Articles by Cheddi Jagan 1964-1992
Race, Class and Nationhood: The Indo-Guyanese Experience
by Cheddi JaganThe following article consists of a Paper delivered by Dr. Cheddi Jagan to the Genesis of a Nation Activity in May, 1988, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indians into Guyana:
Overseas Indians in the underdeveloped countries, on the 150th Anniversary of Indentureship, experience grave difficulties. Guyana, and now Fiji and Trinidad and Tobago, highlight their plight. This can best be illustrated by a question put to me in Toronto not too long ago. "Dr. Jagan," I was asked, "what is the second largest city in Guyana?" I answered: New Amsterdam. No. he said, it was Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto.
As we commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the arrival of Indians in the New World, we are faced with the stark reality of another migration, what in Guyana some call "going to regions 11 and 12", meaning Canada and the United States of America. It would be funny if it were not so tragic.
Indentureship was another form of slavery. In many respects, it was equally brutal. On 9th January, 1839, the BRITISH EMANCIPATOR, the official organ of the Anti-Slavery Society of Great Britain reported that "the British Public has been deceived With the idea that the coolies are doing 'well'; such is not the fact; the poor friendless creatures are miserably treated." 1 Governor Henry Light, in a dispatch to the Colonial, Office wrote that "the immigrants had suffered much sickness and were in a filthy state".2
On 15th February 1840, he stated:
I confess I should be unwilling to adopt any measure to favour the transfer of labourers from British India to British Guiana, after the failure of the former experiment. Admitting that the mortality of the Hill coolies first sent may have been accidental, I am not prepared to encounter the responsibility of a measure which may lead to a dead loss of life on the one hand, or, on the other, to a new system of slavery. Corporal punishment is not unknown to those poor people, and I have heard no argument used in favour of enabling the crowded population of India to take ad the high wage of Guiana, which remove the danger I apprehend… 3
Elizabeth Taylor, a worker of Plantation V Hoop, told a Commission of Enquiry:
The coolies were locked up in the sick house next morning they were flogged with a cat-o-nine-tails; the manager was in the house, and they flogged the people under his house; they were tied to the post of the of the gallery of the manager's house; I cannot tell how many licks; he gave them enough. I saw blood. When they were flogged at the manager's house they rubbed salt pickle on their backs. 4
A Royal Commission in 1870 pointed out that indentured Indian immigrant was trapped by the law "in the hands of a system which elaborately twists and turns him about, but always leaves him face to face with an impossibility." 5
Stoppages of wages were "everyday occurrences". Severe penalties were imposed for absenteeism. The indentured labourer's movement was restricted. The Vagrancy Law required a "pass" before he/she could travel more than two miles beyond the boundaries of the estate.
And like the slaves in the "Nigger yard", the indentured immigrant was forced to live in the "Coolie yard", or "Bound yard" in low-lying ranges, which were not uprooted until the 1950s.
I recall my mother, who slaved for 8 cents in the canefields and never had a chance of going to school remarking: Bhaiya, ahwee prapa punish, meaning: Brother we greatly punished. Under the plantocracy, sugar was really bitter. Though entitled to return to India at the end of his or her 5-year indenture contract, only a small percentage of the immigrants could afford the return passage.
The plantocracy created not only a wage differential, but also a division of labour. Cheap muscle power was needed. So the Indians were relegated to the "Backdam", the caneftelds. To ensure an abundant supply of even children's labour, the "Swettenham Circular'' stipulated that Indians were to be exempt from the compulsory provisions of primary education.
And whenever the source of cheap Indian labour was threatened, the sugar planters wielded their considerable power. On more than one occasion, they used their legislative power to block salaries for the Governor and the top administrators. This was their way of demonstrating their power and displeasure with the British Government, which at times contemplated the ending of indentureship because of the scourge of malaria and the brutalities of the system.
But exploitation was not all. The new wage-slaves were also resented and despised. They were resented because they had been brought by their colonial/plantation masters to undercut the position of the freed African population. The Africans had the feeling that "the coolie takes bread from the Negro labourer and lowers the price of labour".6
The indentured Indians were also despised because they brought a culture alien to Western customs and values. The epithet "coolie" depicted the Indian immigrants' situation.
