPP/Jagdeo leadership are further reflected in our nasty political culture, an electoral system geared at racial mobilization, a farce of a parliament, a constitution that enables elected dictatorship, a mockery of free and fair elections and a culture of government corruption.
What exactly did the PPP delegation contribute to the conference? They could not have been telling the rest of the world how to behave in parliament or run a parliamentary democracy, how to eradicate corruption, or how to craft a constitution steeped in democratic values. They could not have been extolling the achievements, advancement, and progress of Indians after their 23 years’ reign. They could not have been talking about ethnic issues in Guyana because they never addressed such matters. The PPP’s contribution would have been zero. So why did the PPP go to India?
To identify with its electoral base and to signal to the coalition government that it has an emerging superpower watching its back. Maybe the Guyana government should hire special financial crimes investigators and prosecutors from India to complement SOCU and FIU.
Yours faithfully,
Malcolm Harripaul