Divided societies like Guyana suffer from a phenomenon whereby historic events which, when they occur, give rise to allegations of ethnic bias, which never seem to go away. The West Indies Federation, which lasted from 1958 to 1962, is one such. It is an historic event which is hardly relevant to contemporary Guyana today. Yet the debate on Jagan’s attitude to the Federation rages, as if the event occurred yesterday, and not more than 50 years ago. It is contextualized to the current ethnic controversies, one of which is to seek to continually paint Jagan as a racist, or at least to allege that he was motivated by ethnic considerations. His role in the establishment of the University of Guyana has become another. But that is for another time.
An editorial in the Stabroek News of December 19, 1986, on ‘Regional Integration’ stated that “…others, notably Eusi Kwayana (then Sydney King) attributed Jagan’s opposition [to the Federation] to his unwillingness to be swamped in a predominantly African grouping. CLR James is also reported to have made a similar assertion. In response to the Stabroek News editorial, Jagan replied as follows:
“To set the record straight, I wish to make the following observations:
“I fully supported the decision of the 1945 Montego Bay Conference for a West Indies Federation with Dominion Status and internal self-government for each unit territory.
