Book Review: Clem Seecharan’s Cheddi...
From 20A
praxis primarily to the most obvious variable: the racial factor:
“… Jagan’s limited cultural grounding in Indian history, religion and philosophy meant that he probably underestimated the strength of ethnic and religious susceptibilities in Guyanese society, fomenting instinctual sectional responses irrespective of class. Neither did Janet Jagan (born and bred in Chicago), a seminal influence on Cheddi’s political orientation, fully grasp this overriding complexity, with its potential for cataclysmic dissonance…”
Although the current inheritors of Cheddi’s legacy have drifted away from the core tenets of his Marxist ideology (total nationalization, for instance) in support of what could be described as “unbridled capitalism,” Seecharan acknowledges another element of Jagan’s fatal miscalculations – the failure to find innovative ways to hold the pre1953 multiethnic party together – a failure gifted to those who now embrace his political legacy:
“It is my contention that while Jagan trusted the presumed infallibility of his Marxist creed in winning the confidence of Africans…his grasp of realpolitik was astute in at least one fundamental respect – energising, aggregating and retaining the pivotal loyalty of his Indo-Guyanese base. In this regard his political acumen was finely tuned; and he was as adept a practitioner as Forbes Burnham of the politics of race.”
Chapters 1- 4 of the book discuss the making of Cheddi Jagan, the basis for his Marxist ideological indoctrination, and the early experiences that drove his “bitter sugar” mission against the giant Bookers conglomerate. Chapters 5 -15 examine Jagan’s political tenure, his preferred policies and actions during the Cold War years. The roles of Forbes Burnham, Eusi Kwayana, Peter d’Aguiar and Ashton Chase are all treated comprehensively in these chapters. The final chapter examines Jagan’s continued commitment to Marxism-Leninism, without the Soviet Union, and reconciliation with the “imperialists” who sabotaged his erstwhile post-independence political career.
Seecharan’s book does not contest the universally accepted settled history of Cheddi Jagan being a victim of Western imperialism. The study, however, lends itself to a Kuhnian paradigm shift - it interrogates the extent to which Cheddi’s claims to