Every ethnic group suffered under the PNC. Many intelligent blacks had to run and some even lost their lives including Dr Rodney.
QUit t he crap. Guyana never had a large vibrant Indian middle class. It had a large lumpen Indian and black underclass. Some 20 families owned all the wealth and the prospered in colonial times, during the dictatorship and still prosper as we speak. If drugs and political corruption did not add some of the lumpen mass to the pool they would still be the ones hogging the lions share of the wealth.
You are right about that. In colonial Guyana the elites were the British/Canadians connected to Bookers/Demba. Beneath them were the remnants of the Guyanese white population who had been leaving since WWII, when it became obvious that a changing Guyana/Caribbean meant loss of privileges. Then were the Portuguese business community, and beneath them the "coloreds" and a few black upper middle class people and CHRISTIAN Indians like the Luckhoos, as well as the Chinese.
the vast majority of blacks and Indians were at the bottom. Some slightly better off (African teachers and other civil servants and the more successful Indian land owners and small business people). BUT neither were a factor, which is why when Burnham/Jagan got together they became vastly popular, and for a short time these two groups put aside their distrust for each other. Of course it didn't last.
To most people in G/twn Indians were short under nourished ill clad people who they allowed in to cut grass in the yard so that they could feed their cows. Indeed African incomes were HIGHER than Indians, and even in the sugar industry blacks tended to have the better jobs.
The rise of the Indians came with the collapse of the economy in the late 70s and 80s, and the opportunities for wealth accumulation that was provided through the black market economy.