Sea, sun, sand and diplomacy

Or, perhaps take a leaf out of Mark Twain and declare on arrival that God made Mauritius first and then modelled Heaven on the island. Perhaps not. Huckleberry Finn could just become a right-wing target of ire and likely defeat the purpose of the Prime Ministerial trip. After all, wasn’t the idea in the first place to get away from it all?

So what is Vajpayee doing in Mauritius, that too in the middle of the Parliament session, and, on the eve of the Clinton trip to India? Answers could be found in a variety of places, ranging from the purely political, to the economic and ethnic and of course, sociological. Mauritius’s melange of races is still predominantly of Indian origin and it helps to invoke the old country tie when you visit abroad. Prime Ministers tend to like Mauritius Vajapyee himself went there in 1998 and it greatly helps that the island’s special version of sea, sun and sand are a short seven hours away on Air India One.

That Indians continue to be held in high esteem is evident from the fact that Vajpayee has been invited as the chief guest of Mauritius’s first independence day of the millennium on March 12. Incredibly, the date was chosen by the grand old man of Mauritius, Seewosagur Ramgoolam, when Mauritius became independent in 1968 to commemorate none other than Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March.

As if the racial tie was not strong enough (68 per cent of the 1.1 million population is of indian origin), New Delhi and Port Louis inaugurated a special relationship in 1982 when they agreed on special taxation laws (such as, no capital gains tax) that would help offshore funds to be channelled into India. For many years, Mauritius was thus the second largest investor in the country, second only to the US, and only very recently it got beaten by South Korea (whose cars have flooded Indian roads) to third place. You don’t need to go much farther to look at some other incredible facts. The island is a true melting pot due to the successive waves of colonisation since the 17th century, each of which imported its choice race of indentured labour. Not surprisingly, today’s Indians, Creoles, French, Dutch, Chinese speak English, French, Creole, Hindi, Urdu, Hakka Chinese and Bhojpuri. Half of them profess the Hindu religion, the remaining are divided between Christianity and Islam.

Since a large part of the PM’s trip is driven by the “common tie” syndrome, it might help to bear in mind that the average Mauritian even those who have zealously guarded their Indian faiths is essentially a liberal, who likes to wear his laidback attitude on his sleeve. (Here we must stop a moment and pay salute to the incredibly rhythmic and somewhat erotic foot shuffle called the “sega” dance, the product of wilful influences but wholly Mauritian in consequence.) So if history has nudged the tiny population towards tolerance, geography the Indian Ocean is all around has helped enforce it. Tourism keeps the conservative streak on a leash. The result is a hybrid culture that allows a surprising latitude of freedom to all types.

Incredibly enough, the first Indians arrived in Mauritius soon after the British in 1810 defeated the French in battle and in 1835 abolished slavery on the island much to the anger of Francophones who had got used to cheap labour on their sugarcane fields. The consequent waves of Indian immigrants were called “indentured labours” or “coolies” and the particular port where these ships banked was until recently called “Coolie ghat.” (Later in the course of the century, the Indians began to pay for their passage abroad, to Mauritius, the east coast of Africa and South Africa and were consequently called “passenger” labour). Not till 1922, however, was indentured labour banned, when working conditions became extremely difficult.

By defeating the French who had earlier taken the island from the Dutch, who in turn had replaced the Portuguese in 1810, the British were fully in command of sea routes to India. The 1814 Treaty of Paris ceded large amounts of territory to the victors, but did not dispossess the French sugar oligarchy and ensured that the Napoleonic legal code would remain. With the result that French continues to be the elite’s language even today. Most newspapers are in French, the language is still taught at school, even though Creole a melange of African dialects and French is really the lingua franca of the island.

The Indians, meanwhile, over the 19th century bolstered their position in the country through their strength in numbers, aided by a visit by Mahatma Gandhi in 1901, who had stepped out of South Africa to take a look at the growing struggle of rights next door. Seewosagur Ramgoolam, a key figure in the movement, helped to set up the Labour Party in 1936. The Party in later years directed the struggle for independence.

History’s quirks will be evident in full force this Sunday, at the independence day celebrations of the island. On the dais will be Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, the grandson of Seewosagur Ramgoolam. Next to him will stand Vajpayee, prime antagonist of the dynastic mode of politics back home. There in the isle of Mauritius, amidst much bilateral bonhomie, contradictions will finally resolve paradoxes.