Dear Editor,
I refer to the accusation in the May 19 edition of Stabroek News that I attacked Aksharananda (‘Condemn attacks on Swami Aksharananda’) by Somdat Mahabir and Ramesh Gampat. I begin my reply by reminding these two gentlemen of a saying that is old as the earth itself: respect comes from self-respect. If one doesn’t respect oneself one will not get respect from others. I penned four replies to four pieces by Aksharananda, the essential arguments of which I stand by and I do so unapologetically. Messrs Mahabir and Gampat found it useful to cite the modest lifestyle of Aksharananda including the pair of slippers he has worn for several years now.
No doubt Mr Mahabir and Mr Gampat found that financial restraint a strength in Aksharananda’s character, but that very point of the slippers shows us the nature of homo sapiens. For a man so humble and modest, he was willing to put ethnic loyalty before nationalism. He was willing to distort history and sociology for narrow political purposes.
Aksharananda’s descent into the ethnic boiling pot of the 2015 elections has damaged his reputation. Messrs Mahabir and Gampat can write as many panegyrics as they want on Aksharananda but his correspondence is in black and white for all to see. Once his name is mentioned in a positive light, the researchers will bring up the egregious sections of his letters of which four are relevant for mention.
He refused to acknowledge even in one sentence that it was the PNC with a PNC leader, President Desmond Hoyte, in 1992 that accepted free and fair elections and gave Guyana such elections. Secondly, he locks out of his mind and won’t even for an ephemeral moment acknowledge that African Guyanese in the seventies and eighties confronted an African-led government. I cited the names of some fantastic African Guyanese who played a greater part than any Indian in the PPP in those days in weakening the Burnham government.
Thirdly, in expounding on the need for Indians to be proud of their culture and Indianness, he introduced the falsity of voting for the PPP by Indians was an act of Indianness. He was smart enough not to say openly that Indians have an ethnic duty to vote for an Indian party but he put it over using more subtle semantics.
Fourthly, in warning Guyanese about the past sins of the PNC government and the need for the PNC personnel in APNU to apologize he was barefaced enough to deny that after twenty-three years in power the PPP committed even more depraved mistakes.
The story of people like Aksharananda, Leon Suseran, Ralph Seeram, Ryhaan Shah, Baytoram Ramharack, Nadira Jagan, Asgar Ally and Lomarsh Roopnarine is that they could not contemplate a Guyana without Indian control of the state. With the exception of Nadira Jagan, the issue was not the PPP. I am sure Aksharananda finds Jagdeo unpalatable. The issue was the loss of Indian control. Since the PPP is the alternative to APNU, then these people had no choice but to root for a PPP victory. The most honest opinion in the separation of the PPP from the Indian people was from Baytoram Ramharack.
In a published letter, he urged Indians to vote for the PPP while in the same breath saying that the PPP was not the best choice. But he went on to say that the situation with the election necessitated that Indians vote for their own. It was an offensive statement but an honest admission.
At the end of the day, we must judge Aksharananda by his descent into the election battle of 2015 made more exasperating by his flip-flop. After the preliminary results, the die was cast – the PPP lost. He called on the PPP to accept the results. Then the PPP did a last minute act of extreme desperation. It said it had proof that if a recount was done in certain boxes in Region 4, it would show the PPP had won.
After a series of comical claims, the PPP was trying another one. And Aksharananda bought it. He then penned another letter supporting the PPP’s deviousness. We are yet to hear from him if he thinks the PPP did win the 2015 elections. After seeing what Aksharananda wrote over the past three weeks, I wouldn’t put anything past him.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
