Dear Editor,
Anticipating the launching of Janet Jagan’s biography later this month, I merely posited that 1) Janet Jagan did not comprehend the complexities of Guyana’s racial/ethnic politics, and 2) She maintained little interest in Indian history and culture (though she benefited from Indian political generosity). I expanded on these issues in a review of her 2024 commissioned biography (SN, 9/15/2024). Clement Rohee evaded both issues, imputing instead, intangible personal and political variables (“Hindutva”, “clannish”, “supremacist”, etc), all meant to deflect attention by misappropriating what I articulated (10/1/24).
Referring to himself as “a mixed race Guyanese” from lot “N” Bent Street, Wortmanville, Rohee is notoriously famous for many things, not the least of which are his admission that “goat ain’t bite me,” the passage of a no confidence motion against his ministry following the shooting of three Lindeners, an unexplained suspension of his American visa, the purchase of a $37m water cannon to “manage public order,” and being a leader of a mephitic campaign to derail Ralph Ramkarran’s bid to become the PPP Presidential candidate in 1997. I detected a triumphalist statement of his, whereby he disagreed with my “comrade at home” (presumably referring to Ravi Dev) who implied that “Indo-Guyanese owe a debt of gratitude to Afro-Guyanese historically.” African Guyanese might take offense to that bit of historical distortion.
Historians have an obligation to
interrogate the past, including what existing paradigms may classify as “settled” history. No one will deny that Janet was engaged in a “struggle for free and fair elections,” but she should not be exculpated from bearing responsibility for the problems we inherited. To deny that lending critical support did not translate into enabling the dictatorship, and, to silence interrogation of the role of political leaders in nation building, contributes to a jaundiced interpretation of Guyana’s political development and dialectical history. Predicting the collapse of global capitalism, romanticizing about international proletarian revolutions and celebrating Soviet expansionism, to which Janet subscribed (with Rohee as cheerleader!), gives us pause for reflection.
It is an aberration for someone born in another country to be able to advance to the highest seat of political leadership in a developing country where racial antagonism and anti-colonial sentiments remain socially operative. TIME Magazine elevated Janet to one of history’s “most rebellious women,” but such Western imagination is meaningless to a generation of working-class Guyanese who opted for migration from the country of their birth due to the consequences of her Marxist ideology and political actions (Burnham’s no less). Two of the most traumatic anti-Indian attacks occurred under her watch: Wismar 1964 (as Minister of Home Affairs) and January 12, 1998 (as President) – one met with resignation, the latter with silence. She remained confident in her utopian sanctuary, partly because, as she told Peter Simms, “the Indian vote was solidly behind [us].”
Critical assessment should inform a more holistic understanding of Guyanese historiography, instead of unadulterated propaganda and stifling constructive criticism that seek to idolize Janet as a political heroine or victim of Western imperialism. An Accidental Life, by Harold Drayton (who made UG a reality) points to the authoritarian control that graced Janet’s political tenure. Her daughter is credited for the remarkable accomplishment of making the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre (CJRC) a repository for her writings. However, the CJRC website accommodates all of Janet’s responses to her critics, but deliberately omits responses from critical voices with whom she interacted in the local media. Her version of the truth, another imposition on Guyanese historiography, apparently trumps everyone’s else.
Janet was honoured to have visited the young state of Israel and was proud of her Jewish heritage. Yet, among her voluminous writings, there is no single narrative in which she comprehensively assesses the Indian – African ethnic dilemma with a view towards advancing political solutions to our national tragedy. Her legacy continues to overshadow Guyanese women, such as, Salamea, Esther Saywack Mahadeo, Sumintra, Kowsilla, Alice Bhagwandai Singh, Rajkumari Singh, and others, all native-born agents of change who legitimately struggled against hegemonic colonial control and European imperialism in British Guiana.
There is no contradiction with being “Guyanese first” or embracing President Ali’s “One Guyana” initiative, while simultaneously celebrating cultural traits and advocating for interests synonymous with being African, Indian, Chinese, Portuguese or a member of the indigenous community. To do so is to be patriotic in a manner that accentuates the mosaic of our multiculturalism. However, Rohee is transparent about his aversion towards successful Indian Guyanese entrepreneurs who raised questions about their legitimate interests. He referred to them in his book, pejoratively of course, as “the Indian bogey,” a codename supposedly reserved for “racists” whose original sins are grounded in “false consciousness,” and refusal to acknowledge being members of an exploitative class.
Now, with great contempt, he seeks to extend his censorship by invoking another bogeyman – one thrown at Guyanese in the diaspora. It bears repeating that Janet was foreign-born, she supported a (foreign) Eurocentric-based model of economic emancipation that was alien to an organic Guyanese political culture, and she officiated over years of political impotence that oversaw her largely Indian support-base reduced from an ethnic majority to a demographic minority. Ironically, many of them sought refuge in her (foreign) country of birth. To ignore that unsettling reality, and, to now invoke the “diaspora bogey” against Guyanese displaying genuinely positive concerns for their homeland, is not only reflective of residual ignorance of an individual residing in a closeted world, but it reeks of ungratefulness and hypocrisy. How sanctimonious!
Sincerely,
Baytoram Ramharack