Basdeo Panday, the fifth Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, lies in state at Red House in Port-of-Spain. The country’s newspapers noted he was the first Indian and first Hindu to earn that honour. And therein lies the challenge in the Caribbean for individuals from groups other than descendants of enslaved Africans to represent or be represented in the governance of the countries where their forbears arrived as indentured labourers: they are still regarded as “exceptions” and frequently as a “problem”. The challenge becomes acute in the southern Caribbean, where People of Indian Origin (PIOs) form a plurality in Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname.
By the time Basdeo Panday returned as a lawyer from England in 1965, Eric Williams had already removed Trinidad from the WI Federation. There, the DLP, representing Trinidadian PIOs, had been well represented, but not in the majoritarian-elected T&T Government, where the PNM had been victorious since 1956. Williams dubbed Indians a “recalcitrant minority”.
Significantly, Panday did not join the DLP, but the new leftist multiracial Workers and Farmers Party (FWP) launched by CLR James (who had broken from Williams), ex-DLP Leader Stephen Maharaj, and Oilfields Union leader George Weeks.
Unsuccessful in the 1966 elections, the FWP dissolved; and, in 1975, Panday launched the United Labour Front (ULF) with army mutineer Raffique Shah and George Weeks – determined to unite the mainly African oilfield workers with the Indian sugar workers, whose union he led. Even though the ULF won 10 of 36 seats and became the official opposition to Williams’s PNM, most of the votes came from Indian-dominated constituencies.
Against Panday’s determined efforts, the ethnic cleavage in the society asserted itself to have, in effect, the ULF replace the old DLP.
But Panday did not give up on multi-racial politics. In the 1981 elections, his ULF joined the Tobago-based DAC of ANR Robinson and Lloyd Best’s Tapia House to form the National Alliance, which did worse than the ULF on its own. For the 1986 elections, he spearheaded the National Alliance’s coalition with the ONR of PNM-dissident Karl Hudson Phillips to form the NAR, which won the elections.
It was in that year that the political grouping of which I was part in NYC raised funds for the NAR, and I met Panday. In discussions, he was convinced that Trinidad “was not ready” for an Indian PM, and deferred to Robinson to become PM, even though DAC only brought in 2 seats to the ULF’s 8. Panday was made Minister of External Affairs, but soon reacted against him and the ULF’s constituency being peripheralized. He was expelled from the coalition and Government in 1988, along with several other Indian members, who then formed the UNC in April 1989.
In that year, I was part of a team that travelled to the Caribbean to invite leaders in the Indian communities to participate in the launch of GOPIO in NYC. Panday and Cheddi Jagan both spoke at the “Conference on Political Participation” that I co-chaired, and both analysed the challenges of political mobilisation in plural societies. They also participated in a breakout session I also chaired, where they were more specific in their comments. They helped to draft resolutions for presentation to the UN for free and fair elections in Guyana, and action against violence directed predominantly against the Indian community in Trinidad. Both were introduced to members of the US Administration who had attended the Conference.
Cheddi Jagan’s PPP won the 1992 elections in Guyana, and Panday’s UNC, having tied with 17 seats with the PNM in the 1995 elections, coalesced with Robinson’s NAR (2 seats) and he became prime minister. He again led the party to victory in 2000, but internal wranglings led to snap elections in 2001, in which his UNC tied with the PNM with 18 seats each. He offered a coalition to Manning, who refused. By then the NAR’s Robinson was president, after being nominated by Panday, but he chose the PNM’s Patrick Manning as PM even though the PNM had less popular votes.
But Panday never gave up on multiracial politics, even though many stubbornly dubbed him an “Indian leader”. One incident illustrates his magnanimous national vision. Back in 1969, Eric Williams had banned Trinidad-born Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) long before the April 1970 Black Power rebellion. But when Panday became PM, he awarded a monthly grant to pay for Ture’s treatment for prostate cancer.
