By Ryhaan Shah
A recent letter to the press written by Mr Nowrang Persaud confirmed what an attendee at the Highbury Arrival Day commemoration noted regarding President David Granger’s speech: that it reduced Indian Guyanese contributions to national development to that of mere manual and unskilled labour. Granger, whose remarks are posted on the DPI website, stated: “Their [Indian Guyanese] industry and their thrift enabled them to improve their livelihood. They contributed to the diversification of the rural economy by venturing into cattle rearing; cash crop farming, coconut cultivation, paddy growing, rice milling and fishing.”
It is not that there is no integrity in the work being done by Indian Guyanese who continue to fish, farm, and undertake honest manual labour, but there is surely no honesty or integrity in presenting this as the whole of Indian Guyanese achievement in 180 years.
Granger’s use of the preferred terms of “paddy growing” and “rice milling” allowed him to diminish the enormous input of Indian Guyanese agri-business entrepreneurs, like Kayman Sankar and Nand Persaud, who nurtured and developed the rice industry which continues to be a main export product and revenue earner.
Other than agri-businesses, Indian Guyanese entrepreneurship gave rise to the major manufacturers and businesses whose names emblazon our commercial sector, names such as Gafoor, Kissoon, Toolsie Persaud, Muneshwer, and Beharry. Several commercial banks, insurance companies, accounting and legal firms are funded and managed by Indian Guyanese professionals and business people. The major shareholders, for instance, in GBTI are the Beharry family, and those for Demerara Bank include Dr Yesu Persaud and Mr Komal Samaroo.
These businesses create employment for thousands and the entrepreneurs who established them can hardly be dismissed as manual labourers in a “rural economy” when they contribute in great part to Guyana’s economic development. Historical records for Plantation Highbury actually attest to the frugality of even the first batch of Indian labourers who, within two years of their arrival, managed to save thousands of dollars from their meagre wages. Magistrate Charles Strutt remarked: “These people are money-getting and many of them money-saving people ….”
The creation and management of wealth in order to improve one’s standing and circumstances are intrinsic and prideful Indian characteristics and as Indian Guyanese became educated, they also entered the professions. Here, too, they excelled. The list of Indian Guyanese professional luminaries is long but suffice it to say that they are among the country’s top educators, legal minds, accountants, doctors, artists and writers, sportsmen and women, builders, developers, and scientists.
Despite Granger’s best efforts to dismiss us as mere country folk without the sophistication required to conduct big business or engage in the professions, these achievements cannot be denied.
There was also a lot of hyping of the state’s social cohesion programme and its veritable success. Guyana is an “oasis of harmony” according to Granger, and he gave the programme a specific Indian Guyanese context when he said: “My brothers and sisters, Indian society like any other society in any part of the world has differences, but social cohesion can overcome those differences ….”
This was, at best, artful dissembling. There are no differences within the local Indian society that have erupted into any conflict requiring a social cohesive solution. In fact, because they face a common problem, the Indian Guyanese community has been very cohesive and united. Since the 1960s, PNC bullyism and violence have been the most egregious threat to their peace, livelihood and to their very lives, and Granger’s belittling of Indian Guyanese achievements could have been part of the PNC’s ongoing attempt to rewrite Guyana’s history with the Indian contribution much lessened or completely erased.
Mr Persaud in his letter sought to give Granger the benefit of the doubt and suggested that he might not have written the speech himself. In that case, Granger, who likes to describe himself as a historian, could have simply put aside the speech and made much more informed remarks from his own fount of knowledge about Indian Guyanese and our history.
Whatever situation it was – prepared speech or not – the remarks at such an important national commemorative event fell short of the occasion.
But then it was Granger, as head of his Government, who was also in charge of that recent shoddy unveiling of the Cheddi Jagan commemorative stamps which not only conveyed total contempt for Jagan but for every Indian Guyanese for whom Jagan is this nation’s hero.
There should never be any doubt that Granger knows exactly what he is doing.