Indentureship finally came to an end in 1920. But not before there had been numerous demonstrations, skirmishes, riots and uprisings against starvation wages, appalling conditions and the abuse of women. And the workers paid with their blood; for instance, in British Guiana at Devonshire Castle (September 1872) - 5 killed and 6 wounded; at Non Pariel (October 1896) - 6 killed and 58 wounded; at Friends (May 1903) - 5 killed and 7 wounded; at Lusignan (September 1912) - 1 killed; at Rose Hall (March 1913) - 15 killed; at Ruimveldt (April 1924) 13 killed; at Leonora (1939) - 4 killed; at Enmore (June 1948) - 5 killed and 8 wounded.
Those events clearly explode the caricature that Indians are uncultured and docile. Far from it, their culture was rooted in struggle - struggle for the common good. And the massacre of 13 at Ruimveldt in 1924 clearly demonstrated their proletarian intelligence. Despite their lack of formal education, their proposed peaceful march to Georgetown, the capital, signalled their realisation that the amelioration of their own abominable conditions depended on unity and solidarity - unity of rural and urban workers and solidarity which transcended the narrow confines of race. They were marching to the capital to lend support to the struggling urban Black workers on strike under the leadership of the working class champion, Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow. To them, Critchlow was "Black Crosby", named after a white Immigration Agent General.
Indian/Black unity at the working people's level in Guyana was manifested on several occasions when exslaves and Indian immigrants struggled together against the colonial exploiters and oppressors. It was shattered in the mid-1920s not only by police brutality, but also by imperialist "big stick" methods.
The disrating of the Constitution which had been inherited from the Dutch, and the imposition of Crown Colony rule in 1927-28 with unlimited gubernatorial powers led to the undermining of the Critchlow Movement by opportunist middle class Blacks. This was divide-and-rule in new conditions. It resulted in Black/Indian cooperation, based on working class solidarity, degenerating into Black/Indian rivalry and confrontation.
The Black middle class, which had emerged earlier historically, was generally content with their "junior partner" role, and saw the emergent Indian middle strata as a threat. They perceived the lower rungs of the colonial administrative ladder as their preserve. In Trinidad, Marxist historian Dr. Gordon Lewis referred to them as "the white collar proconsuls of the colonial structure".7 In this sense, they tended to be conservative wanting a maintenance of the status quo. And so, they assumed, for instance in Guyana, increasingly a conservative political posture and opposed reforms for adult suffrage and self-government.
In the Caribbean region as a whole, Black cultural nationalism manifested itself in both opportunist/reactionary and progressive stances. In the Indian middle strata three trends developed - opportunist/ conservative, nationalist/reformist, and radical/ revolutionary. These were reflective of the top, middle and bottom positions of the petty-bourgeois class. Like the "Black White men", there were the "Brown White men". Indians in this category, in return for "crumbs from the table", were prepared to defend the colonial system.
Some, resentful of barriers to the entry of Indians into the Civil Service and lack of promotional opportunities, championed universal adult suffrage. They saw, in this reform, more Indians becoming enfranchised and more Indians becoming parliamentarians. This was seen as a means for Indians, individually and collectively, wielding greater influence. Those Indians, seeing not only inequality of opportunity but also national/cultural oppression, saw the need for change. They linked the call for adult suffrage to that of self government.
And lastly, there were some who saw that in the culturally-plural, multi-ethnic society, the separate racial categories were not uni-class, that race and class were interacting factors in politico-ideological reality. For instance, in the Indian population, there were landlords and tenants, capitalists and workers. The need was seen therefore for national, as well as social liberation. And so, for some Indians and parties, there developed a socialist perspective -social-democratic and Marxist-Leninist.
The Black/Indian rivalry and confrontation was manifested in different attitudes and political positions. With Blacks in office in the colonial period, the middle-class Indians generally opposed federation of the West Indies in Guyana and Trinidad; in Suriname, they opposed independence, as the Blacks in Guyana with the PPP in government in the 1957-64 period.
Indian/Black confrontation gave way to co-operation through class collaboration at the petty-bourgeois and bourgeois levels. In Guyana, the middle strata-led East Indian Association and the League of Coloured People made an accommodation in the Labour Party in 1947 for the general elections that year.
In Suriname, the Indian-based Progressive Reform Party (VHP) linked with the Black Creole-based National Party of Suriname (NPS) and the Javanese-based Party for Unity and Harmony (KTPI) to constitute the current ruling Front for Democracy and Development.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the Black petty-bourgeois nationalist People's National Movement (PNM) made an accommodation with the wealthy Christian and Muslim Indians. This was facilitated by the one-time Leader of the Opposition, big businessman Bhadase Maraj, being at the same time the President of the Hindu Maha Sabha.
