The Rediff Special /K N Prabhu

Bananas, bread-fruit, lush countryside and revolution

K N Prabhu recalls an encounter with Dr Cheddi Jagan, the Guyanese leader who died in Washington last week.

Dr Cheddi Jagan, who is mourned widely in the West Indies and by Marxists, was one of the founding fathers of Guyana. Dr Jagan and Forbes Burnham, whom he succeeded as president, were to Guyana what Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel were to India. But while the Indian leaders buried their differences, the two in the forefront of Guyana's independence struggle, became bitter rivals after this achievement.

I remember that winter evening in Delhi, in the late fifties, when Jagan and Burnham spoke to a small gathering about Guyana's aspirations. The difference between the two was evident! Forbes, dark and magnetic, his very presence exuding the charisma of the West Indian of African origin; Dr Jagan, lean and grey haired. Burnham's voice was vibrant and resonant, Jagan's voice was soft and deliberate. Even the racial difference between them was plain. It was this which was to divide them when the British left Guyana.

The situation was then ripe for the Anglo-US cartels, backed by their respective governments, to intervene. It was often said that when the great commercial empires of Alcan and Booker sneezed, there would be repercussions in Guyana. The reactionaries rallied in favour of Burnham against the radical intellectual Jagan, more so because his wife Janet, a white American, was a Communist.

I had an opportunity to meet Dr Jagan in his office while waiting for the rains to stop during the washed out Test in Georgetown of the 1975--76 series.

Jagan then spoke of the many problems facing citizens of Indian origin. They were dominated by the Africans and terrorised by a police force and army which was manned mostly by blacks.

Asked to name a single cardinal solution to Guyana's problems, I was amazed when Jagan said that a national militia was the need of the hour. With many citizens of India origin in mind, and with his revolutionary background, I wondered if Jagan had an armed revolt in mind to overthrow Burnham.

I found the Indians in authority keen on getting their fellow citizens to regain their Indian identity. There was a campaign in favour of retaining Indian names, and the temples were being restored.

The speaker of the national assembly told me that he had yet to receive an architectural drawing of an authentic Indian temple from India.

The racial divide was visible, for even the great Gary Sobers fell into disfavour when he coached in Rhodesia.

I can recall the frosty greetings exchanged between him and Burnham at a Government House reception in Bridgetown and there was much speculation whether Sobers would turn out to play in a city which was hostile to him.

I also remember during the 1975-76 tour, the long wait to be cleared by immigration at the Georgetown airport because one of our party was reporting for The Daily Telegraph whose reports were regarded with disfavour by the government.

It seemed a sad state of affairs in a land which reminds one of Kerala. The plantations of banana and bread-fruit and the lush green countryside are common to both. So also the rising figures of the unemployed.

But unlike Kerala the crime rate is high and woe betide the tourist who is brave enough to venture out on his own, even in broad daylight.

On a previous Indian tour a reputed Delhi journalist was mugged while returning from the telegraph office, and though there were several people around, no one dared interfere.

This, indeed, was the crown of thorns Dr Jagan inherited and it did seem as if he had begun to restore some semblance of order when he died. Guyana, and the West Indies, are certainly the poorer for this loss.

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