I am mystified at Major-General Singh’s criticisms

Dear Editor,

I’m puzzled by Major-General Joseph Singh’s letter dated September 1st 2012 in SN.  In it, he appears to make three criticisms of the way I dealt with our meeting in my travel book, ‘Wild Coast; Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge’.

First, he implies that he somehow misunderstood the ambit of our meeting, and thought that it was limited to discussing suitable opportunities for tourism.  I simply don’t know how he can have thought that.  I’ve retained a succession of emails that I sent him, making quite plain that I was interested in researching the history of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, including the history of recent events.  At our meeting, I made it very clear that I was interested in his own role in two military operations: Jonestown and The Rupununi Revolt.  In this regard, he would be one of many people that I’d interview on these subjects.

Second, Singh suggests that I portrayed him as over-playing his own role in the military operations above. He invokes his own modesty, and protests that he would not have played down the contributions of his comrades.  In this I entirely agree with him.

Indeed, I said as much in the book, describing him as a cautious and unassuming man.  I wrote that he ‘didn’t even appear in his own stories very much.’  Incidentally, he also told me that he wasn’t willing to give me a detailed account of these operations (or be interviewed on tape) because, one day, he wanted to provide an account of his own.

What puzzles me is where he gets the idea that the book ‘over-eggs’ his role, or that the over-egging came from him.  On the contrary, he has a relatively minor role in this book (with only three references in the index).  It’s true that I described him in favourable terms (‘generous and magisterial’) but then that was my assessment at the time.  It’s true too that I acknowledged him as the commanding officer in two operations that were – from a military point of view – deemed successful.  That, however, is a matter of fact, and I cannot see how he can have any cause for genuine complaint.   As to the detail that I included in my very short history of these operations, it’s right that I relied on a number of sources, including Singh.  However, nowhere did I suggest that he was the only source.  Rather, I expressly prefaced the section with the words; “This is the soldiers’ story” (note the apostrophe).

In my Rupununi section, it’s also abundantly clear that I’d alluded to a number of sources other than Singh.  Indeed, I’d referred to the controversy surrounding the army’s role in the revolt (which can be found all over the internet), concluding that – on the evidence I’d seen – I believed Singh.  Again, he can have no cause for genuine complaint about that.

The third criticism he makes is that my reference to his Indian heritage in the context of his being Chief of Staff is ‘offensive and distasteful’ given the high proportion of Afro-Guyanese in the army.  Again, I’m perplexed by this complaint.  What I actually wrote was this: ‘As a soldier, [Singh had] … taken command of the army.  During the African years, this was no mean feat for an Indo-Guyanese.  He had the almost-unique status of a hero amongst each of the races.  People were always writing to the papers asking that he be made president, or that a street be named in his honour.  He was, I suppose, the nearest that Guyana had to a national institution.’  What is ‘distasteful’ about this?  Does it really ‘border on racism’ (as Singh claims)?  How can this read as anything other than a celebration of his multi-racial appeal?

So, I remain mystified – and somewhat saddened (I had very much admired Singh as a person).  I’m also puzzled as to why he only raises these matters now when he’s had the book available to him for over 18 months.  And why hasn’t he raised the matter with me, when we’ve been in regular and friendly email contact?  It all seems very odd. Perhaps I’m missing something.  Or perhaps there’s something else going on here?

Yours faithfully,
John Gimlette