FREDDIE KISSOON’s association with David Hinds, Nigel Hughes, David Granger, Clive Thomas, and Eusi Kwayana, etc is an exciting contrast of those who know exactly what is their place, mission, and aspirations for themselves and those they unceasingly champion.

By new habit, Freddie has moved away from bashing Portuguese to now bashing Indians, because he has swallowed the odium they are the guilty race and are responsible for all of Guyana’s misfortunes. He does not sugar-coat his contempt for eternal India; the Jagans, whom he despises; PPP/C supporters; Indo-Guyanese and Hindus, in particular Hinduism’s Vedic scriptures.

* Freddie can blame Hindus for all of India’s ills. That India is an emerging world power with an Indian space satellite on mission to Mars is insignificant. His contempt for India’s majority Vedic culture, which is influencing Indian economic and technical advancement, is meaningless.

When India definitely emerges from its cocooned poverty, what would it matter who is left in the dust? India will be a nation to be reckoned with, regardless.

* Freddie attacks Indians for their beauty and preference for skin whitening, like India is the only country with such a practice. He is yet to clarify why his Creolisation and that of his siblings is not similarly abnormal or shameful, noteworthy by exactly the same standards which he himself has laid down, and of which he demands from others.

* India has one and a half billion citizens, overwhelmingly Hindus. They still elect minorities such as a Sikh and three Muslims as President; an Italian-born naturalised Indian, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, as Congress Party leader; and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, even after a Sikh bodyguard assassinated Mrs Indira Gandhi. Where in the world, other than in India, can minorities be democratically elected to control the power levers?

* For Freddie to call former Trinidad Prime Minister Basdeo Panday a racist completely ignores that it was by Panday’s concession that Robinson became Trinidad’s Prime Minister/ President, and that Robinson never repaid his debt to Panday’s UNC.

* No religion is without its critics, but India neither invaded nor obliterated anyone’s culture. So far, Caribbean black people have no cause to seek reparations from Hindus or Indians. But justice for Wismar 1964 is a necessity, because Indians were not the aggressors during the massacre and the forcible appropriation of their wealth and properties.

India will continue to be great because of its Vedic culture, Hindu Dharma/Karma, Sanskrit origins and Bhakti. With her minorities integrated in her wide bosom, they will also become other assets of continued progress when federalism comes to Guyana. Let us hope he has already defined his choice.

VASSAN RAMRACHA