B.S. Rai, iconic political figure dating back to pre-independence...

“Mr. Rai’s term as Guyana’s first Home Affairs Minister was short-lived after Dr. Jagan asked Governor Ralph Grey to revoke his ministerial portfolio in June 1962. This was subsequent to Mr. Rai, who was Deputy (Vice) Chairman of the PPP, being expelled by Dr. and Mrs Jagan, because of his refusal to retract his public statement that the Jagans manipulated the PPP elections for Party Chairman. Rai challenged a popular African Guyanese and former Minister of Natural Resources, Brindley Benn (father of current minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn) for the post of Chairman at the PPP’s Congress in 1962. Rai’s complaints about the electoral irregularities to then Attorney General Fenton Ramsahoye evoked the cryptic response: “Comrade, why worry. The party works in devious ways.” Together with another PPP stalwart, Jai Narine Singh, Rai later formed the Justice Party, but could not secure enough votes to win a seat in the 1964 elections. During the 1964 elections, he warned his supporters that the imposed Proportional Representation system would result in the

PPP being excluded from government. Rai remained incorruptible, migrating to the UK in 1970. He rejected Burnham’s entreaties and lucrative offers, even as some of the PPP’s brightest Marxist theoretician, including Ranji Chandisingh, accepted Burnham’s carrots.

“The Pensions (President, Parliamentary and Special Offices) Act, Chapter 27:03, enacted in January 1970, provided for pension to legislators who were sitting members of the National Assembly on or after May 26, 1966. The Act also provided for pensions to legislators who had served in 1953 or after, thus providing for former legislative service to be counted for purposes of computing pensions to qualified legislators. Balram Singh Rai served as a legislator from 1957 to 1964. He remains today the only Guyanese minister who was denied a parliamentary pension.

Despite previous correspondences and conversations on this matter with Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte, Sir Shridath Ramphal, Sase Narain, Cheddi Jagan, Roger Luncheon, among others, this issue remains unresolved. It is not that Mr. Rai, now under hospice care in England, seeks to benefit from his pension, but as Ralph

Ramkarran noted (SN, June 7, 2015) the government’s magnanimity in recognition of the social injustice perpetrated against one of its own ministers ‘would go a long way in correcting egregious historical omissions’ like that of Mr. Rai’s.”

Kit Nascimento had subsequently indicated in a letter to the press that Rai was not the only parliamentarian denied a pension. The fact remains, however, that despite several correspondences from Rai directly to Cheddi Jagan, this matter was never addressed.

In any case, Mr. Rai had indicated to me, as well as Rampersad Tiwari (who edited Cheddi Jagan’s book), that should anything of substance materialize from this injustice, the entire pension should be gifted to the Dharm Shala, the charity established in 1921 by Pandit Ramsaroop Maharaj.

I salute Mr. Rai by echoing the words of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj – ‘Krinvanto Vishwam Aryam’ (Make the World Noble).