Dear Editor,

It is nothing less than disgraceful when Vishnu Bisram makes comments about the African experience when he knows nothing about it. He continuously and purposefully tries to rewrite history, often with the purpose of pushing Indian nationalism.

Let me educate Mr Bisram for the fourth and hopefully the final time, for he has done this before in different forms. Indentureship was not a crime against humanity. Indentured servants volunteered to come to Guyana and were given land or passage when their short period of indentureship was over.

Slavery was a nuclear time bomb which shattered Africa and its rich civilizations to smithereens. Slavery was ungodly and religion was used in both the Arab and West Indian slave trade to justify murder and mayhem. Hinduism was not used as an excuse for indentureship. Africans lost their families, lives, culture, language, identity, religions, lands, names, foods, civilizations and their humanity. They lost their lives in the millions.

Indians came with their foods, names, religions, clothes, family members and their culture intact.

Africans were not paid for 180 years as they were chattels; Indians were paid from day one.

It is very difficult to understand how an educated man like Vishnu Bisram has the unmitigated gall to publicly write lies about slavery and indentureship.  It is either eye-pass or a private and public disdain for Africans globally.

Moreso, the timing and purpose of Vishnu Bisram’s letter is quite interesting. When all races in Guyana are fed up and disgusted with the PPP government, Mr Bisram does an early election trick by trying to create false debates and subtle antagonisms among the races. I expect to see this in the form of the PPP attacking the PNC because of Van West Charles’s return to the scene.

In his visits to India, I guess he is comfortable with the apartheid that 180 million Dalits live under. He undermines in a despicable way, the many decent Indians in Guyana and the contributions they have made. How can he compare the way Africans were brought to Guyana to the manner in which Indians came? Africans came in chains, slept and  knelt in their faeces for  90 to 120 days. The sick were thrown overboard. Indians came in the Whitby and other ships that had far better conditions and no mass murders.

It is a known fact that Africa lost over 100 million people to the Arab and West Indian slave trades. Millions of Africans died during the journey and in wars to capture them. Villages, homes, lands and people were decimated.

It is true both groups suffered during slavery and indentureship. But the two evils were not similar. How many Indians died during rebellions? How many were decapitated their head being placed on sticks?

I believe Mr Bisram needs to publicly apologize.

Again, the real issue is why Mr Bisram wrote this letter. Election time is coming.

Yours faithfully,
Eric Phillips