Sunil Gavaskar named his son Rohan after Rohan Kanhai

Dear Editor,

Fareed Zakaria omitted a large voting block that usually, in my opinion, vote for the “whiter” of the white candidates.
That group is the Sikhs/Punjabis. (Plus there is also the Modi effect, where Indians from India support Trump because Trump and Modi are buddies and both are anti-Muslim).
Whether they are Pakistani Punjabis (Lahoris) or Indian Punjabis (Sikhs), they seem to think the same way, and they despise Caribbean Indians.

A perfect example of the Sikhs and their way of thinking is Nimrata Ramdhawa, better known to the public as Nicky Haley – her “whiter” persona.
Haley refers to Jared Krishna as “a silent genius” in her book.

Although the late great Pierre Elliott Trudeau (PET) opened the Canadian immigration system to everyone, after he went to power in 1967, many brown people (Guyanese included) do not support the Liberal Party.
As they moved up in life, they tend to lean towards the white party – the Conservatives. There are many who were illegal in Canada and got amnesty under PET, yet they support the Conservatives or the NDP.
Trudeau gave amnesty three times in the early 1970’s to illegal immigrants. As a matter of fact, when he enacted the amnesties, everyone from abroad who were in Canada were given permanent status – whether they were students, on vacation (visitor’s visa), overstayed their time (illegal) or whatever.

Recently, a black woman (Leslyn Lewis) was a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party. She signed up thousands of new members and raised a record sum of money for that white party. She had the balance of power, and gave her support to the eventual winner (Erin O’Toole) over Peter McKay. O’Toole is seen as “whiter” than McKay and O’Toole is anti-immigrant.
However, not all Indians think alike. The ones whose minds have been emancipated from mental slavery are much more open minded.

Sunil Gavaskar named his son Rohan Gavaskar, after Rohan Kanhai from Guyana. In his book, Gavaskar described Kanhai as the greatest Indian batsman, and his role model, when he was growing up playing cricket. Usually one would find that Indo-Caribbean folks name their children after Indians from Asia, not the other way around, as Gavaskar did.

K. Rahman