With very limited funds at his disposal and the opportunity to work and study in the United States (US), Cheddi Jagan left Guyana for the US in 1936. There he pursued studies at Howard University in Washington and Northwestern University in Chicago, graduating in 1942 from the latter as a dental surgeon and simultaneously obtaining a Bachelor's degree in the social sciences from the YMCA College in the business centre of Chicago. He was able to finance his studies by doing a variety of jobs including tailoring, door to door salesman, dish washer, and hotel elevator operator. Upon graduating as a dental surgeon, in order to practice as a dentist in the USA, he was required to pass the State Dental Board's examination; however, being classified as an Oriental because of his Indian ancestry, he was prevented under the Oriental Exclusion Act from writing the examination. As such he ended up working as a dental technician. In the summer of 1943 he was called up for draft into the US army as a private. A few months earlier he had married white, Jewish-American, Janet Rosenberg. After some deliberation over the draft, he decided to return to his homeland in October, leaving his wife to follow some months later.
Soon after returning, with inexpensive, used equipment he had bought in the US, he proceeded to set up his dental practice in Georgetown. His wife followed in December and took on the role of secretary to the practice. Wanting to be identified with real world, people issues, he joined the British Guiana East Indians Association (BGEIA), an organization of middle class Indian businessmen and professionals, formed in the year of Jagan's birth. This organization was championing the cause of Indians in the country to improve their welfare through improved education, better living conditions on the sugar estates, representation on government boards, opening up the civil service to qualified Indians, and extending the franchise to allow for an Elected Majority in the Legislature, the law making body of the land.
At the time, an older organization of middle class Africans, the League of Coloured People (LCP), was championing the cause of Africans and opposed to policies that would benefit the emerging Indian middle class.
As a child growing up on a sugar plantation, Cheddi Jagan lived and experienced much of the conditions described earlier by Jock Campbell. In The West on Trial he writes, “Plantation life gave me the opportunity of seeing at first hand the raw deal which the labourers received”.
And his seven years in the USA broadened his experience. Of these years he writes “If living and working in Washington and New York gave me an opportunity to see the life of Black America (Jim Crowism, segregation, poverty, slum dwelling), it was Chicago that allowed me to know about part of white America. In Chicago, I lived on the border of the slums... I often ate meals in the Clark Street slum area. There I came into close physical contact with urban poor white Americans. And in Bug-house Square nearby, I listened to speeches reflecting their miseries and sufferings”.
With his life experiences at this point in time, he saw the BGEIA “in middle class terms – competition with African middle class for positions and places. This to me was a secondary matter; I was concerned with the overall plight of the workers and farmers, including the problem of discrimination in general”. After failing to influence the BGEIA to his way of thinking, he soon quit.
In his speech at the Centenary Celebration of the Arrival of Indians to British Guiana (1838-1938), the President of the BGEIA, Hon C.R. Jacob, after mentioning the many achievements of Indians in the colony, continued “But we have not done as much as might have done if we had united to a greater extent. It is no use disguising the fact that some of our leaders in the past and even at the present time have not played their part creditably, and very few of them are prepared to give real service and make sacrifices for the upliftment of their less fortunate brethren. This is evidenced by the fact that although the B.G.E.I. Association was established twenty years ago, thousands of our people in various parts of the Colony are not fully acquainted with its activities”.
This void in leadership continued after 1938 and was filled with the entry of Cheddi Jagan into national politics in 1947. From then onwards, the BGEIA would be sidelined and Cheddi Jagan would be seen as the leader of the Indian cause as he grounded with the poor and the voiceless, and championed their cause in the Legislature.
In 1946, Cheddi Jagan, his wife Janet, Jocelyn Hubbard and Ashton Chase launched the Peoples Action Committee (PAC), forerunner of the Peoples Progressive Party. In 1947 he entered national politics when he won a seat in the Legislature against a number of very prominent and well connected individuals. Here he brought a brand of radical politics never seen before in the colony, espousing Marxist principles and challenging the control of the economy by expatriate-owed businesses, all the while championing the cause of the ordinary workers.
In 1952, he was deemed a “communist” when he spoke for six hours in the Legislature and was the only person to vote against a motion by nominated member Lionel Luckhoo to ban so-called “subversive literature”, socialist publications that were easily available in the UK and the US.
Earlier, in l948 at the gravesite of five sugar workers who were shot to death at Enmore estate while striking against working condition and pay rate, he had pledged to dedicate his life “to free his people from oppression”.
In 1950 the PAC evolved into the PPP. He became the leader, his wife, the secretary, and newcomer, LFS Burnham, a Guyana Scholar and brilliant lawyer, chairman. The same year the Waddington Commission recommended a new constitution and new general elections under universal adult suffrage. Despite the leaders being attacked and labelled as “communists” in the campaign leading up to the elections in 1953, the PPP emerged with the majority of seats in the Legislature and became part of the government which included the Governor and a number of nominated members in key positions. However, after 133 days in office the constitution was suspended and the party ousted from office, ostensibly on the grounds that the PPP ministers were subverting the constitution and planning a communist takeover.
