Cheddi Jagan .. who was he?

I recently saw a fascinating documentary on the late Cheddi Jagan and his wife Janet Jagan , considered as the founders of modern day Guyana. The story is magical. A son of a poor indentured slave - Cheddi went onto U.S. for dental studies and later married Janet Rosenberg in Illinois. They then moved to Guyana to form the first political party.

Despite winning the elections 2 times, they were sidelined, first by the British govt and later by the Kennedy administration; who all feared a red state in the west. Cheddi and Janet were socialists, they felt that the country which was formed out of liberation from imperialism, needed a different form governance. However in those days, it was easy to be labeled!

Why am I writing about this little country and its politics and its leader? Because I think in today's era of controlled media, we sometimes lose sight of some great leaders of the world. Just because their beliefs did not gel with the majority, they have been sidelined in history. It is important that we keep our healthy dose of cynicism for what we are told in the media and this applies in today's political scenario as much as some decades ago.