History has not been kind to the Democratic Labour Party. Chances are, you've probably never heard of the party. Yet the DLP was the first real Opposition Party and just two years after the 1956 General Election, the DLP handed the People's National Movement an embarrassing defeat in the 1958 Federal Election. How then does such a prolific party be erased from the minds of a population? This book takes a look at the circumstances that gave rise to the DLP, the challenges it faced and its eventual extinction from the political landscape. The death of the DLP, however, gave birth to another political party that would go on to achieve an even bigger monumental occasion: Trinidad and Tobago's first Indian Prime Minister. The second part of this book tells the story of Basdeo Panday's rise to Prime Minister from his humble beginnings as a firebrand in the trade union movement. This book is essentially a two-part brief history of the political ascension of Indo-Trinidadians in an ethnically divided society. It also includes a discussion on the prevalence of ethnic voting in Trinidad and Tobago and why voters must send this style of politics into exile if they truly want a better T&T.
History has not been kind to the Democratic Labour Party. Chances are, you've probably never heard of the party. Yet the DLP was the first real Opposition Party and just two years after the 1956 General Election, the DLP handed the People's National Movement an embarrassing defeat in the 1958 Federal Election. How then does such a prolific party be erased from the minds of a population? This book takes a look at the circumstances that gave rise to the DLP, the challenges it faced and its eventual extinction from the political landscape. The death of the DLP, however, gave birth to another political party that would go on to achieve an even bigger monumental occasion: Trinidad and Tobago's first Indian Prime Minister. The second part of this book tells the story of Basdeo Panday's rise to Prime Minister from his humble beginnings as a firebrand in the trade union movement. This book is essentially a two-part brief history of the political ascension of Indo-Trinidadians in an ethnically divided society. It also includes a discussion on the prevalence of ethnic voting in Trinidad and Tobago and why voters must send this style of politics into exile if they truly want a better T&T.
