On my recent visit to Mauritius, I took a deep dive into Mauritian politics. I wanted to experience reality for myself. I wanted to see if what people say or if what was being reported was actually true or if it was more strategic, more deliberate. Were we being told what supported the narrative of certain interests, or was Mauritius truly as divided as it was made to be? Discovering that was quite an adventure.

I am a passionate Mauritian at heart, and anybody who has been following me and reading my blogs will have understood this by now. I deeply believe in the Mauritian identity. I have written about this in my second blog post, ‘An identity in crisis’, and have made this the most important, the most foundational building block of our future as a people. To me, for as long as this question of identity remains blurred, we will never truly unlock our true potential. That’s the message I took to Mauritius on my trip. During that trip, I cast a really wide net on how I would go about genuinely touching on as many parts of the wide and complex tent we live under. I spent time meeting at least one hundred people, outside of family and friends, to understand their view of Mauritius. I spent time with the political class, meeting with Mr Cassam Uteem, Arvin Boolell and a few more politicians (ex and current) and I spent time with the common people. I spent time with those who have a different opinion of Mauritian identity to me, those who have made their religious or ethnic identities their primary identity as well as those who are deeply Mauritian.

But today, I wanted to tell you about the time I spent in the villages of Mauritius and how the narrative about villages could be more of a fabrication, a narrative carefully crafted by the few, who are helping fuel an urban vs rural divide and a 4 – 14 Hindu belt that ultimately benefits those pulling the strings. The way it works is quite simple. Fuel the divide between urban and rural (especially 4 – 14) by casting rural Mauritians as backwards, Hindus and backwards Hindus. Allow this to fuel animosity from those rural communities and use that animosity to further widen the gap. 

The reality is that this has been the strategy of the MSM party from it’s inception. I wrote a longer piece about this in the ‘An identity in crisis’ article but in short, villages of Mauritius, largely Hindu dominant, in newly independent Mauritius were suffering from negligence in all areas of human development be it in jobs, health, education or infrastructure. The gap between urban and rural Mauritius became more pronounced in those areas as the first chapter of independent Mauritius was being written and in 1983, the MSM, led by Aneerood Jagnauth, seized the opportunity of the political vacuum in rural Mauritius to cast itself as the voice of Hindus in rural Mauritius. The MSM ran a highly communal and divisive campaign in 1983 to win the elections and form government in a coalition with the PTR and PMSD.

Between 1983 and 1995, Mauritius experienced a strong economic boom and under the guidance of the MSM, to its credit and as mandated, helped to significantly narrow the gap in all areas of human development between rural and urban Mauritius. This allowed a party and government that was born out of a need to separate to survive, to now be in charge of the country on the basis of its economic merits that had benefited large sections of the Mauritian population, urban and rural, growing the party into one that had national appeal.

That narrowing of the gap fuelled a greater sense of Mauritianism in its stride and this narrowing continued until 2005 when the PTR, under the leadership of Navin Ramgoolam, led it’s own highly communal, rural vs urban, Hindu vs non-Hindu election campaign to dethrone the MSM and its coalition partner, the MMM who in case of victory, would have continued with Paul Berenger as the first non-Hindu Prime Minister after his ascension to the top job in 2003. The same strategy that the MSM successfully used in 1983 to replace the PTR as the dominant voice of rural Mauritius, was this time used by the PTR to defeat the MSM. A new wave of rural vs urban divide began but this time it was not so much on dimensions of human development. This time it was political. It was about who would hold political power in Mauritius.   

Navin Ramgoolam and the PTR further sharpened this knife that was carving Mauritius along Hindu vs non-Hindu and rural vs urban Mauritius in 2010 in coalition with the MSM, now led by Pravin Jagnauth to win another term of government. In 2014, after a massive protest vote against the excesses of the PTR when in government, the MSM formed government under the leadership of Aneerood Jagnauth once more. Underneath all the ‘Vire Mam’ and the protest vote lied this time a more subtle rural vs urban, Hindu vs non-Hindu campaign once more, helping deliver what was considered a minor party, majority government in its own right, against the backdrop of Paul Berenger becoming prime minister of Mauritius, a Paul Berenger deemed too close to the tiny yet extremely powerful economic elite from his first stint as Prime Minister. 

