Dear Editor,

I have long held the belief that some of the most vulgar sociological thoughts come from people who preach religion, and this goes for all denominations. In my life on this earth, some of the most obnoxious people I have encountered and read about are religious people who preach the word of God. I could never bring myself to refer to Juan Edghill as a bishop. Mr Edghill once tried to have me in prison for my journalism.
I could never bring myself to use the word Swami in front of the name of Hindu preacher Aksharananda. I find Mr Aksharananda’s hypocrisy simply unbearable. I refer to his letter in the Stabroek News of Friday, April 21, 2017, the contents of which I am revolted by. I feel I have a deep obligation to the readers of newspapers all over this country to reply to his miasmic semantics.
I hold the inflexible belief that such a poisonous and bigoted mind should never be in charge of a school. Aksharananda reminds me of how destroyed a society Guyana is. Here are some of the appallingly egregious opinions of this man and his obnoxiously demagogic sermonising. He wrote; “Both [Ravi Dev and Ryhaan Shah] of these writers are educational and informative and, above all, honest. The issues that they have raised and continue to speak about are not different from those articulated by people who almost on a daily basis complained about disenfranchisement, marginalization and discrimination perpetuated [sic] by the previous administration.”
How can anyone be honest when the previous government held power for 23 years and Ryhaan Shah was nowhere to be seen and when she was seen in those 23 years, her comments were never about the victims of marginalization and discrimination, but about the East Indians of Guyana needing to be on equal par with Africans in the police force and the public service.. If there is anything about Shah and Dev it certainly is not honesty. Dev has never once written even one line calling for equality in the access to resources of Guyana; and that is because he, Shah and Aksharananda himself are content with Indian domination of the economy.
Here is Aksharananda’s nauseating bigotry; “What sense of hope are we supposed to have when hundreds of Indians were removed from various state offices?  Why should we be not concerned about the trend of authoritarianism that is once again raising its head in Guyana?” Make no mistake that when this so-called Swami, this pretender to religion writes about “authoritarianism that is once raising its head again in Guyana,” he means the rule of the PNC from 1964 to 1992. He leaves out the period in Guyanese history that is the worst the British West Indies has ever seen – the reign of the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabals. It was a period when even in the ugly days of Burnhamism, the state had not reached the level of fascistization that we saw under Jagdeo. Over 500 African young men between the ages of 18 and 40 were brutally murdered by agents of the state.
People like Aksharananda make me feel angry, livid but sad that Guyana could produce such people who hold sway over young Indian minds. Surely, Guyana should comment on Aksharananda’s excessive bigotry just as this so-called Swami did when the Christian preacher went into Central High School. This so-called Swami referred to the dismissal of hundreds of East Indians by the present government, but is too indecent to look at the other side of the coin. Perhaps they got their jobs through the displacement of other persons who held those jobs, but were of a different race.
This so-called holy man used vulgar semantics to describe other people just as Shah does in the Bobby Ramroop newspaper that Ravi Dev is in charge of. But he does not mention this, because after all, if he does, then his attempt to paint an elegant picture of his fellow tribalists falls down. Maybe he doesn’t read the newspaper Ravi Dev is in charge of, so he would know how deep in the gutter are the people he heaps praise on; but really, you think Aksharananda cares ? I shudder to think what this man tells those young minds at his school when the discussion is one on the leadership of the present government. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone what he would say, after all, people like the so-called Swami would be familiar with the caste system and where Africans sit on the caste ladder

Regards,
Frederick Kissoon