This month marks the 21st anniversary of the passing of Guyanese icon and leader, Dr Cheddi Jagan, who died on March 6, 1997; also, March 22 marks the anniversary of his birth – he would have been 100 years old.
Dr Jagan was born into a humble home in 1918 in Port Mourant on the Corentyne, the eldest of 11 children. His father Jagan, mother Bachaoni, two grandmothers, and an uncle, all arrived in 1901 as indentured labourers from Basti, Uttar Pradesh, British India, to what was then known as British Guiana. With the family living in indigence, Dr Jagan’s father envisioned a better life for his first-born. So, at 15 years old, the young man was sent away by his father on a one hundred miles journey to the capital city, Georgetown, where he attended Queen’s College for the next three years.
Acquiring employment was difficult following graduation, and so another decision was made by his father, this time for yet another journey, a trip farther north to the US to study dentistry. Dr Jagan left for the US in September 1936, returning to British Guiana in October 1943. While in the US he lived in Washington DC, for two years, and attended Howard University where he took a pre-dental course. He also worked for two summers in New York and spent the last five years at Northwestern University in Chicago. A dedicated and hard-working student, he acquired a free tuition scholarship for his second year at Howard University, as well another as for entry in 1938 into Northwestern for a four-year dental program. It was in the US where he met and married Janet Rosenberg, the young bride returning with her husband to British Guiana; as life-long companions, the couple would take giant strides together.
Dr Jagan returned to Guyana as a dentist in 1943; however, he chose the landscape of politics, creating the Political Affairs Committee three years later in 1946. A year later he was elected to the State Legislature in November 1947. On January 1, 1950, the People’s Progressive Party was founded with the merger of the PAC and the British Guiana Labour Party – with Dr Jagan as its leader, wife Janet as its secretary, and Forbes Burnham, former leader of the BGLP, as its chairman.
The party won the elections in 1953. However, foreign fears that Dr Jagan was a Marxist-Leninist, and that the Soviet Union would gain a foothold in Latin America, prompted British military intervention. Dr Jagan was ousted 133 days after the electoral win; the British suspended the constitution, and an interim government was installed. This was a time of turmoil for Dr Jagan and Janet Jagan, as well of instability and uncertainty for the emergent nation.
Following another PPP victory in the August 1961 elections, Dr Jagan again became Chief Minister, this time serving for three years. In the elections of December 1964, while the PPP won a plurality of the votes, the People’s National Congress led by Burhnam, along with United Force, were invited to form the government. Dr Jagan refused to resign and was removed by the then Governor Richard Luyt.
The PPP spent the next 28 years in Opposition. These were also difficult years for Guyana. However, following the October 5, 1992 elections, the PPP won the majority of the votes, and Dr Jagan once again took the leadership, this time as the nation’s President. On February 15, 1997 Dr Jagan suffered a heart attack, and was flown to the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC; he died on March 6, 16 days before his 79th birthday.
Succeeding Dr Jagan as President, Guyana’s Prime Minister Sam Hinds declared six days of mourning; at the time, Hinds also described Dr Jagan as the “greatest son and patriot” – a fitting tribute to a remarkable and outstanding leader.