In 2019, in the absence of an economic narrative, the MSM, led by Pravin Jagnauth once more, borrowed a chapter from the 1983 election and a few leaves from the 2005 to 2014 elections to deliver the most sophisticated rural vs urban, Hindu vs non-Hindu election to date, adding a pensioner vs non-pensioner dimension to it to win the election and form government.

During my time on the island, I wanted to test out whether 1. The divide between rural and urban Mauritius is as real as it is cast to be and 2. How does the Hindu population in rural areas perceive that divide. This was not a scientific survey and the results are anecdotal, but they handed a few very interesting findings. I draw these findings from visiting a bar in St Pierre, the constituency where Pravin Jagnauth was the front running candidate at the last election, a licensed liquor store in Lallmatie and many more one-on-one interactions with Mauritians from rural Mauritius. I did not choose my crowds, approached people I did not know and really went deep into the issue. I spent 5 hours in the bar in St Pierre, so interesting and multi-faceted and open and frank was the debate.

  1. The divide between rural and urban is real but many of the youth in rural Mauritius see themselves as more Mauritian, as the true flag bearers than their counterparts in urban areas. They draw this sense of Mauritianism from their greater proximity to the Creole language which they see cast as an inferior language in urban Mauritius which is now adopting English and French more and more in everyday conversations. They also see their greater simplicity as a more Mauritian trait than the sanitised, westernised and sophisticated direction that many parts of urban Mauritius is taking.
  2. Rural Mauritians realise how divided the country is along both rural vs urban and the Hindu vs non-Hindu lines and many are fed up with it. The quality of the conversations, the level of intellectual weight that the people in those bars brought to the debate was extremely refreshing. By and large, people realise that the divide has been created and is maintained by politicians. I walked out of these places, places where you hear uncoated, unfiltered views about everyday topics feeling incredibly energised about Mauritianism. I realised that these differences were in fact quite superficial and that at the core, lied a strong Mauritian identity.
  3. Many rural Mauritians perceive urban Mauritians as carrying negative opinions of them that in turn fuels a vicious cycle that leads to a growing sense of divide.
  4. The divide between Hindus and non-Hindus is real. The divide between Hindus and Muslims is the dominant divide, however it is quite shallow, possibly given our shared painful past. Many Hindus who I spoke to showed that they clearly understood Mauritius and India to be different and that the Hindu supremacist agenda of India had no place in Mauritius. I was hearing this from Harish the owner of the bar in St Pierre and ‘Anglais’, the 75 years old Hindu owner of the licensed store in Lallmatie as well as many others. 
  5. Challenge the divide openly and propose an alternative that puts a more unified identity and shared destiny, less corruption, better jobs, better education, better healthcare, better infrastructure and improved standards of living forward, and the divide makes way for what seems to be a very strong Mauritian core identity and what is ultimately, human needs.
  6. When challenged on what they would prefer between political power and less corruption, better jobs, better education, better healthcare, better infrastructure, better wealth distribution, greater meritocracy, 10 out of 10 people I asked, chose the latter. Part of the reason is the unequivocal realisation that political power was only serving a few and the corrupt. It was not translating to the masses.
  7. When asked if rural Mauritians would prefer more religion or less religion into politics, 8 out of 10 told me that they strongly support less religion in politics, with only 2 finding it to not be posing a problem.
  8. Communal politics is pedalled and fuelled by an older generation of Mauritians. Many of the youth, while caught up in a certain level of communal politics, are still very salvageable if a more inclusive brand of politics is seen to be practised.

All things considered, I realised that Mauritians in rural areas desire the same thing as most other Mauritians, things like a more unified identity and shared destiny, less corruption, better jobs, better education, better healthcare, better infrastructure and improved standards of living however that the wind of communalism is so strong right now that many fall prey to it out of a fear of the unknown, and it’s something we should try to understand. Communal politics is not new to Mauritius. Generations of Mauritians have grown up with only that reality and in the absence of a real alternative, clinging to the devil one knows becomes the default choice one makes. Couple that with constant ridiculing, discrediting and degrading views from many Mauritians of urban regions and that fear turns into feelings of revenge. If we want real change in Mauritius, many of those seeking that change should reflect on whether their own conduct is helping fuel the widening divide between rural and urban areas of Mauritius.

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