Dear Editor,
Guyanese Professor Clem Seecharan, well-known writer of several books on Indian, Caribbean and cricket history is to be honoured with a Doctor of Letters degree from the University of the West Indies (UWI) at the next graduation exercise in October at the St Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr Seecharan holds a Bachelors of Arts (BA), Master of Arts (MA) and PhD degrees, and is a professor of Caribbean Studies at London Metropolitan University. He has authored many books, including as biography of Jock Campbell, Sweetening Bitter Sugar: Jock Campbell, the Booker Reformer in British Guiana which earned him the prestigious Elsa Gouveia Prize from the Association of Carib-bean Historians; Muscular Learning: Cricket and Education in the Making of the British West Indies at the End of the 19th Century.
The Anatomy of Indian Achievement in British Guiana from Ranji to Rohan, Tiger in the Stars, Mother’s India Shadow Over Eldorado, and Bound Coolie Radical in British Guiana, are some of the other publications of Professor Seecharan, who is now writing a three volume history of cricket in British Guiana/Guyana. He was honoured by the UK Guyanese diaspora when he won the Guyana High Commission Award in 2003.
In October 1977, 40 years ago when I received my LLB degree from the UWI, Sir Shridath Ramphal was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university. I recall the passionate speech the Guyanese diplomat delivered in which he called for Caribbean unity. He said that the region with six million people has a dozen governments, and there was need for more co-operation and better working relations. Unfortunately his plea was ignored.
Professor Seecharan who hails from Palmyra, East Canje, Berbice, now lives in the UK, and besides his writing, delivers speeches from time to time on West Indies cricket.
Yours faithfully,
Oscar Ramjeet
