DEMTOCO records 5.8% increase in profits despite illegal cigarette trade –

lauds Govt for support, but urges more action

Stop blaming Indian indentureds: we were all pawns

There is this recurring claim made by AfricanGuyanese ideologues that Indian indentured labourers undercut the bargaining power of the freed slaves after Emancipation and pushed them off the plantations. It is deployed to justify present day hostility towards Indian-Guyanese.

Ravi Dev

I have pointed out, over the years, that it is futile to play the “blame game” when, in the development of capitalism here, after constructing its base on the back of African chattel slave labour, the plantocracy went on to reintroduce the very form of unfree labour they had used before slavery – indentured labour (then of Europeans). We were all pawns. Unquestionably, the planters intended to undercut the bargaining power of the freed slaves –but the new 19th Century indentured was not the “free labour” the abolitionists had promised. Indentureship was a transition labour regime deployed to continue contributing to what Marx described as “primitive accumulation”, where the worker was still literally “bound” to the plantation for a number of years. The wages of Indian Indentured labourers remained the same during the entire 79 years of indentureship to 1917.

The persistence of the Indian “undercutting” claims suggests that more is at play than careless historiography. As I painstakingly explained in my 1998 “Aetiology of an Ethnic Riot” and continuously afterwards: “It was not Indian labour that broke the back of African attempts to wrest higher wages from the planters. Rather, if labour were to be “blamed”, it was more the Portuguese and, ironically, fellow Africans from both the WI and Africa, who were brought in as early as 1835. The successful strike by ex-slaves in 1842 encouraged the planters to expand their indentureship program.

The ex-slaves called another strike in 1847 at a point of financial crisis for the planters, as their sugar lost its preferential English tariffs in 1846. Encouraged at that point by the indentureship of 15,747 Portuguese, 12,897 Africans from the WI and 6957 “liberated” Africans from Africa – a total of 35,601 – compared with only 8692 Indians, they held off the demands for higher wages.

After 1848, when more than half of the freed Africans had moved into villages and towns, by and large, they had decided to make their living off the plantations. Even though Indian indentureship was suspended between 1838-1845, and then again in 1849-50, there was no movement back to the plantations by the Africans, nor was there any increase in the wage scale.” Available land in Guyana (and TT) was the pull factor for the move. In Antigua, for instance, where this condition was absent, there was not even an Apprenticeship scheme. The continued importation of indentured labourers after 1848 served to depress the wage demands of time-expired indentured and create a reserve pool of “free” labour.

What is also overlooked is the significance of the number of indentured Africans arriving primarily from Barbados and some small islands (40,783) and the “Liberated Africans” from Africa (13,355) compared to the 82,000 local slaves who had been freed. Somehow, the role of these African indentured servants – mostly from Barbados – have been silenced. Ironically, there were several instances recorded of Indian indentures protesting that the West Indian indentures were undercutting their wages! For several decades after the formation of the Guyana Police Force in 1839, most of the policemen recruited were immigrant Barbadians to ensure loyalty. Both Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte had Barbadian forbears.

To summarize, as I wrote in 2004, “It was the working of the systems imposed on us by the British, whether political (imperialism), economic (pre-capitalist) or cultural (cultural hegemony), that kept us all in thrall. Today, we are still busy blaming each other for our mess and not questioning whether those bequeathed systems are not still contributing to our problems. And that we should get busy, as a first step, in modifying them to assist in leading to greater equity and justice for all of us.” Colonialism continues as “coloniality”.

Another storm in a teacup has been made about Indian Guyanese leaders in the 1920s supporting the plantocracy’s calls for Indian immigrants in a “Colonization Scheme” to make British Guiana into an “Indian Colony”. They fail to mention that in each instance, African Guyanese leaders of the Negro Progress Convention also were authorised to solicit immigrants from Africa. Eventually, between 1920 and 1928, 1729 Immigrants arrived from the Caribbean (mainly Barbados) compared to 607 from India. Many sugar estates had “Bajan Quarters” up to the 1950s.

Labelling the illegal cigarette trade as a threat to not only their company but to the country’s business community as a whole, Demerara Tobacco Company (DEMTOCO) has called for more to be done to arrest this illegal trade.

In a statement proclaiming that they have increased revenue by 5.8 per cent to $7.7 billion, Managing Director of Demerara Tobacco Company Limited, Vijay Singh noted that this illegal trade could grow by 10 per cent by 2024, making it unmanageable in the market.

“The company believes that the rapid increase and far-reaching presence of illegal cigarettes will negatively impact their business, and Government revenues and further in- centivise criminal activities in the communities,” Singh said.

“The company has seen a similar situation play out in neighbouring Suriname, in which, the trade, left unchecked, ruined the revenue streams for the Government and the legitimate industry,” he further explained.

Singh acknowledged that in Guyana, DEMTOCO has been receiving support from various law enforcement agencies. However, the Managing Director made it clear that much more has to be done at an accelerated and urgent pace as the illicit traders are increasing their market share on a daily basis.

In the meantime, Singh said that the company remains committed to raising awareness of this issue through active engagement with regulators, the Government, and the private sector. In fact, the threat of illicit trade was also highlighted in his report at the company’s 89th Annual General Meeting.

“Despite the challenges posed by the illicit trade, the company’s premium brand, Dunhill, grew significantly by 11 per cent, driven by continuous inno- vation that the brand offers which consumers embraced, and its Pall Mall brand experienced a 7 per cent growth,” Singh said.

“Demerara Tobacco Company’s Managing Director urged shareholders to highlight this plight to ensure public awareness is at its peak. The company remains committed to ensuring sustainable growth through continuous improvements in their portfolio, distribution, and retention of the best talent in the market.”

Notwithstanding the threat from the illegal cigarette trade, DEMTOCO was able to record strong operational performance for the second consecutive year, achieving 3.6 percent volume growth compared to the previous year.

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