Biography of Cheddi Jagan
Cheddi Jagan was born on March 22, 1918 on a sugar plantation in Port Mourant, Berbice, the son of indentured sugar workers. His parents Bachoni (mother) and Jagan (father) had arrived in the then British Guiana as young infants with their mothers from the district of Basti in Uttar Pradesh, India. Both his grandmothers came as indentured immigrants in 1901 and were "bound" by five year contracts to different sugar plantations in the county of Berbice. Life was very hard and both his parents had to start working in the canefields at a young age to supplement the family income.
Cheddi Jagan with his mother
His mother never went to school, but his father was a bit more fortunate, attending school for three years! Because his father worked very hard, he earned the reputation of being the best canecutter and was promoted to "driver." But still his pay was very small and because he was non-white there was no further avenue of promotion. He thus saw the need for formal education, and made sure that his son, Cheddi Jagan attended school.
Cheddi Jagan attended primary school and two years of secondary school in his area. At the age of fifteen his father decided to send him to Queen’s College, a government secondary school in the capital city of Georgetown, about one hundred miles away. There he boarded with three families.
In Georgetown, Cheddi found life very different from life at home where poverty had been intense and he often had to stay home from school to work in the rice fields and to cut and fetch canes. He also helped his mother keep a kitchen garden and to sell produce from it. His mother allowed him to keep a part of the proceeds for his share of the work. Cheddi Jagan wrote that he learnt the elements of finance from his mother and acquired any of his leadership qualities from his father, who was bold and flamboyant.
Trying to find a job after graduating high school, became almost impossible. The civil service was closed, to be a school teacher you had to become a Christian, something that his Hindu parents would have none of, and his father could not bear the thought of him working on the plantation. Finally his father decided to send him to the United States to study dentistry at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Cheddi left for the United States in September 1935 with two friends and returned to British Guiana in October 1943. He lived in Washington, D.C for two years and attended Howard University, taking a pre-dental course, worked two summers in New York and spent the last five years in Chicago, Illinois at Northwestern University.
Cheddi Jagan was a dedicated student and his hard work earned him a free tuition scholarship for his second year at Howard and in 1938 entry into Northwestern University for a four year dental program.
Cheddi Jagan at age 18 in USA
But he was not satisfied to become only a dentist, he wanted to find to find out more about things going on in the world and enrolled in classes in social sciences. When he graduated from Northwestern University in 1942 with his degree in Dental Surgery (DDS), he also received his Bachelor of Sciences (B.Sc.) degree.
Because his parents could not afford to support him financially, Cheddi Jagan had to work while attending school. He had many jobs – tailor (he had "picked" up at home from a friend) in a hock shop; salesperson selling patent medicines; dishwasher; delivering evening newspapers; presser in a laundry and an elevator operator.
On August 5,1943 he married Janet Rosenberg, whom he had met only six months before, at a simple ceremony at the Chicago City Hall without the consent of parents on both sides. In October 1943, he returned home. His wife Janet, arrived in British Guiana just before Christmas of 1943.