British troops were brought into the country and a number of PPP members, including Cheddi Jagan and his wife were imprisoned. The country then entered a period of marking time with nominated members filling the Legislature. In 1956, the party split into two factions, one headed by Cheddi Jagan and the other by Burnham. The split was not a racial one, with many prominent Indian members joining Burnham, but it would lead ultimately to racial polarization in Guyana's politics with Indians predominantly voting for Jagan and Africans predominantly voting for Burnham. In 1957, general elections held under a new constitution which still gave the Governor substantial powers, the Jaganite faction emerged winner and formed the government with the Burnhamite faction forming the main opposition. By then the race factor was forefront in Guyanese politics and Burnham's party changed its name to the Peoples National Congress (PNC).
During the term of the government which lasted until August 1961 when new elections were held, significant achievements were realized in many areas. Great strides were made in agriculture with rice production more than doubled. Health care centres and cottage hospitals were built and maternity clinics initiated. Major improvements occurred in housing, especially for sugar workers who were able to move from logies to extra-nuclear housing schemes, and potable water supply was extended to many communities. The Civil Service became more open to qualified applicants from the lower class and individuals no longer had to be Christians to be appointed teachers in schools which were built by the Christian denominations but repaired and funded by government. The latter was due to the determined efforts of then Minister of Education and Community Development, Balram Singh Rai, who abolished the system of “dual control of schools”. This move allowed Hindus and Muslims to secure employment in teaching positions in these schools. Also, at the Constitutional Conference in 1960, through his erudite political, legal and diplomatic presentation, the British government was persuaded to agree to vest responsibility for the police in an elected minister of the PPP government, to promulgate an internally self-governing constitution for British Guiana, and to discontinue British rule in the colony soon after a general election in 1961. Mr Rai was the minister in whom responsibility for the Police Force was then vested in April 1960, soon after the British Guiana delegation returned to Georgetown. In that role he then embarked on a policy to redress the racial imbalance in the police force, a policy that was highly commended later by the International Commission of Jurists after the PNC-UF came into power prior to Independence.
In 1959, Fidel Castro led a successful revolution that overthrew the Batista Government, an ally of the US, and installed a new government which embarked on a program of land redistribution. That alarmed the US. In the US Presidential election campaign of 1960, then candidate John F. Kennedy blamed the incumbent President for losing Cuba to the communist. After winning the election and taking office, he authorized an invasion of Cuba by US trained and supported Cuban exiles with the aim of overthrowing the Cuban regime. The invasion took place in April 1961 but turned out to be a colossal failure causing much embarrassment and criticism of the US President. Kennedy vowed never to allow another Cuba in the hemisphere. This is the backdrop against which general elections were held in Guyana in 1961 when the PPP once again won a majority of the seats and formed the Government.
Citing released British Government documents as his source, Colin Palmer, in his book Cheddi Jagan and the Politics of Power: British Guiana Struggle for Independence, states that in 1954 “Jock Campbell (then Chairman of Booker Brothers, McConnell and Company) had begun lobbying the Americans to take a more aggressive interest in British Guiana to forestall a communist intervention”. Compounding that, over the years Cheddi Jagan and PPP leaders consistently proclaimed their support of Marxism, lauded the Soviet Union, and decried US foreign policy in parts of East Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. Also, not being able to obtain significant financial aid from the UK and the US, Jagan expressed his willingness, if allowed, to seek financial aid from the Soviet bloc countries and Cuba.
In his 1962 book, British Guiana, Professor Raymond Smith points to a major weakness in Cheddi Jagan's political belief. “When Dr Jagan says he is a Marxist but not a member of the Communist Party he is perhaps expressing his desire to accept some of the main principles of communist political philosophy without worrying too much about the implications of its application in the real world. It is evident that in the present state of world power politics it is not possible to ignore the practical implications of ideological commitment...”
This failure by Dr Jagan to appreciate world power politics would lead ultimately to his removal from power and replacement by Forbes Burnham.
Being unable to get Britain to manipulate the 1961 elections, the US commenced a two-pronged strategy, i.e. appear to cooperate with the Jagan government to please the British, and on the other hand, pursue a covert program against his government. In February 1962, a two-week strike resulted from the introduction of the Budget which contained a number of tax measures on businesses and individuals earning above a certain minimum. These taxes were later considered to be reasonable by many independent experts and a British Colonial Secretary, but opposition came from big business, the Civil Service, and the two opposition parties.
During the strike, several businesses owned by Indians were looted and burnt, non striking workers were harassed or beaten, and finally the Budget was withdrawn. After the riots, the US started to put pressure increasingly on the British to delay independence and find a replacement for Jagan. By September 1962, a US covert action plan was put in place against the PPP government in order to create the conditions for Britain to acquiesce.
In April 1963, a general strike was called by the Trade Union Council against a Labour Relations Bill introduced in the Legislature by the Government. This strike crippled the country and again the two opposition leaders, Burnham and Peter D'Aguiar, led marchers and incited the crowd in Georgetown. More businesses in Georgetown were looted and burnt, Indians were beaten and robbed, British troops were called upon to restore peace and order, and the Bill was withdrawn despite major concessions by the government .
