Book: Finding Myself: Essays on Race, Politics and Culture
Author: Clem Seecharan
Publisher: Peepal Tree Press
Price: £19.99
Review by Reshma Ruia
This collection of essays by Clem Seecharan, emeritus professor of History at London Metropolitan University, provides a unique insight into Indo-Caribbean history with particular reference to British Guyana.
Offering a comprehensive socio-cultural perspective into the evolution of the Indian diaspora in British Guinea, the book is written in an easy, anecdotal manner. The essays blend the author’s own quest to understand his identity within the larger and overarching trajectory of the status and identity of the Indian community.
From 1838, the Indians were brought to British Guinea by the British to work as indentured labour on sugar plantations. The practice of bonded labour was finally abolished in 1917. When the Indians replaced the freed African slaves, they soon proved to be industrious and hardworking contract labourers.
Seecharan explores the various motives which may have led them to cross the dreaded “black water” for a new life in a distant land. He argues that it wasn’t just Imperial coercion that led to this exodus, but that many of these migrants left of their own volition. They came predominantly from Eastern UP and Western Bihar, and as members of the lower caste or impoverished farmers or widows, they were escaping poverty, caste discrimination and religious dogma.
The essays challenge established views of indentured labourers as passive victims. Seecharan argues against the stereotypical image of a downtrodden immigrant community. Instead, he portrays them as a vibrant, hard-working entrepreneurial group who maximised the benefits of colonial education and made a vital socio-economic contribution to Guyanese life, whether in the fields of business, politics or medicine.
Far from being a marooned community, bewildered in an alien land, they were an enterprising group who adapted to their new homeland while drawing upon the rich cultural heritage of India.
India remains a mythological presence which endures within the customs, clothing and social customs of the diaspora. “The past in India had to be reimagined in Guyana,” he states at one point. They countered the “coolie” stigma, drawing inspiration from the “mother country” and events such as the election of the first Indian Dadabhai Naoroji into the House of Commons in 1892, fostered a sense of ethnic pride and self belief.
Seecharan cites several notable Indo-Guyanese politicians such as Cheddi Jagan and Balram Singh Rai, portraying them as astute politicians who achieved mixed success with their reliance on socialist principals and their Marxist-utopian vision of El Dorado. He also emphasises the significance of cricketers such as Ivan Madray in fostering a sense of national pride and emerging confidence to shape a new identity: an Indo-Guyanese vision of an East Indian nation.
Sugar mills are also placed under scrutiny, with an examination of their historical role in perpetuating Imperial patterns of exploitation. The sugar industry in Guyana was founded on slavery, yet the essays give an objective view of the impact of Booker Brothers, the largest sugar mill owners in Guyana, on the lives of the indentured labourers.
While recognising their exploitive colonial attitude, Seecharan acknowledges the progressive role of Jock Campbell, the chairman of the company from 1952 to 1967, in improving the labourers’ lot. Campbell sought to narrow the great divide between the “coolies” and the “backra”, the white elite on the sugar estate.
The book is apprehensive of the state of Guyanese politics and economy following its independence in 1966. Seecharan is critical of the nationalising of the sugar industry in 1976 which led to a slump in production and the flight of the skilled workforce to America and Canada. He also warns against continuing ethnocentric strife and resentment between the African and Indian communities which poses a threat to national unity and prosperity.
What makes this book particularly rewarding is that the author has woven in his own personal history into the narrative, making it an accessible and interesting read. A detailed picture emerges of a boyhood spent on a sugar estate in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where the rhythms of planting, manuring, weeding and harvesting the sugar cane shaped entire lives.
And yet, at times, the blurring of personal history and wider scholarly empirical research proves confusing and lacking in clarity.
Finding Myself will appeal to researchers and readers interested in the narrative of diaspora displacement within the Caribbean, and the evolution of a hybrid identity in today’s interrelated world.