I NEVER knew Cheddi Jagan up close and personal. I knew him, met with him and talked politics with him, but I was never close to him. I never had dinner or lunch or coffee with him. I never visited his home. The politician that was my comrade and the one I admired above all else was Moses Bhagwan. He signed my marriage certificate in 1979.

Moses was a kind, gentle soul, deeply committed to the poor, powerless and the people in life who needed to be liberated from life’s burdens. I always had those instincts, so life brought us in contact with each other. He was a person you gravitated to because of the wide modesty that emanated from him.

From the time I met Moses at the beginning of the 1970s until April 2020, he was for me, numero uno in Guyana’s pantheon of political giants. When I read that his autobiography was forthcoming, I was deflated. I know large apertures would fill the book because Moses had become a completely different man to the one I knew for over four decades.

I was right. His memoir, “Enter The Political Kingdom” has two characteristics: political dishonesty and anti-Jagan obsession. The book is good, yet it is not attractive.  Good in the sense that it documents one of Guyana’s courageous sons who played a huge part in seeking justice and freedom for Guyanese.

It is unattractive in the sense that what was expected from that autobiography is not there and you want it to be there because Moses has completed 91 years on earth and if it is not in his memoir at 91, then it is safe to assume we will never see him walk on the terrain we expected to see him perambulate on.

From the time he refused my request in April 2020 to comment on what APNU GECOM Commission Desmond Trotman said about him, that he Bhagwan would have agreed with what he (Trotman) was doing in GECOM, I knew Bhagwan had endangered his legacy. This newspaper article is an assault on that legacy.

I recall that my chagrin was beyond comprehension when he turned down my plea to say something about what was taking place with the 2020 general and regional elections. I wanted nothing to do with Bhagwan from April 2020.

In one of my columns, I wrote that the published book he gave me on his family tree, I donated to the collection of the former CEO of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, Michael Khan. I was finished with Moses, so why would I have on my shelf a book on his family tree?

‘Enter The Political Kingdom’ is an irritatingly disappointing read. There is completely no analysis of the doubts about the nature of the WPA in the 1970s; nothing on the WPA in government, 2015- 2020, nothing on the WPA’s role in supporting a denial of the legitimate results of the March 2020 general and regional elections; nothing on what Clive Thomas, Rupert Roopnaraine, Bonita Bone, Tacuma Ogunseye, David Hinds and Red Thread had become.

So smitten by the WPA, Bhagwan overlooked every fault of the WPA before and after 2015. He even denies actions of the WPA that the WPA itself publicly acknowledged. For example, Roopnaraine told John Gimlette in the book, “Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge,” that the WPA had burned down the Ministry of National Development.  The book was published in 2011. Moses in his memoir of 2026 chose not to identify the WPA’s involvement in the arson.

There are harsh words reserved for Cheddi Jagan in chapter 21 titled, “The Days After,” but one should not be surprised. Bhagwan never forgave Jagan after he, Bhagwan, was expelled from the PPP in the 1960s. I think it is this life-long hatred for the PPP that drove him to adopt massive silence on the elections rigging of 2020.

One esoteric moment in the book is when he obfuscated the name, Dr. Josh Ramsammy. He described how the security committee met to reflect on possible strategies for overthrowing the Burnham regime. He noted that they met at the home of one of the WPA leaders in Ogle. That was the home of Dr. Ramsammy. Was it Freudian that he left out Josh’s name? Josh of course left the WPA and formed the National Democratic Alliance with Keith Scott. After that, this great, committed freedom fighter’s name was never mentioned in WPA circles. Ramsammy was completely ostracised by the WPA when Ramsammy accepted the PPP government’s offer to be UG’s Pro-Chancellor.

‘Enter The Political Kingdom’ is frustrating to read, especially when Bhagwan glossed over the current racist mentality of the remnants of the WPA by noting that the WPA is currently the protest voice of African disempowerment. Go to hell Moses!

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.