A major accomplishment of Cheddi Jagan in 1963 was the establishment of the University of Guyana (UG) to provide trained personnel to meet the needs of the country, especially the civil service and the teaching profession. Even this initiative was perceived as part of Jagan's communist plan. The University was portrayed as a training school for “communist functionaries”; Dr Harold Drayton who was tasked with the responsibility to set up the University was called “a long time communist”; and Janet Jagan was accused of recruiting the staff. Today the UG, after more than 50 years, is a national institution and expanding.
Meanwhile, the Constitutional Conference, originally agreed to by Britain and planned for 1962 to consider granting independence to Guyana, was postponed until 1963. When the Conference was finally held in October 1963, it soon deadlocked due to disagreements among the three Guyanese political leaders. Finally, to break the deadlock, they all agreed for Britain to impose a solution. Instead of agreeing to grant independence, the imposed solution called for new elections in 1964 under a new constitution with a change in the electoral system from First-Past-The-Post to Proportional Representation, all intended to defeat Cheddi Jagan's party and remove him from power.
General elections were held in December 1964 and Jagan's party won the most seats but the two opposition parties combined, gained the majority. Contrary to British parliamentary convention, instead of Jagan, Burnham, with the next highest number of seats, was asked to form the government.
In 1966, Britain granted Independence to Guyana with Burnham as Prime Minister. He remained as Prime Minister until 1980 when he became the first Executive President.
An Editorial Note to Released US Declassified documents reveals “The Special Group/303 Committee approved approximately $2.08 million for covert action programs between 1962 and 1968 in that country (British Guiana)... U.S. policy included covert opposition to Cheddi Jagan, the then pro-Marxist leader of British Guiana’s East Indian population. A portion of the funds authorized by the Special Group/303 Committee for covert action programs was used between November 1962 and June 1963 to improve the election prospects of the opposition political parties to the government of Jagan’s People’s Progressive Party. The U.S. Government successfully urged the British to impose a system of proportional representation in British Guiana (which favored the anti-Jagan forces) and to delay independence until the anti-Jagan forces could be strengthened... Special Group/303 Committee-approved funds again were used between July 1963 and April 1964 in connection with the 1964 general strike in British Guiana... Following the general strike, 303 Committee-approved funds were used to support the election of a coalition of Burnham’s People’s National Congress and D’Aguiar’s United Force. After Burnham was elected Premier in December 1964, the U.S. Government, again through the CIA, continued to provide substantial funds to both Burnham and D’Aguiar and their parties”.
In 1990, at a luncheon hosted by the Nation magazine, Arthur Schlesinger, a key member of President Kennedy's staff that had plotted against Cheddi Jagan, apologized to Jagan for what he called “a great injustice” he and his Kennedy colleagues had helped to perpetrate.
For 28 years, Jagan and his party remained in opposition through periodic rigged election, first under a Burnham-led PNC government, and after his death in 1985, under his successor Desmond Hoyte. At the time of Burnham's death, Guyana had become the second poorest country in the hemisphere; the economy under state control had collapsed; poverty and malnutrition were prevalent; the transportation and education systems were in ruin; the civil service, army, police and the judiciary were politicized and the PNC party flag flew in the compound of the Court of Appeal; violent crimes were rampant; and citizens fled the country in thousands.
Upon assuming office, Desmond Hoyte abandoned his predecessor's economic policies and attempted to introduce reforms but these were too little too late, and in any case, the first general election under him was massively rigged for him to retain power. Finally, the US once again intervened in Guyana's affairs and forced the holding of free and fair elections in 1992. Jagan's party was victorious and he became President. By then he was an old man and faced an uphill task. He embarked on a series of reforms and took on an exhaustive schedule of foreign travel to seek financial aid and plead for debt reduction.
In 1997 while in office he suffered a heart attack, and was taken to the US where died. The country was plunged into mourning, his body was returned, and Guyanese of every race and colour, in numbers never seen before, filed passed his casket, paying homage to a man who had become a national hero.
In explaining his successes and failures, in The West on Trial, he wrote “In my early political career (1945-1953) I had taken a radical stand, pro-working class and socialist. Had it not been for this militant radicalism... there would have been neither the raised political understanding of the Guyanese people nor in such a short time our remarkable 1953 electoral victory. Having preached to the workers the gospel of scientific socialism, I could not somersault. The art of deception is a quality I find detestable and difficult to practice”.
This excerpt captures both the strength and the weakness of Cheddi Jagan. Unfortunately, his inflexibility caused his ouster from government twice and forced him into opposition for 28 years. By the time he was returned to power he was an old man and the problems of the country were overwhelming. In the Letters section of Kaieteur News, February 12, 2018, Carl Veecock writes “I was not a fan of Cheddi as I disliked his well-known political leanings; but I feel and am convinced that he was the most patriotic politician Guyana has had and so far no politician has come anywhere near to Cheddi’s patriotism”.
Cheddi Jagan was not infallible, but as Jock Campbell in his later years said, “...he was a good man, and he was trying to do his best for the people of Guyana”.