GEEANDUTH GOPEE
Corporate Governance Specialist and Writer
For nearly one hundred years (1820s–1920s) the British authorities and the local economic and political leaders and enterprises were responsible for colonial governance. During that 100-year period, they managed unashamedly the slave trade and slavery until finally obliged to proceed for its abolition, and thereafter transiting to their new-found indentureship system. The British somehow managed to contain the brutal resistance and powerful opposing forces of former local slaveholders and sugar estate owners. And they helplessly kept witnessing the poor living conditions and official labour complaints and occasional uprisings of the Indian indentured labourers, who had arrived in hundreds of thousands to replace the liberated slaves in the sugar fields. British-led indentureship system and its travails were the high price paid by indentured labourers. Their descendants are now claiming justice and reparation, beyond the mere annual commemorations of their sacrifice and sufferings.
The Fundamental shifts during the explosive period following the abolition of slavery
For five decades between 1820s to the 1870s, Mauritius was in an explosive period of agitation since the abolition of slavery. It was a period marked by fundamental shifts and transformations in the society and colony. It was specifically affected by demographic, economic, social and governance transitions. On the one hand, it was the labour class that paid a very heavy price during those radical transitions. On the other hand, the dominating Franco-elite prospered and enjoyed their power and privileges, pampered generously by British Colonial administration.
Political
British Governors had power to rule the colony with a small council. Conflicts often arose between the Franco-Mauritian plantocracy and the colonial administration when new policies were envisaged or implemented on slavery, labour and trade.
Economic
It was the Indians who solved the labour shortage crisis created by the abolition of slavery. This enabled the production of sugar on massive scale and to a boom in sugar exports in 1840s and 1850s. But this made only the elite to prosper, while leaving the others (Indo-Mauritians and freed Creoles) into poverty. It was only some thirty-five years later, by 1870s, that a small Indian middle-class started emerging.
Social
During slavery, the society was rigid and racially stratified. Between the top Franco-Mauritian sugar barons and the bottom enslaved Africans (66,000), there were the free coloureds (gens de couleur libres). The Planters were not happy with the abolition of slavery. They lobbied Britain requesting to import indentured labour. Hence from the 1930s, Indian indentured labourers arrived in Mauritius in large numbers, making it the majority population by 1870s.
Labour
The enslaved labour in the sugar estates was replaced by indentured labour. When freed in 1835, slaves refused to work in sugar estates and started other occupations (fishing, farming, petty trade, etc). Indentured Indians worked under harsh slave-like conditions in the sugar estates with long hours, low wages, strict discipline, corporal punishment under exploitative contracts. The other occupations and skilled professions were the domain of Franco-Mauritians and Free coloureds.
Governance
British Governors in Mauritius had highly centralised governing powers. The justice system was biased in favour of the Planter class. The Franco-Mauritians elite consistently resisted all reforms that threatened their privileges.
Adolphe de Plevitz and
the Sour British Legacy
There is no doubt that the colony was radically transformed after the transition from slavery to Indian indentured labour:
(i) the colony was marred by a perpetuation of domination by landowners, wealth concentration on the powerful elite and slanted justice in favour of sugar estates owned by the Plantocracy.
(ii) Most of the population (i.e. the indentured Indian labourers) lived in poverty in rural regions, exclusion, suffering harsh working conditions and subject to oppression and injustice from powerholders.
(iii) Slaves were free but left to survive on their own without compensation mainly in urban and coastal regions
(iv) A mono-culture economy that was based on production and export of sugar
(v)Tense relations between the different communal segments of the population and between the Governor and the Plantocracy.
(vi) A colony ruled by centralised power of the Governors, timid in bringing reforms in civil and human rights of people and virtually colluding with the powerful elite and the sugar estate owners to retain their political and economic might.
The radical transformation between 1820s and 1870s had been mainly detrimental to the vast majority of the population. Shameless, immoral and inhuman exploitation of the many by the few in order to protect and promote the economic and colonial interests of the French settlers and British Empire. This was the mantra of colonial governance at that time, denounced bravely and publicly (to his detriment) in the 1870s, by the defender and spokesman of the Indian indentured labourers by a rebel called Adolphe de Plevitz.
Why wealth concentration and Planter domination?
The questions that emerge now is why during the explosive period of 1820s and 1870s the British Empire allowed wealth to be concentrated on elite and planters and why even the justice system was in favour of the planter class. These questions go to the heart of colonial rule. More than tolerating planter domination and wealth concentration, the British Empire reinforced it.
The following reasons can explain the above posture by the British:
Dependence
Britain depended on sugar from Mauritius. It was not in the interest of Britain to destabilise the colony’s entire economic engine. As the planters controlled almost all sugar estates, Britain resorted to protecting their dominance in Mauritius to promote its own economic interests in relation to trade, taxation and shipping.
Justice
Labour and other laws were framed to support the sugar estates and the plantation economy. Hence Indian indentured labourers were subjected to harsh vagrancy laws and imprisonment for breaches of indenture contracts. Immigration laws were tilted to protect more the interests of sugar estate owners than for workers.
Going beyond mere annual commemorations
It is recognised that Britain implemented impartial justice, reinforced economic and political power on the few, and made the majority segment suffer. It is also recognised that “indentured labourers deserved more than silence; they deserved justice, recognition and redress”.
We, descendants, commemorate every year the nth arrival of Indian indentured labourers, some happily, some sadly, some in indifference.
Decades after political independence in 1968, the structural consequences of that historical extraction remain clearly visible. They manifest in persistent wealth disparities, documented instances of historic land dispossession that have never been legally remedied, and an international economic order where those who benefited from colonial extraction face no formal accounting.
As a nation, we have mastered the art of public commemoration. We lay wreaths at Le Morne Cultural Landscape to honour the memory of runaway slaves (maroons). We hold official state ceremonies at Aapravasi Ghat to commemorate the arrival of indentured labourers. Mere commemoration is no more enough.
It is time NOW to campaign and claim restorative justice and reparations (from British authorities and those companies and individuals who were associated with them) for the various forms of injustice suffered by Indian indentured labourers and their subsequent generations of descendants.
The Truth and Justice Commission, initiated by government in 2008, recommended, inter alia, reparatory measures for both slavery and indentured descendants. It has also recommended “that in the light of injustices suffered by descendants of slaves and indentured labourers, the Republic of Mauritius and other institutions make an apology through the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and private institutions connected with slavery and indenture, such as the Catholic Church, the Chamber of Commerce and the Mauritius Sugar Producers’ Association”. It added “that a resolution to this effect be made and passed at a Special Session of the National Assembly”.
There is also growing debate in several countries for such financial and non-financial reparations. Some progress on the slavery front is being realised (e.g. Caricom, university grants, Gladstone family, and the recent initiative taken by Jamaica to call King Charles III of UK to reparatory action. Similarly, past European colonies that were the repository of indentured labourers are envisaging to take steps in that direction. Sooner or later international UN and other organisations will be urged to follow suit.
Systems of slavery and indentureship were first tolerated, then denounced and fought until they were abolished altogether. These ordeals lasted for some 200 years. But tangible and legitimate justice is still awaited. Such justice can take the forms of reparatory (financial and non-financial) and restorative measures for the benefit of descendants.
Mauritius can and should shoulder its historical and contemporary responsibility for realising more progress on implementing reparations measures in favour the descendants of indentured labourers. Commemoration of the 192nd arrival anniversary of indentured labourers without structural redress is merely ritual. It is time for Mauritius to move beyond public-holiday symbolic memory.
