Christian Missionaries worked hard to convert immigrants. Their first order of business was to denigrate Hinduism, designate Hindus as heathen, and disparage their culture, food and even attire. Immigrants stubbornly resisted, led by the tiny educated elite, including Brhmaas whom we call Brahmins. Conversion was a failure at least up to the end of the 19th century but picked up a self-generating momentum thereafter. The result is that the share of Hindus in Guyana’s Indian population declined from 83.5 percent in 1880 to 62.8 percent in 2012. The largest portion of the contraction was lost to Christianity. The loss notwithstanding, even a casual observer would conclude that Guyanese Hindus, at home and in the Diaspora, are a very religious people. Many of us do a jhandi or havan once annually; others do the more elaborate and costlier yajña, where everyone is welcome, once or twice in their lifetime. Most of us do a short daily puja – prayers, offerings, reading the stras and listening to bhajan – in our homes. An important, but perhaps unintended, way immigrants countered conversion to Christianity was an unplanned movement towards a “synthesis” that brought Hindus, regardless of caste or sect, under a “unitary form of Hinduism.” The “synthesis” began around the 1870s and was completed by the 1930s to the 1950s. Guyanese Hindus call the unified corpus of religious beliefs and practices that emerged from the “synthesis” Sanatana Dharma. Ramesh Gampat labels it Plantation Hinduism in this path-breaking book. The book argues that the brand of Hinduism practiced is inconsistent with Sanatana Dharma, called Vednta by the more philosophically inclined. Plantation Hinduism features an extraordinary dependence upon purohits (pandits), which has anaesthetized the Hindu mind and render him unable to think, question and inquire when it comes to Dharma. Rituals and bhakti have been degraded and turned into desire-motivated worship; devats have been misconstrued as Brahman rather than as limited manifestation of the one non-dual pure Consciousness; belief in the multiplicity of gods encourages image worship; and superstitions anchor Guyanese Hindus to tradition and mere belief. Plantation Hinduism is little more than desire-motivated actions, dogmas and superstitions. Absent is the idea that Sanatana Dharma is a spiritual science no less scientific than hard sciences, such as physics and astronomy. The central message of Vednta is the innate divinity of every person and the freedom to realize that divinity through anubhava, direct personal experience of Supreme Reality.

Christian Missionaries worked hard to convert immigrants. Their first order of business was to denigrate Hinduism, designate Hindus as heathen, and disparage their culture, food and even attire. Immigrants stubbornly resisted, led by the tiny educated elite, including Brhmaas whom we call Brahmins. Conversion was a failure at least up to the end of the 19th century but picked up a self-generating momentum thereafter. The result is that the share of Hindus in Guyana’s Indian population declined from 83.5 percent in 1880 to 62.8 percent in 2012. The largest portion of the contraction was lost to Christianity. The loss notwithstanding, even a casual observer would conclude that Guyanese Hindus, at home and in the Diaspora, are a very religious people. Many of us do a jhandi or havan once annually; others do the more elaborate and costlier yajña, where everyone is welcome, once or twice in their lifetime. Most of us do a short daily puja – prayers, offerings, reading the stras and listening to bhajan – in our homes. An important, but perhaps unintended, way immigrants countered conversion to Christianity was an unplanned movement towards a “synthesis” that brought Hindus, regardless of caste or sect, under a “unitary form of Hinduism.” The “synthesis” began around the 1870s and was completed by the 1930s to the 1950s. Guyanese Hindus call the unified corpus of religious beliefs and practices that emerged from the “synthesis” Sanatana Dharma. Ramesh Gampat labels it Plantation Hinduism in this path-breaking book. The book argues that the brand of Hinduism practiced is inconsistent with Sanatana Dharma, called Vednta by the more philosophically inclined. Plantation Hinduism features an extraordinary dependence upon purohits (pandits), which has anaesthetized the Hindu mind and render him unable to think, question and inquire when it comes to Dharma. Rituals and bhakti have been degraded and turned into desire-motivated worship; devats have been misconstrued as Brahman rather than as limited manifestation of the one non-dual pure Consciousness; belief in the multiplicity of gods encourages image worship; and superstitions anchor Guyanese Hindus to tradition and mere belief. Plantation Hinduism is little more than desire-motivated actions, dogmas and superstitions. Absent is the idea that Sanatana Dharma is a spiritual science no less scientific than hard sciences, such as physics and astronomy. The central message of Vednta is the innate divinity of every person and the freedom to realize that divinity through anubhava, direct personal experience of Supreme Reality.

