Cheddi Jagan, also known as Cheddi Berret Jagan (March 22, 1918 – March 6, 1997), was the chief minister (1957-1964) and president (1992-1997) of Guyana. The son of ethnic Indian sugar plantation workers, Jagan managed to attend Queen's College in Georgetown. He later studied at the Howard University Dental School in Washington, D.C., and Northwestern University in Chicago before returning home in the early 1940s.
Disgusted by conditions in British Guiana, he founded the People's Progressive Party with Forbes Burnham in 1950. He was elected to the colonial legislative body in 1947 and was the controversial leader of the Guyanese government in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Jagan won in a colonially administered election in 1953, but was removed from power militarily by Britain which, under strong behind-the-scenes pressure from the United States and the CIA, asserted that he had ties to the Soviet Union. Jagan resigned as British Guiana prime minister after 133 days. Britain suspended the constitution and chose an interim government. Jagan's movements were restricted to Georgetown from 1954 to 1957.
Having broken off links with the increasingly authoritarian Burnham, who divided the country among racial barriers, Jagan was active in the government as a labor activist and leader of the opposition. In 1992, after 28 years in opposition, he was elected president in the first free elections since independence. He died in office less than 5 years later.
His presidential tenure was characterized by the revival of the union movement and a re-commitment to education and infrastructure improvement. Towards the end of his life, he abandoned Marxism-Leninism and began to move his country to a free-market capitalist system.
He married Janet (née Rosenberg), a former member of a communist youth organization, in 1943, and the couple had two children, Nadira and Cheddi Jr. (who in turn produced five grandchildren, Cheddi B. Jagan II, Vrinda Jagan, Avasa Jagan, Alex Brancier, Natasha Brancier). Mrs. Jagan followed her husband's footsteps and held the positions of prime minister and president in 1997 (succeeded as president by Bharrat Jagdeo in 1999). A museum in the capital, Georgetown, celebrates Cheddi Jagan's life and work, complete with a replication of his office.
Jagan was also an important political author and speechwriter, and his publications include Forbidden Freedom: The Story of British Guiana, The West On Trial: My Fight for Guyana's Freedom, The Caribbean Revolution, and The USA in South America, among others.
