(Ten Years ago I prepared the following for another publication. TRAKKER Readers can see how themes remain constant)
The Melas, Pushpanjalis, Nyrityageets lectures and debates to observe – if not celebrate – the 165th year since the indentured introduction of East Indians to this Guyana land have subsided. The issue and contentions, no doubt, will continue. However, because a large part of me could have been influenced by those coolies who were brought here, I’ll use this space to record a few fleeting views on today’s Indian-descended Guyanese citizens of this State we like to think of as a “nation”.
(Incidentally, I eschew the administrations and teasingly use the term “Coolie” because I hope that someday soon that expression would be made to lose its connotation of degradation, making those so described not at all ashamed of it.) Additionally of course, I suspect that those “immigrants” who arrived on the Whitby and the Hesperus were hardly professionals or highly skilled tradespersons but largely those described as “Asian labourers given to menial jobs “, real Coolies. And how I constantly recall the words of Reverend Dale Bisnauth who stated, insightfully, that “Not everyone who calls me Coolie is a racist”, Even as I respect those who reject the use of gross stereotypical descriptions, I say, “be proud be a Coolie”! Look what you have become!
Well, over the past days I have immersed myself in the strongly-held views and analyses of such Indian-descended persons as Ravi Dev, Tota Manger, Prem Misir, Yesu Persaud, Ryhaan Shah, David Chanderbali, and David Dabydeen, et al., all well-researched, provocative , cerebral and intellectual.
That’s why, within my own limitations, I’ll merely pen the following.
I urge Pan Africanist Ras Tom to appreciate that even though the Guyana House, first inhabited by the wandering Amerindians, might have been leased originally by his African forebears (:This House is Mine!”) who certainly built the foundations, those Asian Coolies and their present-day descendants can lay legitimate claim to some form of prescriptive rights and joint ownership of today’s building. (You must agree Tom, that those tenants have paid their rent and dues fully to share the house and its compound!)
That’s just my way of recording my view that Guyanese of Indian descent justly qualify to share any and all benefits now available, however few those resources are. I agree with Dabydeen that the coming of the Coolies to this country changed, significantly altered the history and development of what is now Guyana; that the east Indians brought with them peculiar values, even virtues that influenced fundamentally the very character of the society as it was in the post-Emancipation period; that during and after Indian indentureship, the scared attachment to the sub-continent’s culture, region and mores and the love of his own piece of land, his goat, sheep or cow, caused the Guyana Indian to turn “suffering” into success. Depending on your perspective however, you have to decide how good for Guyana the “Indian virtues” of say, thrift, saving, frugality and deferred gratification really are.
Then there was Yesu Persaud speaking about “Indians” being most peaceful, tolerant ad resilient – by nature. I agree that those characteristics are eminently desirable amongst any group. But I’m not being offensive when I say that too many Indo-Guyanese are also greedy, and often much too timid. I suppose the negative/offensive balance to all that, is in the expertise of some to be the architects and facilitators of certain aspects of criminal enterprise these days. (Others have written extensively about the “Indian” contributions in every professional field, industry, commerce and sport. I can spare you that.)
During the past two weeks too Shah and Dev have taken on adequately, the government front-organization and others on such issues as the much touted May 5 Indian Arrival Holiday and the lack of security for vulnerable Indo-Guyanese business people and rural dwellers. Great volatile stuff that but the debates laid bare the interest-groups’ agendas, their preferred pathway for Guyanese Indians to proceed to a peaceful, productive and prosperous existence here these days.
Charges of “ethnic extremism” educed interesting responses from the “Indian Rights” activists who stressed Indian pride and highlighted alleged official spinelessness where protection of, and provision for Indo-Guyanese is concerned when compared to what is being offered to “other” communities and constituencies. See how the issue can develop? Even by those who evidently – or supposedly, have the “Indian cause: at heart? Poor me, in all this, I have a vicarious attachment to an interest in the treatment of Indo-Guyanese these days. By those in Government, by those in political opposition; by other “groups” and now by the architects of criminal enterprise. I repeat my amusing (?) dilemma: I might be, by ethnicity, Indian-descended but I’m completely Black-oriented culturally “attitudinally, spiritually”. But you know what? I think that status gives me the clarity to view the “Indian” status dispassionately, even objectively.
And what I say, as a three-cents contribution to the current debate is this: I do feel that the elected authorities take their premier loyal constituency for granted. Despite the need and moral obligation to be even-handed and nationalistic, a political party and a government must find ways of ensuring that the resources, however limited, should be enjoyed by all, including “their own”. Bending over to woo others by denying your own their rights, achieves little. No matter how much their “support” is guaranteed. It’s a good thing those folks are adept at being frugal, spartan. That they remain resilient – because they come from the Coolies!
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