Colonialism, Language Rights and Decolonisation

We must all stand firmly with those who demand equality and dignity for all languages in the ongoing process of decolonising language

A Personal Perspective

By Sada Reddi

In recent months, several petitions from individuals, religious organisations, and civic groups have advocated for the democratic freedom of any Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) to speak in any of the Mauritian languages currently recognised and funded by the Government. To date, this privilege has been restricted to the two languages of the colonisers — French and English — which have also become integral Mauritian languages. While there is consensus on retaining both, citizens demand that their native languages, which are in no way inferior, also be recognized as a matter of justice and equality, ensuring the fundamental right to self-expression in any language of the Republic of Mauritius.

The National Human Rights Commission has endorsed some of the arguments put forward by various organisations and made recommendations to the Select Committee investigating the issue. We may assume there will or will not be members who oppose the admissibility of other languages, but it is unfair to prejudge their conclusions or recommendations. The crucial moment will come when the National Assembly votes on a motion presented by the Government for an inclusive policy towards all languages.

The reasons advanced for including several languages are well known. What may be less well known is why and how colonial government policy erased the languages of the subalterns. The colonisers looked with contempt and derision upon non-European languages, and their policy was to root out these languages. Enslaved people were made to forget everything about their former homelands — their languages, religions, names, and cultures. The same approach was followed towards Indian indentured labourers. Even when there was some effort to provide a minimum level of literacy in Western languages, the primary motives were social control, law and order, religious proselytisation, and the creation of a docile workforce for the plantations.

Many people carry this trauma to this day, especially upon realizing that even their names are not those of their ancestors. Enslaved people put up strong resistance to these policies, and it is known that Malagasy people often took boats to reach Madagascar to live and die in their homeland and reunite with their ancestors. Indentured labourers, too, refused Western education for half a century and strove against all odds to learn their languages in Tamil palli and baithaks. Additionally, they had to bear all kinds of repression to sustain their languages. One person whom I interviewed in the 1980s recalled how pupils returning from a baithak had their school materials snatched from their hands and flung away, because planters feared that education would cause them to lose their cheap labour.

As a result of colonial policies, the mother tongues of many communities were steadily eroded, suffered erasure, and were ultimately replaced by other languages that are today defined as mother tongues. Sales records of Bibles in the nineteenth century provide a vivid illustration of this linguistic genocide in Mauritius. During that period, Bibles were distributed in a remarkably diverse array of languages, including Hindustani, Marathi, Chinese, English, French, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi (Kaithi), Hindi (Nagari), Malagasy, Oriya, Tamil, and Telugu.

Mother tongues in a multicultural society

UNESCO’s definition of ‘mother tongue’ in a multicultural society is much wider, and in 2008, the organisation made explicit that the term carries several distinct meanings depending on context. It aligns with the multi-criteria definition outlined below by Joseph Kiama Muthumbi, citing Skutnabb-Kangas in 2008.

The colonial erasure of languages is well known among linguists in Mauritius, many of whom are acutely conscious of their own experiences and attitudes toward languages across different contexts. For instance, my relatives who lived at Curepipe Road were deeply aware of the racism prevalent at the time; having been educated in an Anglican primary school, they — like many of their contemporaries — harboured a profound distrust of the French language.

Those who lived in Port Louis and attended the Young Men’s Hindu School, on the other hand, embraced French, English, and Tamil. At Poudre d’Or, inhabitants showed a preference for English while attending evening classes in baithaks to learn Hindi. Arya Samaj activists actively taught and promoted Hindi and Tamil well into the 1960s and beyond.

My experience reflects that of many Mauritian citizens regarding the erosion of our mother tongues, which linguists note accelerated after the 1950s. Given the multi-faceted definitions articulated by Skutnabb-Kangas, a general census can rarely capture the nuanced reality of language use—especially when reduced to one or two brief questions recorded on a tablet, often leaving respondents unaware of what has actually been documented.

Language development and colonial erasure

In this context, language development and colonial erasure can follow different pathways. Linguists have conducted surveys on language use, and their publications are known to many, but only anthropological and ethnographic works can inform us about the complexity of language in a multicultural context.

My personal experience highlights this complex reality, helping others make sense of their own journey along a linguistic continuum—from native mother tongue, through colonial stigmatisation and erasure, to linguistic genocide.

In my own case, my mother tongue was Tamil — the language I heard most often from my mother through lullabies, songs, and prayers, particularly as these were intrinsically bound to my household name, Soopaya, another name for Lord Murugan. Tamil was my primary language at home, but by the age of four or five, I was continuously picking up Creole, acquiring words from my father, my neighbour’s son, pupils at Western Suburb School, and earlier still, at Miss Sara’s infant school on Conti (Engineer) Street.

In the multicultural setting of Mahebourg, this trend of acquiring second and additional languages persisted and gradually entered our home environment. Yet for a long time — throughout my youth and beyond — an interlanguage prevailed at home, incorporating over a hundred Tamil words for kitchen utensils, food, religious artifacts, and worship at the kovil. My Tamil vocabulary and broader language comprehension were further enriched and reinforced by cinema songs, MBC Tamil broadcasts, and news in English and French.

At school — apart from French and English lessons and the use of Creole in the playground — I had only a single Hindi lesson with Guruji Nayeck and, in Standard Four, an introduction to the Tamil alphabet for just three or four weeks with Miss Ramasawmy from Curepipe, before she transferred to another school. Eventually, Creole became our everyday spoken language—retaining many Tamil words still in use today — while our reading was confined to English and French, which by then we had come to identify as Mauritian languages.

This initial, deep emotional attachment to my mother tongue explains my unconditional support for all those seeking the recognition of their ancestral languages after more than a century of colonial stigmatisation, formal schooling, and language erasure. We now recognize how colonialism and imperialism sought to dismantle our linguistic heritage — though not always successfully — and I stand firmly with those who demand equality and dignity for all languages in the ongoing process of decolonising language.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 9 October 2026