Last Saturday Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s 152nd birth anniversary was observed at his statue in the Promenade Gardens. In attendance, as has become customary, was India’s High Commissioner to Guyana, in this case, Dr K J Srinivasa, who reflected on the Mahatma’s efforts to make the world a better place. A lawyer, politician and social activist who fought for social equality, peace and the end of British colonial rule in India, Gandhi is probably most associated in the popular mind outside his homeland with the practice of passive resistance. His non-violent methods of confronting oppression of one kind or another have inspired various leaders, the best known of whom is probably Dr Martin Luther King.
During the course of his remarks Dr Srinivasa expressed the hope that the Government of Guy-ana would consider renaming both the Prome-nade Gardens and Middle Street in Gandhi’s honour. This has undoubtedly taken many people in the society somewhat aback, if not the government as well, since it has something of the whiff of presumption about it. One could hardly imagine the American Ambassador to India, for example, proposing in a public context that Prime Minister Modi’s government should rename a street in New Delhi after a leading US figure.
Be that as it may, the Indian High Commis-sioner would have been well advised to dispatch one of his officers to undertake a little research before launching into his expressions of hope, or alternatively test the waters at an unofficial level first. Had he done so he would have discovered that in the first instance the Guyana government does not have the power to rename streets, etc; that is something which comes under the purview of the City Council. It is the case that the Mayor and City Council acceded to the erection of the statue some years ago, but the renaming proposition is an altogether different cup of tea. A more cautious approach might also have alerted Dr Srinivasa to the likelihood that his proposal could prove a source of contention,
Guyana is a multi-racial society dominated at present by two large ethnic groups, one Indian, one African. While achieving some measure of equilibrium in the political sphere does not appear to be on the immediate horizon, the society has done rather better in the social and cultural realm – admittedly with some lapses. The renaming of streets and institutions in many countries can be a sensitive issue, and that is particularly the case here, where so much of our history is reflected in our nomenclature.
Much of Georgetown was created out of the front lands of the lower Demerara estates, which is why it retains quite a number of plantation names − which are not associated with the period of Indian immigration − or the names of their owners and former owners. In a general sense Guyanese, including Georgetown residents, have been very mature about the toponymy of their coastal strip, viewing it as a reminder of the world where their forebears laboured and suffered, and where their bones were finally laid to rest.
There have been comparatively few name changes in the capital, and only one on the grounds that a street had been named after a particularly offensive individual. This was the brutal Lieutenant-Gover-nor Murray, who oversaw the suppression of the 1823 rising which was put down with unbelievable barbarity. Since 1984 that roadway has been named Quamina Street, after the titular head of the revolt.
There have been a few other name changes over the years which do not fall into the Murray Street category. At the time of Independence, for example, a portion of High Street was renamed Avenue of the Republic, an amendment which the residents of the capital readily accepted, as well as the rechristening of the Parade Ground as Independence Park, which they did not. While Independence Park is acknowledged as the official name, most people still refer to the space as the Parade Ground, perhaps partly because it has never really looked like a park.
It so happens that the High Commissioner is asking for an area with painful historical associations to be renamed. It is connected to the 1823 East Coast Demerara insurrection, during which hardly any whites were killed, although they were subjected to a reversal of roles for a time. Even what was described as the major battle at Bachelor’s Adventure could hardly qualify as such; this was no 1763, when serious fighting took place. For all of that it was put down with unimaginable ferocity.
Some of those who were seized by the militia or military were executed on the Parade Ground by hanging, following a trial which hardly qualified for the name. A few of those who it was arbitrarily decided were leaders in their area were beheaded after death, and their heads placed on poles in the fort. Joshua Bryant, an artist who served in the militia and wrote an account of the rising, also illustrated it, and his most gruesome drawing depicts heads on poles by the sea.
The point about the Parade Ground is that it had once included what is now the Promenade Gardens as well. The land comprised 16 lots from Cummings-burg, and in 1812 was handed over to Lieutenant-Governor Hugh Carmichael by Thomas Mewburn on behalf of Thomas Cuming, as somewhere the troops and militia could parade and exercise. It was bisected by a path called Middle Walk, which has given its name to Middle Street. Those condemned in 1823 were taken down Middle Walk to be executed somewhere on this larger Parade Ground; it is not certain exactly where that was.
After the militia stopped mustering, the Parade Ground was left in a state of neglect, although it did boast an astronomical observatory. In 1843, a plan was put before the Town Council to create ornamental public walks on the Ground, but it did not meet with much enthusiasm. The historian James Rodway refers to a somewhat eccentric design with a temple at either end, which the Gazette newspaper wrote off as too much of a “supper tray pattern.”
There were other proposals as well, but the creation of a garden did not excite too much interest until the beach promenade was washed away in the course of this country’s cycle of erosion and accretion along the littoral. The city had once had a beach which had served the capital’s population as a place of recreation in much the same way as the seawall near the bandstand was later to do. As mentioned, it was referred to the beach promenade, hence the name Promenade Gardens.
The Town Council finally agreed to the creation of a garden on a portion of the Parade Ground in 1851, and a subscription list was opened, the Governor giving $500 to start it off, with the Council then augmenting it with a similar sum. Two years later, they agreed to ask Trinidad for someone from their Botanical Gardens to come here and lay out the Promenade Gardens.
In other words, this is a corner of the city with a history which is mirrored in its names. The Mahatma, good soul though he was, had no connection to this country, except at a very tangential level in so far as he opposed Indian indentureship in general. But for the residents of Georgetown, place names have significance and provide a direct link to our past. Gandhi has a statue, which is good, but even he, as the most humble of men, would possibly not have sanctioned having his name superimposed on those of the area around it.
