Dear Editor,
A once highly respected “Hindu Priest” and former GuySuCo “controversial executive” exposed himself as one who embodies the characteristics of Ravana – ten times over.
In a Stabroek News article dated August 22, 2025, WIN’s agriculture spokesperson, Vishnu Panday, reportedly blamed the PPP/C Government for the state of the sugar industry.
According to the article, Panday stated, “It was the PPP/C, from 1992 to 2015, that crippled the sugar industry. And I repeat, for 23 years the PPP presided over the industry’s decline. So, when these jackasses claim that APNU closed the industry, let them hear it loud and clear: it was the PPP that shut it down. And let it be known, a man named Panday said so.”
Citing Stabroek News, the article continued: Panday recalled that he “walked off the job at Skeldon in 2010 and went to work as a consultant for the Suriname Government’s sugar industry until former President Donald Ramotar begged me to return. I left again in 2021 and once more in 2024.”
Panday explained, “You know why? Because I can’t deal with these crooks and these scamps any longer.”
Oh, really?
Truth be told, Mr Panday’s outbursts hurled at the incumbent PPP/C Government, and I dare say unapologetically, constitute what I would describe as an erratic, paradoxically calamitous, seismically comical, inherently ingrained dilemma of moral destitution – amounting to an irony within an irony.
A story has three sides: his side, their side, and the truth. The other side of the story is that he never walked off any job. I am informed by a former Chairman of GuySuCo that he was fired in 2010. Subsequently, it was the then President of GAWU, Komal Chand, who is now deceased (God bless his soul), that pleaded with President Ramotar to rehire him, out of compassion, which he did in 2015.
Word on the street is that he was [allegedly] fired from a prominent private sector company in the fishing industry, where he served as general manager as well.
In the case of Skeldon, his termination was invoked owing to his failure to deliver; thus, incompetence, insubordination, and allegations were levelled against him concerning his involvement in questionable transactions, which he denied.
Readers will recall that Dr Nanda Gopaul, Dr Randy Persaud, and the undersigned co-authored a detailed report on the Skeldon Sugar Factory, meticulously outlining the sequence of events and naming those directly responsible.
At the centre of that failure stands Mr Panday.
He was not a bystander; he was the executive with primary responsibility for the Skeldon Modernisation Project and, by extension, a central figure in the decline of GuySuCo and the eventual closure of the Enmore Estate.
The record is clear: as General Manager of Skeldon, Mr Panday presided over the project from its inception to its inglorious collapse. To suggest otherwise is to rewrite history.
(For ease of reference, a summary of the detailed report on the Skeldon matter can be accessed here: https://guyanachronicle.com/2023/11/03/booker-tate-apnuafc-were-responsible-for-the-dire-state-of-the-skeldon-project-sugar-industry/. And, former President Ramotar had also written an interesting letter that may be of interest as well: https://guyanatimesgy.com/the-plan-was-never-changed/.
The foregoing being established, having been exposed to his narration of the Ramayana at countless religious functions (many years ago), it is deeply perturbing to now witness the devolution of a once highly respected “Hindu priest”.
Today, he exhibits himself as one who embodies the characteristics of Ravana – magnified tenfold. And note my choice of words: I say his narration of the sacred texts rather than his spiritual teachings – for narration is all it ever was.
The Vishnu Panday whom I had known – or thought I did – was a man of great eloquence; he still is. He was also, in my regard, a human repository of an expansive vocabulary, combining in his articulation a mastery of complexly orientated, sophisticated literary utility within his linguistically innovative skills.
With that in mind, I am therefore taken aback by his unsophisticated and unusually finite vocabulary, as referenced above – especially the term “jackass”. Quite unusual of him. Hence, my ‘devolution’ assertion is attributed to him, such that he is perhaps suffering from the law of diminishing returns within the context of an idiosyncratic personality perplexity syndrome.
The Hindi equivalent of ‘jackass’ is “gadha”, or in Sanskrit “gardhabhah”. In the Ramayana’s metaphorical philosophy, a gadha symbolises ignorance and foolishness. In this vein, it is worth emphasising that, according to the authoritative teachings of the Ramayana, “a guru who knows the scriptures but acts contrary to them is a hypocrite and unwise. Rama says that such a person is to be grieved for, because he loses both this world (honour and integrity) and the next (spiritual progress), and worse still, drags others into darkness.”
This teaching extracted directly from the Ramayana – a sacred text of which Mr Vishnu Panday is himself a masterful narrator – perfectly aligns with the observably diminishing unique behavioural traits he now displays.
In the final analysis, Mr Panday’s own words and record speak louder than his outbursts; his attempts to cast blame elsewhere collapse under the weight of history, leaving him not the accuser, but the accused. The tragedy is that a man once cloaked in eloquence and reverence now stands as a cautionary tale of hypocrisy, hubris, and decline.
Yours sincerely,
Joel Bhagwandin