PNM founder and long-time leader, the late Dr. Eric Williams, writing of the Independence of the twin-island Republic in 1962, said: "Two races have been freed, but a society has not been formed".8 It can be justifiably argued that the integration of the Black bourgeoisie with a section of the Indian big businessmen under PNM's political pragmatism was not the way to build "a society".
Indian/Black unity of a qualitatively more democratic and fundamental character was achieved by the People's Progressive Party (PPP). It deepened the process started by the Critchlow Movement by bringing together Indian and Black workers, farmers and Intellectuals, and attaining a popular victory of 18 out of 24 seats in 1953. But after 133 days, history was to repeat itself with the imperialists using force to destroy the government and the Constitution and, with middle class opportunistic collaboration, to split the Party and abort the unity process. As journalist Carl Blackman noted, at the 35th Anniversary of the suspension of the Constitution, that brutal action was the root of all the problems we experience today.
A decade later, the racial problem was exacerbated by foreign intervention. The Insight Team, in a London Sunday Times (22nd February 1967) story "How the CIA Got Rid of Jagan" wrote: "As coups go, it was not expensive: over five years the CIA paid out something over £250,000. For the colony British Guiana, the result was about 170 dead, untold hundreds wounded, roughly £10 million worth of damage to the economy and a legacy of racial bitterness."9
Racial discrimination and "second-class" status have been the lot of Indians. Like Blacks in the USA, they suffer doubly: from discrimination because of their race and culture; from exploitation as members of the working class and peasantry.
In Guyana, after more than two decades of rule by the petty-bourgeois Black-dominated People's National Congress (PNC), the vast majority of Indians feel "left out". Through electoral fraud and military intervention in elections, they have been virtually disenfranchised. And through political and racial discrimination under the doctrine of "PNC paramouncy", equality of opportunity is denied. Consequently, many Indo-Guyanese see their salvation in emigration mainly to North America.
In Trinidad and Tobago, under the slogan of "One Love", the 4 party multi-class and multi-ethnic National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) generated great expectations. But in the context of a deep economic and financial, crisis and the long-entrenched institutional framework of a Black bureaucracy and a capitalist ruling class, it was too much to expect decisions for change in favour of the working people and racial equality.
It is yet to be seen what will emerge from the interracial unity at the 3-party petty bourgeois-led Front for Democracy and Development in Suriname. It is doubtful that within the context of dependent capitalism, real racial harmony and peace can emerge. The deep and prolonged general, cyclical and structural crisis of the world capitalist system is aggravating socio-economic problems of the working people including growing unemployment and underemployment.
The metropolitan capitalist countries have been trying to solve their crisis by exporting it to the third world. The vast majority of the latter countries, which have taken a dependent, capitalist-oriented course, are faced with underdevelopment, manifested in the debt crisis, and a vicious circle of poverty. As the crisis of world capitalism deepens, further disintegration will take place. The U.N Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in a study for the 1985-95 decade, pointed out that the 130 million living in conditions of total poverty or critical poverty in 1980 wilil rise to 170 million by the year 2000; the 80 million unemployed and under employed in 1980 will reach 112 million in 1995. The foreign debt of 360 billion dollars in 1985 will grow to 672 billion dollars by 1995.
The UN Commission said that a 7 per cent economic growth rate was necessary for progress, but it averaged only 1 per cent during 1980-85. A bleak future can be foreseen from the fact that already in 1980, 10 per cent of the population, the super-rich, appropriated 40 per cent of the national income, whilst 40 per cent, the poor, existed on only 8 per cent.
Specifically for the Caribbean, the "Group of Twelve Wise Men" had warned, in the early 1980s of the alarming situation, especially in relation to the growing number of the unemployed. Since then, the situation has greatly deteriorated. The traditional props of the economy - sugar, bauxite, oil, cocoa and bananas - have been giving way to tourism and drugs, thus increasing the dependency on the crisis-ridden imperialist North.
In the developed capitalist states, where "Welfarism" has been and is being scuttled, the immigrants are becoming the scapegoats, in the same way that the Junker capitalist class under Hitler fascism singled out the Jews. Alarmingly, in the recent French elections, significant gains were made by the National Front on a blatant anti-immigrant platform.
