Often, Cheddi Jagan’s admirers mistakenly confuse his personal traits and characteristics, some of it rooted in a Marxist lifestyle, as a legacy. While compared to the buffoonery, licentiousness and abominations of the PPP leaders of today, Cheddi Jagan looks like saint, this is not a legacy.

Jagan’s Legacy

This Wednesday will be fifteen years since Dr Cheddi Jagan, the founder of the PPP and the independence movement died. For one who studied in the US and spent most of his adult life fighting against what his generation called ‘American Imperialism”, it was rather ironic that he died in the US. He had been rushed to the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, after suffering a heart attack here. Walter Reed would have housed wounded or sick army personnel who had fought in wars against which Jagan would have railed.
With his passing, following that of LFS Burnham, the other political leader whose political shadow loomed as large over Guyana, a new era had begun. Most observers assumed that Jagan’s post-independent era successors would have worked to consolidate his legacy. After fifteen years and three separate presidencies (one a double term and one truncated) it might be as good a time as any to critically examine that assumption.
What was Jagan’s legacy? First and foremost there was his Marxist ideology. Marxism for Jagan was not just an epistemological tool but an ontological reality. Jagan was one of the true believers in Marxism as a total world view. What is the status of this position in the PPP today? Basically shunted aside or jettisoned. What might have been Jagan’s pragmatic acceptance of the US-directed economic programme via the IMF/World Bank in 1992 became within five years of his death a root and branch acceptance of the neo-liberal orthodoxy.
We can see this in the PPP’s dealings with the bedrock of Jagan’s Marxist social stratum that was to inherit the earth – the working class.
Against all the empirical evidence Jagan had insisted that working-class unity had been forged in Guyana during the struggle for ‘free and fair’ elections. He therefore expected that the PPP’s development programme following his accession to office in 1992 would have been widely supported by that class. It was not to be.
While he blamed the PNC for polarising the situation ethnically, that orientation had already been evident in the very election that brought him into office. The PNC had received the exact percentage from the same ethnic constituency that had traditionally supported it. The neo-liberal economic plans deepened by Jagan’s successors further widened the divide in the working class because in the market becoming the arbiter in determining economic development, the historic ethnic specialisation of the workforce became exacerbated.
For instance, ‘small government’ – a mantra of the neo-liberals – in Guyana meant reducing the number of public workers who were generally from the African Guyanese segment of the population.
But the acceptance of the profit motive as the driving force behind business, which was defined as ‘the engine of growth”, meant that Jagan’s legacy of the ‘working class’ as the centre of development had to be abandoned in toto. The new model determined that the poor – which in Guyana was just another label for the working class – were to benefit from what ‘trickled down’ from the top.
The focus was now on encouraging and facilitating the business class – they were not called ‘capitalists’ any longer – through a slew of ‘incentives, to generate even greater levels of profits. Tax holidays, duty free inputs, concessions on resources etc became the norm. Unfortunately, there were no measures to ensure that the ‘trickle’ to the poor working class increased in tandem with the increased profits. Inevitably the gap between the top 1% and the remaining 99% became ever larger- as it has in the model being followed – the USA.
The present crop of leaders who succeeded Jagan still genuflect to his ‘working class’ orientation but it seldom goes beyond mouthing the words. In the Opposition ranks, while they have no reason to be loyal to Jagan, it should not be forgotten that Burnham also defined himself as a ‘socialist’ dedicated to uplifting the ‘working class. They also have shifted their locus of development elsewhere. It would appear then, that within fifteen years of the passing of Jagan, his legacy is dead.

Chedii leagacy is that he left a bunch of thievs to run the country and his indoctrination of Apaan Jhaat is still alive and kicking.

Hi Chief. How's things? I like your new Avatar.

Apaan Jhaat is exactly who you are. You and your family Enslave Indians, spied on them for Burnham and WORST and you gun come here and talk about THE FATHER OF OUR NATION. YOu are indeed a SHAMELESS ROBBER BARRON!!!!!!!!!!!!

M.Maxwell. Who the hell this M.Maxwell think he is.

All Maxwell has to be is an intellectual capable of casting  his gaze at the farce being presented for  public consumption by the PPP and deconstruct is as any critical thinker could. There is something deeply troubling and perceptibly at odds with Cheddi the leader and his legacy being celebrated as the definitive model to emulate. The PPP just happen to be the template for the corrupt, the despotic and the dysfunctional when one speaks of political parties. Its leaders will rank among the worse to date in our short stint as a state. What is good about his legacy?

Check carefully to realize that Dr. Cheddi B. Jagan never introduced nor propagated Apaan Jhaat.

Jagan screwed ****** people by marrying a white woman to start with basically telling them all that they were unfit and not smart enough to be his wife. Then turn around and made them worship her. After all of tis he nade her Prsident of the country. A white american Jewish woman not born in Guyana could become their president is not heard of in any other country. Try doing that in America. But Guyanese indians still will go to her grave and idolize her. No wonder we are, where we are. Its sad but true.

What AN ASS!!!!

Nagamootto should read Maxwell.

Rev, Yugii, Baseman.... are prime examples of his Apan Jhaat indoctrination. No?

can't handle the truth ole man?

I never knew until today after reading Freddy Kisson's article that Maria van Beek is a niece of Dr.Cheddi Jagan. She was almost killed in Guyana.

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Yep she is. And the oligarchs tried to kill her. Always remember that. 

That was an assassination attempt on a Jagan. No one is suppose to do that.

Buddy Mits Iam doing good. I do not even know how I got that Avatar, I think is one of the Admins did that probably our boy from England.

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Well...the elected oligarchs tried to execute her. 

Ow Buddy Nehru is so bad you treating me? You see what Jagan did to you, you are a prime example of a good man who is messed up all because of Jagan and the PPP. You still have time to reform like how Bro Moses Nagamootoo did!! 

Bruddaman you are on the money!!! Dem PPP comrades USE TO WORSHIP THE WHITE LADY. nEHRU PARENTS AND ALL THE OTHER PPP FOOLS USED TO SAY cHEDIE MARRIED A QUEEN, STUIP COLLIE IDIOTS!!

He will never accept that!!

If the  TRUTH bytych slap Al Yuh two al Yuh would not know. Too many Guyanese SUFFERED because of People like Al Yuh. Bottom of the Barrel Robber barrons!!!!

Even Mitwah wants to done away with Jagan legacy. It started with Moses, Granger, and now Mitwah is embracing this garbage my Maxwell. It's a shame that only last year all of them from the AFC were respected of Cheddi Jagan, and now they want to build their own legacy of Moses and Ramjattan. Shameless crepes.

 Yu mean Jagan legacy a de tiefman dem lika Ashni and Brassy and Irfat?