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.
Early life Cheddi Berret (anglicized corruption of "Bharat") Jagan was born on 22 March 1918 in Ankerville, Port Mourant, a rural village in the county of Berbice (present-day East Berbice-Corentyne). He was the eldest of 11 children. His parents were Indian Hindus who were Kurmi caste. 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. Jagan received his primary education at Port Mourant Primary and the Rose Hall Scots School. He went on to pursue secondary education at R. N. Persaud's private secondary school. 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 with $500, the family's life savings, so that he would not end up in the cane fields and he would not have to compromise his Hindu faith.
Education and early career (1935–1946) Jagan left for the United States in September 1935 or 1936 with two friends, and did not return to British Guiana until October 1943. He lived in Washington, D.C., for two years, enrolled in a pre-dental course at Howard University. To cover his expenses, Jagan took a job as an elevator operator. During the summers, he worked in New York City as a door-to-door salesman. Jagan's performance helped him to win a scholarship for his second year at Howard. In 1938, he was admitted to the four-year dental program at the dental school at Northwestern University in Chicago. He graduated in 1942 with a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree. From 1938 to 1942, Jagan was also enrolled at the Central YMCA College in Chicago and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree.
After returning to British Guiana, Jagan established a practice in Georgetown on 68 Main Street. During this time, he began to become politically engaged, and became involved with trade unions in the sugar industry. In 1945 he was made the treasurer of the Manpower Citizens' Association, though he was removed after a year after objecting to union policy.
Political career Early political career (1946–1953) Jagan co-founded the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) in 1946 along with his wife, Janet, as well as H.J.M. Hubbard, and Ashton Chase. He was subsequently elected to the Legislative Council in November 1947 as an independent candidate from Central Demerara constituency. In 1949 Jagan became the president of the Sawmill Workers Union.
On 1 January 1950, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) was founded by a merger of the PAC and the British Guiana Labour Party (BGLP), with Jagan as its leader, former BGLP leader Forbes Burnham as its chairman and Jagan's wife Janet as secretary.
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.
Chief Minister of British Guiana (1953) On 27 April 1953, Jagan won the 1953 British Guiana general election, with his PPP party winning 18 of 24 seats.
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.
Taking place in the middle of Second Red Scare and McCarthyism, Jagan's actions and policies led to British worries about a possible communist revolution in Guyana. Winston Churchill expressed fears that Jagan was a Marxist-Leninist, and claimed Jagan could allow the Soviet Union a foothold in South America, saying "[W]e ought surely to get American support in doing all we can to break the Communist teeth in British Guiana … [P]erhaps they would even send Senator McCarthy down there." 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 next day, on 9 October, the British administration suspended the constitution of British Guiana and troops were deployed. 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 and arrested. According to MI5, Jagan was unaware of the possibility of British intervention or of his arrest. Jagan appealed to former British prime minister and sitting opposition leader Clement Attlee, who responded "Regret impossible to intervene." Jagan was forced to resign as Chief Minister after 133 days. Britain installed an interim government.
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 on 21 October. During his time in the United Kingdom, both Jagan and Burnham were subject to covert surveillance by American and British intelligence services. He would subsequently arrive in India with Burnham on 20 November 1953, and meet Jawaharlal Nehru in an attempt to garner support.
Jagan's movements were restricted to Georgetown from 1954 to 1957, and both he and his wife were closely monitored and kept under house arrest. During this period of time, colonial police would routinely raid the residences of senior members of the party to seize subversive literature. In 1954, Jagan was sentenced to 6 months in prison with hard labour for violating a restriction on his movement, travelling to the countryside and as a result leaving Georgetown. In court, Jagan likened British Guiana to a "vast prison".
Senior member of the party Forbes Burnham split with Jagan politically in 1955, dividing the PPP into two separate factions named "Burnhamite" and "Jaganite". 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". Clem Seecharan made the claim that they left because they believed that Jagan was compromising Marxist ideals for racial pragmatism (i.e., supporting Indo-Guyanese policies to appeal to his support base). This further reduced the number of active Afro-Guyanese politicians within the PPP.
Minister of Trade and Industry (1957–1961)
Jaganites won a majority of seats in the 1957 British Guiana general election winning 9 seats to the Burnhamite 3, and 2 seats for other parties. Following this outcome, the Burnhamite faction split entirely from the PPP, and Burnham founded the People's National Congress (PNC). Jagan became minister of trade and industry, remained as PPP leader and was a member of the cabinet. He did not become Prime Minister during this time – there was no such position. 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.
During the lead-up and aftermath of the 1957 elections, Guyanese politics began to strongly follow racial lines. Jagan's faction was majority Indo-Guayanese, and advocated for policies that would benefit mainly Indo-Guyanese, such as an increase in land for rice production and sugar industry reform through increased union powers. Jagan's veto of West Indies Federation membership further alienated Afro-Guyanese voters- the Federation was majority Afro-Caribbean. Similarly, Burnham merged the PNC with the United Democratic Party to consolidate his grip on middle class Afro-Guyanese support. This style of politics along racial lines in Guyana became known as apan jhaat, which is Guyanese Hindustani for "vote for your own kind".
Premier of British Guiana (1961–1964)