There are several issues raised by the extended debate following Hamilton Green’s intervention, “Cultural Centre we see today” (SN 11-24-24). He felt it necessary to respond to an item in that newspaper on India PM Modi’s felicitation by the local Indian community at the National Cultural Center (NCC). Inter alia, the article noted, “The meeting at the cultural centre had a specific resonance as it was controversially built with funds earmarked for the repatriation of indentured Indian immigrants.”
The first issue raised is on historical fidelity. As Green cautioned, “If we are to move forward as One People, it is important that this generation be not encircled with a historical narrative that is destructive and inaccurate…” I could not agree more. But the problem is that Green, who accepted he was a central figure in the PNC regime that expropriated the Indian Repatriation Funds (IRF), considers himself an impartial historian for the edification of “this generation”. One interlocutor in the debate revealed he attends lectures at Green’s home.
What is on the historical record of the NCC? Green accepts that “funds earmarked for the repatriation of indentured Indian immigrants” were expropriated for the project. He, however, claims that while he “can’t access the records, the sum from the IRF was no more than five to ten percent of the cost to build the NCC we see today.”
However, we are not talking about “the NCC we see today”, but the one built for the 1972 Carifesta and completed by 1974. Dwarka Nath, in his book “History of the Indians in Guyana”, noted that in 1966, $280,000 remained in the Fund. Using the compounded inflation rate, the equivalent US dollar value between 1972 and 2024, which was much lower than Guyana’s – that sum today would have the purchasing power of at least US$800,000.
I contend that this would have been sufficient for Nabi and Sons to construct the NCC of 1974.
In 1966 the PNC government had appointed a committee “to recommend in what way the amount lying in credit of the Immigration Fund should be used for the benefit of the surviving immigrants and their descendants.” In the National Assembly Debate on Estimates of 20th January 1970, in the presence of Burnham and Green, MP RD Persaud highlighted the Government Committee’s recommendation on “the creation and maintenance of at least one centre in each county of Guyana, of the culture of the country of origin of the East Indians in Guyana, the total cost of construction of the centre not to exceed fifty per cent of the capital sum available to the Trust.” Fifty per cent of the monies in the Fund could build the three proposed Cultural Centers.
The second issue is consultation on the use of the monies in the IRF. Note, as stated above, this was “for the benefit of the surviving immigrants and their descendants.” Nath reiterates that the Commission recommended three Indian Cultural Centres (ICCs) be established in the three counties. The PNC government, however, in 1968, fresh from its “mandate” delivered by the 1968 elections that was massively rigged through horses in England etc voting, declared that all the Indian Immigration Fund money would be used to build a “National Culture Centre” in Georgetown. All Indian organisations in Guyana – Muslim, Hindu and social – protested, and the then Marxist PPP followed suit.
Even the Maha Sabha, which had not yet rigged their internal elections to make PNC supporter Sase Narain supreme leader, said: “While not opposed to a part of the Fund being used for a “national” cause, there should be Cultural Centres in Berbice and Essequibo also.” The Gandhi Youth Organization under the leadership of Dr Balwant Singh mobilized opposition to the government’s decision and demanded the Funds be used only for ICCs, “since the money was contractually and legally owing to the descendants of Indian Immigrants”.
On the matter of consultation: ironically, in 2022, when there was a decision by the Ministry of Culture to raise the fee for use of the NCC, Green protested there was “no consultation”. He fumed, “What madness, what arrogance has descended upon the people of Guyana at this time?”
Referring to his role in building the NCC in 1972, without mentioning the funding from the IRF, he revealed the source of the PNC’s refusal to consider building ICCs with their money: “at the helm of the ship in Guyana, we now have a group of cultural barbarians.”