In many third world states, with deteriorating socio-economic conditions under dependent underdeveloped capitalism, racial discrimination and national/cultural oppression is becoming more accentuated. Regrettably, Indians are becoming the scapegoats. The BOMB of Trinidad and Tobago recently wrote that "there is a visible anti-Indian movement sweeping the Eastern Caribbean Caricom countries."10
Consequently, many Indian youths fall victim to frustration, alienation and an inferiority complex, especially as they become more and more urbanized, jobless and discriminated against. This leads them, especially after constant bombardment by North America satellite/TV programmes, to cosmopolitanism and drug/alcohol culture. Alarmed, middle and upper class Indian parents, especially in Trinidad and Tobago, foster the growth of "Indian fundamentalism".
Great care has to be exercised not to unleash racial emotionalism. Some, bent on fanning Indian/Black animosity, blame the recent rupture in the right-of-centre Alliance for Reconstruction on the Indians. What is not seen is that the NAR is a coalition of right and left, pro-capitalist and pro-labour forces, and the two major ethnic groups. As I see it, the Basdeo Panday faction, which included the non-Indian John Humphrey, was fighting not only for racial equality, but also for a pro-labour dispensation. It is ironical that whilst Panday is now on the left of the NAR ideological spectrum, he was assumed to be on the right of the powerful 4-union-backed left-of-centre United Labour Front in 1976!
Dismay has been expressed at the support for the Pakistani Team by Indians during the recent Pakistani/ West Indian cricket test match. This was seen not only as disconcerting, but also as downright disloyal. It 'is wrong and dangerous to blow up these incidents. They must be understood in proper perspective: the social psychology of Indians; their second-class status; the discrimination meted out to them.
A comparable attitude is demonstrated by West Indians domiciled in Britain at MCC/West Indies cricket matches. Even more vociferous was their support for the West Indies team. And we do not blame them.
It must not be forgotten also that Marcus Garvey, suffering under second-class status for Blacks in the United States, idealized Africa and started the "Back to Africa" movement. Though hounded at the time, he is today regarded as a West Indian hero.
If Indians glorify India's civilization and culture, celebrate joyfully the independence of India and Pakistan, and rally for the Indian and Pakistani cricket team, it must be seen as compensation for a sense of persecution, an inferiority complex which has been forced an their psyche over the years.
As regards Indian so called disloyalty and racism, certain facts must be noted. Firstly, very few Indians opted for citizenship of India and Pakistan on their independence from Britain. Secondly, a few Indians who wanted to make India their home felt like "fish out of water" there. One prominent individual went from Guyana to India, but left soon after to settle in England. Thirdly, looked at from a class perspective, Indians in Guyana supported non-Indians on several occasions:
In 1924 when Indian sugar workers supported Hubert Critchlow; in the 1950,s, when in a predominantly Indian populated constituency, the Indians twice voted for white Janet Jagan in preference to the resident Indian landlord, shopkeeper, money-lender and rice-miller; in 1953, when again in another predominantly Indian-populated constituency, a black sugar worker, Fred Bowman, on a PPP ticket defeated an Indian legislator, Dr. J. B. Singh, of more than 20 years standing; in the late 1970s, when sections of Indian youths were avid supporters of Dr. Walter Rodney.
Federation is often used as a yardstick to judge the commitment of Indians to West Indian nationhood. This, I submit, is superficial. Indians for various reasons - social class, ideology, social psychology - had different positions. The majority of middle-class Indians opposed Federation. Was this disloyalty? Or was it a reflection of their preoccupation with "second-class" status to which they had been reduced?
On the other hand, there were Indians who supported Federation - "Jimmy" Ramphal, Rahman Gajraj, "Sonny" Ramphal, Kamaludin Mohamed. Did that qualify them as patriots? As nominated members in the Legislative Council of the "Interim Government" (1954-57), the monstrosity set up by the Colonial Office after the ouster of the PPP Government in October 1953, Jimmy Ramphal and Rahman Gajraj were merely reflecting the views of the British Government when they voted for Guyana's entry into the West Indies Federation.
At that time the British ruling class saw federation as a means of containment of progressive/revolutionary countries or provinces in the British Empire - such as in British Guiana, Singapore, Nigeria, etc. It is instructive to note that the plantocracy strongly opposed Federation up to the time of the PPP victory in 1953; thereafter, they became equally strong supporters.
