SUNDAY 5 AUGUST, 2018 – UWI TODAY
15
LITERATURE AND POLITICS
The Suffrage of Elvira is comically alive
and politically
relevant at the age of 60. The novel was published in
April 1958, two years after VSNaipaul’s first return visit
to Trinidad in 1956. His uncle Simboonath Capildeo
was a candidate for the “Indian” party (the PDP), and
during his visit, Naipaul experienced the campaigning
for the election that was to initiate 30 unbroken years
of control by one political party (the PNM). The good
things that happened during this period have been
recognised, but the malformations that set in have not
been corrected and may never be able to be corrected.
The racial tensions Naipaul saw in 1956. His fears
for the fate of the Indian population and his sense of
the communal terrors Independencemight bring enter
The Mimic Men (1967) and Guerrillas (1975), books
written after some time had passed and after further
grounding visits to the island had been made.
The mind has its own ways of working. It came
to Naipaul during those disturbing weeks that he
should write a novel about a rural election. He chose
to build the story around the 1950 general elections.
He invented a fictional constituency called Elvira in the
remote County of Naparoni, and he provided a voters
list. Elvira has 8,000 registered voters: 4,000 Hindus;
1,000 Muslims; 2,000 Africans; and 1,000 Spanish
cocoa-panyols. The new voters have no idea what the
vote means or what to do with it except to sell it to the
highest bidder or surrender it to a broker.
The invented constituency used to be a grand
cocoa estate, and is named after the plantation owner’s
wife Elvira, who had had a baby by an African worker
and buried it in the foundation at the time the cocoa
house was being built. All Elvirans are afraid to
encounter the baby ghost of the cocoa house when
darkness falls. (But not, of course, as much as they fear
the obeah dog that crawls down the high street like a
gunslinger at high noon.)
Naipaul gave to Elvira a geographical setting that
is recognisably in Caroni, around Couva, Gran Couva
and Tortuga. It is an “innocent” landscape already
being exploited for lumber and quarrying. One of the
finest views of Trinidad is seen (and can still be seen
from Tortuga) from the top of Elvira Hill: “Below, the
jungly hills and valleys of the Central Range. Beyond,
to the South, the sugarcane fields, the silver tanks of the
oil refinery at Pointe-a-Pierre, and the pink and white
houses of San Fernando; to the west, the shining rice
fields and swamps of Caroni, and the Gulf of Paria;
the Caroni Savannah to the north, and the settlements
at the foot of the Northern Range.” To Candidate
Harbans and the large-scale operators whose lethal
coming Naipaul’s novel anticipates, it is “a lot of bush”
for lumber; and plenty rock and dirt for quarrying.
The 1950 Elections
In the 1950 elections, the general area in which
Elvira is located was divided into Caroni North (won
by Mitra Sinanan) and Caroni South (won by Ranjit
Kumar). All the island’s constituencies had been
adjusted to make sure that each of them would have
around 12,000 voters. There were 18 elected seats
for which 141 business-minded candidates offered
themselves. Of the 90 Independents, six were returned;
of those with nominal party affiliations, 12 won places.
The Butler party (which always aimed to unite African
Elvira, you is aBitch
B Y K E N N E T H R A M C H A N D
and Indians) won six, the Trinidad Labour Party (TLP)
won two, and the Caribbean Socialist Party (CSP) won
two.Themoderate Political Progress Group (PPG) also
won two seats. It is worth noting that after the election,
two winners (Bhadase SaganMaraj and Tobago’s APT
James) pledged support for Butler in the 18-member
Legislative Council. But the Legislative Council did
not choose Butler or any of the other seven “Butler”
members to serve on the Executive Council. With
supreme self-contempt, they chose Albert Gomes
who wielded great power as Chief Minister, and
three Independents (Norman Tang, Roy Joseph and
Ajodhasingh), who also became ‘Ministers’. Butler
claimed quite justifiably that he had been cheated, and
everybody knew why.
Before and after the election there was talk about
an alliance of the radical groups, but all the party
candidates were individualists to whom the so-called
party affiliations were relationships of convenience,
with people shifting around to suit their personal
interests. The Elections and Boundaries Commission
did not bother to list any of the candidates as
belonging to a political party. Some of the campaigners
complained that the only sure thing you could count on
to influence voters was personal influence and bribes.
Professor
Emeritus
Kenneth
Ramchand
at the NGC
Bocas Lit
Fest
For the full review
, please visit our website at
CAMPUS
MUSEUM
CASES
EXHIBIT
AsThe UWI celebrates its 70th anniversary,
the Campus Museum Committee seeks to
highlight the importance of the University to
regional development, research, innovation
and tertiary level education.
The St. Augustine Campus for example is
the site of the National Herbariumof Trinidad
and Tobago, a national asset that contains the
second largest single collection of specimens
in the Anglophone Caribbean.The Herbarium
marks its 200th anniversary this year.
The display curated byDr. AllisonRamsay,
lecturer in the Department of History, was
mounted in May 2018. It features documents
representingMona,CaveHill andSt.Augustine;
items from the St. Augustine Campus and the
National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago.
Documents and artefacts on display are
part of the Museum’s collections, the West
Indiana Division and Special Collections
and the National Herbarium. Previous
displays mounted by the Campus Museum
Committee were “Evolving to the UWI” and
“Representations of the UWI.”
The CampusMuseumCases are located in
the Alma Jordan Library, the Administration
Building and the Teaching and Learning
Complex.
