African and Indian intellectuals: The difference

NOVEMBER 3, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

The trouble I had with Swami Aksharananda during the election campaign of May 2015 was that as a trained sociologist, he was in a superior position to understand the sociological contours of Guyanese society than the others in that long list of Guyanese East Indians who were rooting for the PPP in the campaign. What all these Indians did, including Aksharananda, was to ignore the great role African intellectuals and the African middle class played in weakening the rule of two African Guyanese presidencies. The following quote about the thinking of Aksharananda is taken from Dr. Baytoram Ramharack in the Stabroek News of October 29, 2015; “Swami Aksharananda reminded us that within the African community (specifically, the PNC and WPA) a significant number of African intellectuals, scholars, and activists …are quite vociferous when it comes to ethnic honour, and for whom the furtherance and defence of African Guyanese interests, is an important plank in their political and public life. “He suggested that this group of individuals seeks to connect ethnic interests with national interests” and that there is an “asymmetry in this position when it comes to Indians. His conclusion was that the Indian ethnic interest “has been presented as diametrically opposed to national interest.” (end of quote) It was this type of thinking that brought me into confrontation with Aksharananda during the May election campaign because his thinking was a denial of Guyanese history, disrespectful of African Guyanese intellectuals and a contemptuous dismissal of context. In what Aksharananda and Ramharack will find shockingly ironic, most of the African intellectuals who confronted the Burnham regime came under the influence of Eusi Kwayana and his African-based organization ASCRIA. It follows that Aksharananda’s adumbration of African intellectuals in Guyana lacks context and therefore is intellectually invalid. What becomes confusing to any reader of the above quote produced by Ramharack, is if African intellectuals were so obsessed with securing and preserving the African construct and protecting the formation that emerged from such endeavors then how do you explain the anti-Burnham radicalism of Eusi Kwayana, Andaiye, Dr. Omawale, Dr Clive Thomas, Dr. David Hinds, Dr. Maurice Odle, Bonita Bone, Tacuma Ogenseye, Kwame Apatha, etc? The answer is that these people in defence of human rights were not articulating an African interest but a nationalist one. The ultimate beneficiary of such an ideology was the Indian. It was the Indians who rose to power and held onto it for twenty-three years after the PNC administrations of Burnham and Hoyte were weakened by the poly-class combination of urban African middle class and Cheddi Jagan’s rural networks of Indians. All I was asking the Indians during the exchanges in the May election campaign that included people like Ryhaan Shah, Ramharack and Akshsarananda himself was to acknowledge this fantastic role of African Guyanese in our country’s history. They have refused. Much to his credit, Ravi Dev has not obliterated the role of the WPA and Walter Rodney in this context. I think Dev is much too smarter to go down that road, because such a pathway is impossible to defend in any polemic on Guyana’s post- Independence history. Dr. Ramharack after quoting Aksharananda asked the question; where is the Indian intellectual class in Guyana in 2015, and why these Indian intellectuals are not speaking out? First, the Indian intellectual class was always there. They produced phenomenal critiques and energetic radicalism during the Burnham and Hoyte epochs. The names can fill volumes. Secondly, this very class ripped the soul out of their polemical capacity to think originally, because they subsumed their scholarly ability under support for President Cheddi Jagan. Thirdly, as Jagan failed to produce the racial solidarity that the world expected of him, they couldn’t attain the moral courage to do what African intellectuals in the seventies did during Burnham’s reign – criticize the county’s leader who was from their own ethnic world. Fourthly, as Jagdeo became deadlier than Burnham and as African Guyanese began to seek ways and means to challenge the Indian hegemony that Jagdeo created, the Indian intellectual class abandoned their scholarly obligations to Guyanese history and propagandized for the PPP in power. They felt it was more of an ethnic than philosophical duty to protect the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal. Even someone like Ravi Dev avoided criticism of PPP’s undemocratic governance. We can end with the perfect example. Dr. Lomarsh Roopnarine in an exchange with me, agreed that Jagdeo’s reign produced some unsavory moments and he concedes that Jagdeo should not be the Opposition Leader. Roopnarine’s frankness showed that the Indian intellectual class was always there. But it never spoke up when its voice was needed. It chose ethnic loyalty over scholarly commitments.