Kamaludin Mohamed, in supporting the Federation, was only reflecting the views of the ruling People's National Movement government led by Dr. Eric Williams. Indian tokenism was demonstrated when he did not rise to the Prime Ministership after Dr. Williams’ death, despite the fact that he had acted in that position on several occasions.
Shridath "Sonny" Ramphal, the son of "Jimmy" Ramphal, returned from Jamaica to serve in the Burnham-led government, which had been installed by the CIA in December 1964. He had served as deputy Attorney General of the Federation and was regarded as one of the principal architects of the Caribbean Free Trade Area (Carifta) and the Caribbean Common Market (Caricom).
Advocacy of integration, whether political and/or functional-economic does not per se lead to nationhood, and the building of a cohesive society. Nationalism divorced from a proletarian or progressive internationalism can become a reactionary and divisive force.
We must not forget that political federation and regional integration of the Carifta/Caricom type with an "open door" to foreign capital was also the demand of the spokesman of imperialism. George Ball, a former Under-Secretary of State and a one-time chairman of the big investment banking firm, Lehman Bros., let the cat out of the bag when he said:
"The multi-national US corporation is ahead of, and in conflict with, existing world political organisations represented by the nation-state. Major obstacles to the multi- -national corporation are evident in Western Europe, Canada and a good part of the developing world".
Taking a world outlook and class approach, my stand on regional integration was different from that of the Indian proponents and opponents of Federation. In the late 1940s, before the formation of the PPP, I wholeheartedly supported the call of the militant Caribbean Labour Congress (CLC) for a West Indies Federation with dominion status and self government for each unit territory. At that time, the predominantly-Black Caribbean leaders and I saw West Indian nationhood from a common anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and socialist perspective.
But a few years later, we parted ways. Reneging on their CLC commitments, the majority of the Caribbean leaders accepted in 1958 a Federation with a crown colony status - a Federation which we called "collective colonialism". This was after they had aligned themselves with imperialism and had assumed Western cold-war postures.
The tragic consequences of this turnaround were the scuttling of the CLC, the witch-hunting of the left and the isolation of, and attacks on the PPP. In October 1953, L.F.S. Burnham and I were prevented from passing through the Caribbean on our way to London to protest the suspension of the Constitution in 1953. And in the House of Commons, we were flabbergasted to hear the reading of telegrams from some of those Caribbean leaders praising the British government for its "gunboat diplomacy".
Caribbean nationhood will not emerge from neo-colonialist dependency. Even now, quite a significant number of Caribbean patriots, Blacks and Indians, see in the call for a Caribbean Security System (CSS) and a political union of the Eastern Caribbean states the stamp of Washington.
In this regard, there is an interesting parallel with the mid-1960s. Soon after the US military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson called for an Inter-American Peace Force on the basis that independence must give way to interdependence, that sovereignty with its concept of "geographical frontiers" was obsolete and should be replaced by "ideological frontiers". This, he argued, was necessary for the preservation of freedom and democracy. As under the Truman Doctrine, democracy and peace were equated with the free enterprise capitalist system. "The American way of life" was presumed to be what the Caribbean and the Americans needed, and there must be a collective force to defend the "collective community".
After the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, the Caribbean Security System became the counterpart of the Inter-American Peace Force for Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole. And what is more, the present-day Caribbean leaders are ideologically/politically more linked to Washington than their counterparts in the 1950s and 1960s. A substantial majority belong to the conservative Caribbean Democratic Union, which is associated with the International Democratic Union, led by US President Reagan, British Prime Minister Thatcher and West German Chancellor Kohl.
For us in the PPP, it is necessary to view Caribbean reality and nationhood from a world perspective and with a class approach. Class is more fundamental than race. This does not mean that there is no such thing as ethnicity, that there is no racial problem. There is a problem. And it must be addressed. It must be neither underestimated nor over-estimated. It must not be swept under the carpet, with the pretence that it does not exist. At the same time, it must not be seen as an unsolvable problem.
What needs to be done is a recognition of the racial problem and the implementation of certain reforms. Apart from constitutional guarantees, these should include a Race Relations Board, an equal opportunity law, fair employment practices and Affirmative Action as in the United States.
