Cheddi Berret Jagan (22 March 1918 – 6 March 1997) was a Guyanese politician and dentist who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964. He later served as President of Guyana from 1992 to his death in 1997. In 1953, he became the first Hindu and person of Indian descent to be a head of government outside of the Indian subcontinent.
Jagan founded the People's Progressive Party along with his wife Janet and Forbes Burnham, and served as the first leader of the party. Jagan was a leading figure in the campaign for the independence of Guyana from the United Kingdom, and advocated for increased powers for trade unions at a time when British Guiana's economy was dominated by powerful foreign enterprises. Jagan lost his position as Prime Minister to Forbes Burnham following the 1964 British Guiana general election, and Burnham would become Guyana's first Head of Government following independence. 28 years later, Jagan was elected president in the 1992 Guyanese general election, which was regarded as the first "free and fair" election since 1964. They emigrated from British India to British Guiana as indentured labourers. They were both from the Basti district in the then North-Western Provinces in the Awadh and Bhojpuri regions of the Hindi Belt in North India (in present-day Uttar Pradesh, India). His mother Bachaoni came to British Guiana as a child with her mother, while his father Jagan also came as a child with his mother and brother. Both his mother's and father's family immigrated to British Guiana aboard the Elbe in 1901; his father being two years old and his mother 18 months when they arrived. His father's family were indentured to Albion Estate and his mother's family was indentured to Port Mourant Estate under the management of J.C. Gibson. His parents were married in 1909 and lived with their respective families till they were of age at sixteen years and his mother moved in with his father and grandmother in a joint family situation.
The Jagan family lived in rural poverty, working in the cane fields to support themselves. His mother had worked on the estate till Jagan was nine years old. His father had worked his way up to become head driver on the estate, but it did not amount to much change in pay, and he had to retire at 50 due to bad health. When Jagan was 15 years old, his father sent him to Queen's College in the capital city of Georgetown (about away) for the next three years. Upon graduation, Jagan found his employment options in Guyana limited to agricultural work or converting to Christianity and becoming a teacher, so his father sent him to the United States to study dentistry
The PPP quickly gained a mass following when they organised protests against the colonial administration, following an incident where colonial police shot dead five workers at Enmore sugar plantation in 1948 when they were participating in strike action.
Jagan's government immediately dissented against British rule. Jagan encouraged strike action against important sugar company Booker, refused to send a delegation to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, repealed a law on "undesirable publications" passed by the colonial government, and repealed another law banning immigration of politically left-leaning individuals from the West Indies. Declassified documents from MI5 show that the intelligence service concluded that the party were "not receiving any financial support from any communist organisation outside the country". However, Jagan's wife Janet may have been a member of the Young Communist League USA before she moved to Guyana.
On 8 October 1953, the PPP government passed the Labour Relations Act (modelled on the Wagner Act The queen had signed the order to dispatch troops on 4 October. On 9 October, a contingent of Royal Welsh Fusiliers arrived in Georgetown on HMS Superb, and Jagan was dismissed from his position
Interim Government (1953–1957)
After the suspension of the constitution, Jagan departed for London with Forbes Burnham on 19 October 1953 to protest the suspension and attended the debate in the House of Commons During his time in the United Kingdom, both Jagan and Burnham were subject to covert surveillance by American He would subsequently arrive in India with Burnham on 20 November 1953, and meet Jawaharlal Nehru in an attempt to garner support. These two factions in the PPP would both go on to contest the 1957 Guyanese election as PPP candidates. Burnham as a candidate was generally further to the right of the political spectrum. Support for the two factions followed mostly racial lines, as Burnham was the leading Afro-Guyanese figure in the PPP. However, the split was not entirely racial; prominent Afro-Guyanese politician Sydney King remained in the Jaganite faction, and Indo-Guyanese J.B. Lachmansingh supported Burnham. However, Sydney King and Afro-Guyanese Martin Carter and Rory Westmaas would both leave the party one year later due to being "ultra-leftist". The PPP government did not have possession of the Ministries of Finance, Foreign Affairs or Administration, and power resided mostly with the Governor, Ralph Grey.
