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“The former President had a mediocre exposure to learning” for his comment “the colonial system didn’t want Guyanese Indians to send their children to school.”
Kissoon disputed Jagdeo’s contention, saying “the colonials educated Indians because they wanted the Indians to help them administer Guyana.” That is pure, unadulterated nonsense. The colonials trained Africans and the Coloureds (Mixed) to help them administer Guyana (see below), not the Indians whom the colonials needed in the
fields. Kaieteur News edited-out several facts from my response to Kissoon. I pen this piece in the interest of historical accuracy.
The education of Indians was mostly self-financed with help from the Canadian Missionaries, not the colonials.
Dr. Jagdeo is right and Freddie Kissoon is absolutely wrong and it is Freddie who is displaying “a mediocre exposure to learning”. One of the reasons why Guyana’s progress has been so slow is the abysmal ignorance of history by people like Freddie who, unfortunately, is in an influential position as a columnist to shape public opinion.
He is mis-educating people. Clearly, Freddie does not have much knowledge about Guyanese history or else he would not have penned such trash. Freddie should pay heed to Dr Jagdeo so he can learn some history. Historians asserted that there was widespread dissatisfaction over the state of education of the masses of all ethnicities in colonial Guiana.
Freddie stated that he studied German history – he misled us into believing he had a PhD until the UG Academic Board exposed him and David DeCaires had to fire him as a columnist.
Freddie has never forgiven the academic board. If Kissoon had studied Guyanese or Indian or Caribbean history, he would know that indentured Indians were brought to the Caribbean to rescue the sugar plantations.
Educating Indians or their children and grandchildren was not the concern and priority of the colonial rulers or the plantocracy, whose interest was profits from plantation life, not the welfare of the indentured labourers or former slaves.
The planters were not interested in plowing profits into educating Indians. The colonial authorities wanted Indians to remain in the fields. It was only after the “Indian government” sent a commission to study the conditions of the Indians and criticisms from anti-indentured groups in England that the colonial authorities decided to take action to “educate” Indians.
Freddie should read ‘Swettenham Circular’ and the works of Professors Clement Seecharan, Zinul Bacchus, Walter Rodney and Mr. Harry Hergash, Dr. J.B Singh, Luckhoo, Dwarka Nath, and others to familiarise himself with the subject matter.
Jagdeo was right that the colonials were very contemptuous of the Locals; that they did not care whether the children of Indians were schooled. Government-funded schools insisted that Indian students become Christians – a condition that was unacceptable to Hindus and Muslims. So rather than fund Indian schools, in 1902 Governor James Swettenham issued a circular instructing education officials, that Indian children be exempted from the Education Ordinance of 1876 that fined Indians for not sending their children to school.
This meant that Indian children did not attend school and it served the planters’ interests to keep the kids in the fields helping their parents and grandparents.
As (http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter82.html) reported, “This suited many of the sugar plantation owners very well and they made full use of the excessive child labour on the estates.”
At the same time that Swettenham exempted Indian children from attending school, he instituted competitive examinations for employment in the Civil Service. The Indians were not schooled. So how could they take an exam to be employed in the civil service? This buttressed
Jagdeo’s point that “people don’t want Indians to be in the Civil Service.”
As the website noted, the objectives of education in the colony, indeed in all West Indian colonies, were: to preach gospel to all; to make converts to Christianity to acquire a band of catechists, etc. The colonials were more interested in educating the former slaves as opposed to the indentures because they wanted to “create a middle class among the Negro population, a body of men interested in the protection of property, with intelligence enough to take part in
that humbler machinery of local officers which minister to social order.”
So the colonials were not interested in the education of the Indians whose primary role was to work the field to enrich the plantocracy and the empire. Contrary to what Freddie penned, the
Indians were not needed to administer the colony. That role fell on the “Negroes” as the website pointed out.
Thus, Indians were forced to establish their own schools (see JB Singh’s and Peter Ruhomon’s works). The British Guiana East Indian Association was the primary vehicle through which Indians were educated, not the colonial authorities (let Freddie get that in his head). As Harry Hergash penned in the May 2013 edition of the Guyana Journal, Indians were keen on education for their children but could not afford it.
“It was a matter of struggle for survival, and education for children was not a priority. Instead of attending school, children had to be engaged in tasks to help supplement the family’s
meagre income obtained from almost 12 hrs of daily work. The earnings of children were critical for the basic needs (of their families) to survive.”
When Indian schools were established by, among others, JB Singh, Edun, Luckhoo, Rohomon, etc., funded on their own, many sent their children to obtain a sound education, overcoming adversity, and went on to become professionals in all spheres of activities.
Hergash wrote: “Within a relatively short period of time after the ending of Indentureship, Indians were able to overcome these disadvantages and make rapid progress in all spheres of life.”
In sum, because of Christianisation in the colonial days, Indians lost opportunities in education. The youngsters spent most time in the rice and ‘baigan’ fields working rather than going to school.
The colonial tactic was not only Christianisation, but a subtle pressure of economic subterfuge in rural Indian villages/settlements. Not only the BGEIA helped in the education of Indians, but it was Dr. Cheddi Jagan who changed Christian-denominational schools to government, much to the displeasure of the Christian Church.
The Hindi and Islamic night schools helped Indians in most ways. Freddie has no idea of the Indian rural experience, because he did not study history. He forgot his father had to convert, in order to be employed as a groundsman. Freddie displayed utter ignorance about the historical evolution of the education of Indians in Guyana. Dr. Jagdeo showed more understanding
and mastery of the topic than Kissoon.