The service commissions - public, police, judicial, teacher - concerned with appointments and promotion, must be completely independent and free from political control. And they should be empowered to deal with all appointments, including those by the state corporations. They should not be forced to function, as in Guyana, in an environment where the ruling party and the state have become indistinguishable, where under the doctrine of "paramouncy", the government is deemed as the executive arm of the party, and critics of the ruling party are deemed enemies of the state. This doctrine, which fostered the accentuation of political and racial discrimination in our plural multi-party political system must be scrapped.
These reforms must pave the way for a revolutionary approach to the problem. Fundamentally, the way forward in multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural developing countries is a new socio-economic order; a national-democratic, socialist-oriented way leading by successive steps ultimately to socialism.
Only socialism with a planned economy can bring an end to unemployment, underemployment, hunger and insecurity; only socialism with its moral and ethical principles and values can bring an end to exploitation of man, national chauvinism, racial and political discrimination. Only under socialism can national unity and rich culture representing all ethnic groups be developed. In one Caribbean country, this is becoming a reality. Socialist Cuba points the way to racial harmony, a rich culture and economic and social well-being.
It is short-sighted to see the "Caribbean man" only as a "Black man", and Caribbean culture as African culture. Apart from the different countries of their origin, both our Black slave and Indian indenture ancestors watered the sugar cane with their blood. Through their struggles and sacrifices, they have made valuable contributions to our historical and social development.
They have both achieved great successes in all fields of endeavour – professions, literature, art and culture. The Indo-Guyanese journalist and author, Peter Ruhoman noted that "the Negroes are a great people; they have been so from the earliest times" 11 , and called on the Indians to emulate the successes of the Black and Coloured people as educators, politicians, doctors, lawyers and other professionals. About the Indians, the famous Caribbean writer and patriot, George Lamming wrote:
"… those Indian hands - whether in British Guiana or Trinidad - have fed all of us. They are, perhaps, our only jewels of a true native thrift and industry. They have taught us by example the value of money; for they respect money as only people with a high sense of communal responsibility can".12
And studies in the Caribbean have shown that Blacks and Indians have evolved: they are not exactly the same as the roots from which they sprang; indeed they have many things in common and more that, unites than divides them. They must find the means of co-operation, including political power-sharing.
The "Uncle Toms" that the Caribbean revolutionary patriot Maurice Bishop fought against, be they the Black bureaucratic capitalist and/or the Indian materialistic-minded comprador bourgeoisie, are not the ones who will build our new society. They are merely the modern-day slave-catchers and harkaatis. It is only under the leadership and guidance of the working class, the peasantry, the radical intelligentsia and the patriotic capitalists that we will be able to forge a new Caribbean man and a true integrated Caribbean culture - a culture socialist in content, diverse in its national forms and internationalist in spirit; a culture based on the achievements and original progressive traditions of our Black and Indian ancestors.
A new people's culture is needed; it cannot be imposed from above. It will spring from the struggle for fraternity and equality as opposed to individualism and greed, for the appreciation rather than the contempt of human labour. It will come with genuine democratisation and the working people's meaningful involvement in all spheres of public and social life. We have a nation to build and a destiny to mould; in the words of Guyana's motto: Let us together build: "One People, One Nation, One Destiny".
REFERENCES
1. Cited in Dr. David Chanderbali, "Some Major Characteristics of Indian Indenture", Thunder, Guyana, first quarter 1988, pp 26-27.
2. Ibid.
3. Cited In Dr. Cheddi Jagan, The West On Trial, Seven Seas, Berlin, 1980, p 27
4. Ibid.
5. Quoted in Shridath Ramphal, "Roots and Reminders" New Nation, Guyana Ist May.1988, p 3.
6. James Rodway, "Labour and Emigration", Timehri, Vol. VI September 1919 p 36.
7. Quoted in Ron Sanders, "Indian Indenture: The legacy in Guyana and Trinidad", Stabroek News, Guyana, 9th April 1988, p 8.
8. Ibid.
9. Cheddi Jagan. op. cit. p 379.
10. Kamal Persaud, Racism Against The Indians in The Eastern Caribbean, Battlefront Printers San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago, 1988, p 2.
11. A. J. McR. Cameron, "Joseph Ruhoman and the Growth of East Indian Consciousness," Stabroek News, Guyana, 16th April 1988, p 7.
12. George Lamming, "The West Indian People", New World Quarterly, Vol 2, No 1, 1966, p 69.
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000