Premier of British Guiana (1961–1964)
thumb|Jagan with [[John F. Kennedy in Washington DC, 25 October 1961]]
After a PPP victory in the August 1961 elections, Jagan became Premier, serving for three years. The elections were held as first-past-the-post, with 35 members of the Legislative assembly; the PPP won 20 seats, almost twice the number won by Burnham's PNC, and 10 seats in the 13-seat senate, which led to mass demonstrations led by the PNC, a general strike and racially motivated violence. and the budget was praised by both the New York Times and the London Times. Jagan's official residence suffered fire damage during the riots.
In October 1963, a constitutional conference was called. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan summoned the three main Guyanese political leaders (Jagan, Forbes Burnham and Peter D'Aguiar) Further violence included the sinking of the Sun Chapman on 6 July and the following murders of 5 Indo-Guyanese individuals at Mackenzie.
In the December 1964 elections, the PPP won a plurality of votes and actually increased their vote share to 46%, The same year, Jagan published "The West On Trial: My Fight for Guyana's Freedom", concerning his experience working towards Guyanese independence, which remains his most popular written work.
In 1965 Jagan attempted to enter the United States to join a protest against the Vietnam War but he was denied entry. He was again denied entry in 1967 to attend a planned speaking tour which had to be cancelled as a result.
He was elected as Leader of the Opposition and Minority Leader in 1966, and would remain in the role until 1973 when Marcellus Fielden Singh took over the role. He subsequently took the role again from 1976 until his election as president in 1992. Jagan was subsequently elected General Secretary of the PPP. Jagan would pursue policies to attract foreign investors and move towards free market policies. Jagan also had a cordial relationship with the Clinton Administration in the United States, unlike his difficult relationship with Kennedy in the 1960s. and low prices for major Guyanese exports such as bauxite, oil and bananas. These proposals did not gain significant support. Clem Seecharan said that the Jagan couple were both communists, although Cheddi was more ideological. Political rival Forbes Burnham in 1957 classified Jagan and his allies as "dogmatists whose aim is communism and who abuse everyone with whom they do not agree".
Percy Hintzen stated that "characterization of Jagan as a communist misses the complexity of his political philosophy… if Jagan was indeed a communist, it was certainly not reflected in the policies and programs that his party attempted to implement while in office." Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. said Jagan was not a communist, but rather a "London School of Economics Marxist filled with charm."
Janet Jagan followed her husband's footsteps and held the positions of prime minister and president in 1997 (succeeded as president by Bharrat Jagdeo in 1999).
Personality
Clem Seecharan characterised Jagan as a man of integrity, "who did not steal and never construed the political vocation as a means of amassing wealth". He would also label him as an "attractive and incorruptible man" known for his frugality. However, Seecharan would also accuse Jagan of ideological inflexibility and an "apparent inability to comprehend or empathise with African insecurities".
Death
thumb|Jagan in later life
Jagan suffered a heart attack on 15 February 1997 and was taken to Georgetown Hospital before being flown by U.S. military aircraft then by U.S. Air Force helicopter from Andrews Air Force Base to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., later that day. His final rites were done per Hindu customs and he was cremated on 12 March 1997. The site of his cremation became a samadhi (memorial) to him and later his wife, known as the Jagans' Memorial Monument.
Legacy
The People's Progressive Party, which Jagan founded with Janet Jagan and Forbes Burnham, remains one of the two dominant political parties in Guyana, along with the PNC. Support for both groups continue to follow the racial divide between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese. There are claims that Jagan may bear partial responsibility for the racial divide present in Guyanese politics. Walter Rodney said that "...more than one political party has been responsible for the crisis of race relations on this country. I think our leadership has failed us on that score." Rodney also pointed to external intervention as a catalyst for poor race relations.
The Cheddi Jagan Research Centre in Georgetown commemorates his life and work, complete with a replication of his office. The centre is located in the Red House which served as Jagan's official residence from 1961 to 1964. The Cheddi Jagan International Airport, the largest and primary international airport of the country, has been renamed after Jagan.
In 2007, Jagan was posthumously awarded the Order of Liberation of Guyana (OR). Jagan also received the Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo from South Africa in 2005.
Jagan's wide regard as "Father of the Nation" in Guyana is stated by several different sources, including the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre, the Times of India and important political figures in the PPP such as Irfaan Ali. In contrast, PNC member and at the time Minister of Social Cohesion Amna Ally in a 2015 speech named Forbes Burnham the "Father of the Nation".
Awards and honours
National honours
- Order of Liberation (2007; posthumously)