Much of Guyana's 20th century history was defined by the PNC dictatorship and the political and economic wreckage it left behind. In "Guyana's Great Economic Downswing, 1977 to 1990", Dr Ramesh Gampat presents a comprehensive study of these specific years when the national economy contracted by 2.7 percent annually. He explores the multiple facets of the country's political tribalism which "does not value freedom, liberty and the flourishing of all people; it values only freedom, liberty and flourishing of tribes." The study reinforces the widely held belief that until and unless these adversarial groups subsume their respective selfish interests and commit to the common cause of national peace and development, the great downswing might not rest as a historical event but could well re-emerge with further economic devastation if the lessons go unheeded. Dr Gampat makes a strong case for federalism as a solution to Guyana's ethnic politics. Federalism, he posits, would ensure that all Guyanese have equal access to opportunities and resources since a system of provincial governance would be better placed to address discriminatory policies and practices at a localised level. With the country sitting on the cusp of transformative development to be propelled by new-found oil wealth, there is an urgency to settle the divisive politics if every Guyanese is to benefit fairly and equitably from the economic boom. "Guyana's Great Economic Downswing, 1977 to 1990" offers up a studied and comprehensive analysis that should be part of that bipartisan discourse going forward. --- Ryhaan Shah, Novelist, Social Activist A few piecemeal academic articles analyzing Guyana's economic evolution over the period 1977 to 1990 were written, but they are scattered and lost away in various journals. What was missing is a comprehensive and rigorous exploration of the era of Cooperative Socialism. Dr. Ramesh Gampat's book fills this gap. It is a superb synthesis of historical, theoretical and econometric exploration of the Great Downswing. The book not only provides estimates of important macroeconomic concepts such as Guyana's total factor productivity and long-term growth, but also produces the useful statistics and reviews of poverty, inequality, life expectancy, education outcomes as well as a detailed analysis of the rice sector. As if these are not enough, Gampat sets the tone by situating the exploration in the country's long standing and debilitating ethno-political dynamics. This self-contained book will be of tremendous use to policy makers, journalists and students interested in the historical context of present-day outcomes. I highly recommend this book to public libraries and home reference libraries. ---Tarron Khemraj, William and Marie Selby Professor of Economics and International Studies, New College of Florida

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This book argues that Guyana presently operates a system of domestic colonialism (DM). DM builds on institutions established during imperial colonialism, strengthened and expanded since independence in 1966, and regionalization, which balkanized the country into ten administrative regions. Regionalization is a flexible instrument that enables political and economic control, with one strengthening the other, further empowering Region 4 where the “metropole” is located, and enhancing the dependency of the nine satellite regions. Both political parties exploits regionalization when in power, the PPP principally through financial strangulation and discrimination, the PNC and its various incarnations via political control. Regionalization is the symbol of domestic colonialism. PPP-I (last six years of its previous regime, 2009 to 2014) allocated an annual average of 11.1 percent of public funds to the regions, the APNU+AFC 14.1 percent from 2015 to 2020, and PPP-II, the current PPP administration, 12.5 percent during its first two years in office. Over the fourteen-years from 2009 to 2022, the four largest agencies consumed 42.5 percent of total Central Government expenditure. Under PPP-I, these agencies spent 15 percentage points more on capital costs than they did under APNU+AFC. However, under the latter government they spent more than 10 percentage points on the amorphous category “Other Charges.” These anomalies are hard to explain because there were no functional enhancements or reach of coverage by these agencies. Incredibly, the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the largest agency for all but one year, spent 46.1 percent of what the Ministry of Public Works incurred on public infrastructure for the entire country. An important avenue of political patronage is the employment of contract and temporary workers, who are hired outside of the public service legislative framework. These workers comprised half of the MoF’s workforce over the fourteen-year period and the last six years of PPP-I; for the Ministry of Health, that figure is around 37.0 percent for both periods. Employment patronage rose during APNU+AFC’s term of office, to 53.8 percent in the MoF and to 41.8 percent in the MoH. Employment patronage at these two big agencies was lower during PPP-I than the six years of the APNU+AFC Government. “Patronage employment” is considerably lower with the PPP-II than all previous regimes. The strategic deviation is explained by the rise of three separate categories of low- and unskilled workers, who account for 48.5 percent and 57.7 percent of workforce of the MoF and the MoH, respectively. These figures are more than 10 percentage points larger than those of all previous administrations. In effect, the PPP doles out patronage away from hiring outside of the public service legislative framework to hiring within it. Not only has the PPP “legalized” patronage, it has also increased it significantly.

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