The Coil: Coolie Janjhat

Vidya Kissoon
(The word coolie  is shorter than “East Indian” and “Indo-Caribbean” and “Indo Guyanese” and  and “likely-to-be-ppp”. The word ‘coolie’ has been used as part of abuse, just like the word ‘love’ as in “we beat our children because we love them”)
An Amerindian asked me if East Indian people were losing their culture. I was confused because I know that they have plenty soap opera and India Expo pushing clothes and other things ‘Indian’  and ‘fair and lovely’ cream is on sale in Guyana. She was not referring to the black man who was successful in looking for a larkie  and won the 2015 chutney competition. She said that when she was small, East Indian people worked hard, and kept their wealth private and did not get into much trouble with the law .  This conversation was happening at the same time Paul Sanders did an introspection about  coolie people at war with themselves .
Paul Sanders reflected  on the ‘evil’ in the coolie New York community in the list of prominent and not so prominent people who have been charged for crimes.  Ordinarily I would postpone reading the updates on the lives and deaths of the New York coolie leaders but it was difficult to ignore this one because two black people and a Chinese lady sent it to me.
A young black man from Linden who survived immense odds and is working on his own house and agribusinesses joked with me that his grandfather was a coolie man and it was the coolie genes at work.  I had told him  ‘dem same genes could mek you tief tuh’. The stereotypes of the coolie depending on who you ask – hard working, family loving, law abiding (except when the flour ban was in place), quiet, model minority (in New York), corrupt, loyal, disloyal, immoral in business, demonic, cutlass wielding, land grabbing, wife beating, poison drinking and adaptable to janjhat.
Janjhat  in President Jagdeo friend Ed Ahmad singing bhajan at the funeral of a prominent AFC supporter who ask Paul Sanders to write about the coolie at war with the evil which he implied was represented in the people like Ed Ahmad
Janjhat like the President?/chatree coolie/GRA/Kaietuer News/ President? cuss out and settlement which the public not too sure about even though the public was wondering if Kaieteur News was going to be edited from jail. Janjhat in how the Guyana Times pick up from Kaieteur News  in talking about cow manure and how even when it seems that there might be different sides you cannot be sure who is going to sing bhajan/hymn/prayer at who funeral and that it doesn’t matter because ‘all ah we is wan’ in the end.
Janjhat like the young coolie man who decide he not supporting PPP any more but he definitely not supporting PNC or AFC and not sure what else he could do. The young man believed that the coolie lawlessness started with President Jagdeo in 2006.  But more janjhat as even though the PPP says that President Jagdeo does not want any constitutional position, it is reported 6000 Berbicians appeal to the PPP for him to take over from two other coolie man – Minister Robert Persaud and Minister Leslie Ramsammy and make things good for them. ( People who do not identify as coolie have opined that current levels of coolie lawlessness  go back to when Mrs Jagan threw the writ over her shoulder. Others have said back to the beginning of time because Hindus do not have a concept of sin as such )
Janjhat because the coolies who do not want Jagdeo and want Cheddi are scared that if the PNC get back in they will not get back out and that the PPP no longer has the moral authority that Cheddi had in 1992 so the PPP remains the least of all of the evils even though they feel the evil is deepening and nothing can be done.
Janjhat might seem the natural order of things for some coolie people.
Guyanese – Amerindian, black, coolie – do not have much experience with accountability and understanding rights and responsibilities. Most of us want to believe in ‘good’ leaders and put trust in people without ensuring that there are systems in place to make sure the leaders are good.  There are fears that speaking out between elections, that protesting and calling for changes in behaviour of the ‘democratically’ elected leaders are dangerous or treacherous and that flour and dhal would be banned again rather than behaviour would change and accountability would be restored.
Those of us Guyanese who do not vote, and pay our taxes and live here, have to make sure that there is janjhat so that regardless of who is ‘in power’ , they should become powerless when they abuse this power.