Dear Editor,
I refer to Chris Persaud’s letter, `The lesson is that Hindu Organizations should stay away from political affiliation’ (Stabroek News, 1 Sept. 2020). He wrote that “the Maha Sabha’s unfortunate allegiance to the PNC under the leadership of Sase Narine began the downfall of this once great Organization creating a split within the Hindu Community and leading to a gradual whittling down of its large membership and estrangement of prominent Hindus.”
Mr. Sase Narine and the Maha Sabha deserve such exposure, but so too do Hindu organizations affiliated to the PPP, namely the Dharmic Sabha, and that too has been controversial and resulted in the estrangement of many Hindus. Chris Persaud’s omission of the Dharmic Sabha is interesting and raises an important question: why the omission? Scholarship demands unbiased assessment of both sides of the divide.
In the late 1960s and by the early 1970s, the ruling PNC was able to get the support from several elite members of the Maha Sabha and the Guyana Pandits Council. Mr. Reepu Daman Persaud who was also part of the Maha Sabha aligned with the PPP and as early as 1965 became an MP of the PPP. In 1974, Reepu and others launched the Dharmic Sabha and he was the leader till his passing in 2013. According to the Dharmic Sabha’s Facebook page: “Its founder was Pt. Reepu Daman Persaud who served as President of the Sabha for 39 years until his demise in April 2013” (Accessed May 27, 2020). What does it say about someone who heads an organization for 39 years?
Mr. Reepu, a PPP career politician, was concurrently President of the Dharmic Sabha, a PPP official, and held several high-ranking positions, including Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, and as Second Vice President of Guyana in the PPP government. His own party the PPP, gave him the Order of Roraima (PPP stalwart Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud dies. Kaieteur News, April 8, 2013). Similarly, his daughter took over as head of the Dharmic Sabha, is a MP of the PPP/C and holds senior positions in the PPP, including her current position as a PPP/C government Minister. She was given the Medal of Service by her party the PPP government (National awards ceremony to be held on October 21. Stabroek News October 6, 2011).
Recently, Mr. Moses Nagamootoo identified several Pandits affiliated to the PPP, including one who was a Moscow-trained Freedom House Manager and PPP executive member. He wrote: “All of these pandits were personally loyal to Cheddi Jagan, his Marxist-Leninist ideology notwithstanding. They were the strike force in the inner-party balance of power, and were potent at the grassroots, “bottom-house” level” (Moses V. Nagamoottoo. My Turn. Among the Pandits. Guyana Chronicle October 27, 2019).
I believe that Hindus should be free to affiliate to any political party of choice, but to concurrently be in the leadership of Hindu organizations and political parties, raise ethical concerns, particularly when it goes on for so many years. An examination of time-trends social and economic indicators of the Hindu population, especially in Berbice and Essequibo where most live, will show that they have been, and are still at the bottom of the social and economic ladder, while their Hindu leaders in Georgetown live(d) the material good life.
Affiliations with the PNC and PPP suggest a nice little story: that it apparently pays rich material dividends to leaders of the Maha Sabha and Dharmic Sabha who align with those parties. Putting aside ethical issues regarding such alliances, a judicial inquiry is needed into whether Hindu leaders (and their kit and kin) of their organizations aligned with the PNC and PPP benefited from state resources.
Yours faithfully,
Somdat Mahabir
