Much debate is presently being generated regarding May 5th being given the title of INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY. And while the main Opposition is in agreement with such designation it is really shocking to the point of callousness that the government of the PPP has refused such undertaking especially when one considers that it is their “own’ people, the Indian voting block that has perpetually ensured this Party’s rise to power.
Those who follow the thought process of this group ought to realize that the founder, Cheddi Jagan, was an avowed Marxist who saw people in terms of class instead of race and color. When his nemesis somersaulted into the Socialist landfill the comrade was elated to the point where he gave Burnham Critical Support! Such legacy lives on as Guyanese are lumped into capitalist exploiters, petty bourgeoisie, working class, proletariat..even miscreants !
It is a gross insult to Indians by a dysfunctional set of self-styled administrators, that a simple name, costing no expenditure, cannot be bestowed on the descendants of 239,000 Indians were brought as “indentured laborers” for the sugar plantations of Guyana 1838 and 1917. Those Indians with only a grain of self-worth and who are silent about this insult by the very people who enjoy the powers that they were handed by you are equally guilty. In fact, it is an anomaly that the descendants of the people who arrived on May 5 have generally voted for the very people who cannot- or refuse to- recognize their own values. It must be remembered that in the heyday of the kick-down-door rampage a most bizarre and idiotic declaration was made in 1981 by the PPP leader: Such crimes are actually a class struggle. For Indians it has been 185 years.
Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine