Independence and the Labour Party

A Glimpse into 1961

By Peter Ibbotson

The Mauritius correspondent of the New Commonwealth returns in the May issue to his anti-independence theme. “Independence for Mauritius is the question which interests most people here,” he says. “The great majority of the general population of Muslims, Sino-Mauritians and Tamils are against independence for this country,” and he refers to the opposition amendment (defeated) in the Legislative Council regretting that the Council has had no opportunity to discuss constitutional changes before the talks in London due next month.

Elsewhere in the same issue, an article on the development of the Rhodesian sugar industry refers to French-speaking Mauritians who have left “the island their forefathers found as uninhabited jungle and turned into a thriving if somewhat feudal civilisation based on the sugar industry” because of the wind of change which has transferred power into non-European hands. According to the same article, a “more than £1m. sugar mill” is coming to Rhodesia from Mauritius. Nobody can compel anyone to stay in his own country and invest his money there, but it is a sad reflection of people’s loyalty to the land of their forefathers that they run away elsewhere, and apparently attract investment elsewhere, when that same money could equally well be invested in their own land, simply because of a shift of political power.

It is questionable whether the New Commonwealth correspondent is correct in asserting that the great majority of Muslims, Sino-Mauritians and Tamils are against independence. But assuming that he is correct, the question arises: why this fear of independence? Why this opposition to the logical development of the country? In his recent book ‘Transfer of Power’, Sir Charles Jeffries says of eleven colonial territories, of which Mauritius is one, “it would be absurd to assert that none of these can become independent states”; and I agree. The opposition to independence for Mauritius on the grounds of impracticability is an unfounded opposition; independence is possible, and the case for independence has to be considered in the light of its possibility.

It is noteworthy that the communities singled out for mention in the New Commonwealth are all minority groups in the country. Doubtless, the opposition to independence among members of these groups stems from fears of oppression by the majority, that is, by the Hindus. If, however, the opposition to independence does arise only from fears—which are in fact unrealistic and unfounded—of oppression by a majority, then those fears could be allayed if the grant of independence were accompanied by the inclusion in the constitutional instruments of provisions for the protection of minority groups.

Ceylon is a recent case in point. When independence for Ceylon was first mooted, there was anxiety that the non-Sinhalese minorities (the largest being the Tamils) would have adequate safeguards. Accordingly, the new constitution drafted in 1946 assured the position of the minorities; as Sir Charles Jeffries says, “Protection for minorities was secured by a provision that no law enacted by the Parliament of Ceylon should make persons of any community or religion liable to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of other communities or religions were not made liable, or confer on persons of any community or religion any privilege or advantage which was not conferred on persons of other communities or religions.”

Additional safeguards provided for the independence of the judiciary and the general public service. A Judicial Service Commission was set up in order to guarantee to the minorities that appointments to the judicial service would not be determined on communal lines. Earlier, in 1945, the Soulbury Report on the independence of Ceylon had recommended that minority rights might be safeguarded by the establishment of a two-chamber legislature. The lower house would be elected; the upper house would consist of 30 members, half of whom would be elected by the lower house and half of whom would be nominated by the Governor-General acting in his discretion—that is, after consultation with the Prime Minister but not necessarily following his advice.

All these safeguards could be adopted in Mauritius as a concomitant of independence in order to allay the fears of the minorities that they might be oppressed by the majority. It has always struck me as odd, however, that the cry of ‘hegemony’ has been raised in the right-wing press only in the last few years; they have always related the word ‘hegemony’ with the word ‘Hindu’. The people who parrot ‘Hindu hegemony’ forget, or willfully ignore, the fact that for years preceding the 1958 constitution, there was in fact a hegemony—the hegemony of the dix mille, who lorded it over the masses. Before 1948, with a restricted franchise, the hegemony existed in fact; but then it was the handful of capitalists wielding untrammelled, unchecked, political and economic power over the rest of Mauritius.

In those days Mauritius was in truth a two-nation country: the nation of the Haves, the tiny minority of the dix mille, and the nation of the Have-Nots, the vast majority of the downtrodden underprivileged. Nowadays the former underprivileged have been granted full political rights and political equality with the former Haves; and shorn of their former power, the Haves don’t like it. Theirs, they claimed, was the Divine Right to rule; and they resent the fact that they now no longer rule the roost as they used to do. But they are determined to cling on to as much as they can of their former power for as long as they can; and today their agents—inside the Parti Mauricien, inside the IFB, and inside (as undercover men) the Labour Party even—are pursuing the age-old classic tactic of the imperialist: divide and rule.

They are assiduously spreading dissension among the people; by setting Tamil against Tamil, Muslim against Muslim, Creole against Creole, Hindu against Hindu, and Chinese against Chinese, they hope to achieve two things. They hope to blind the workers of different communities to the fact that they have more in common as workers than they lack in common as Tamils, Muslims, etc.; and they hope, by thus blinding the workers, to split working-class solidarity and retain effective power in their own hands. In this task, they are unfortunately assisted by unthinking Tamils, Muslims, and Creoles who are duped by the ‘Hindu hegemony’, and by Hindus too who are persuaded away from the Labour Party by the glib demagogy of the intellectually inept Vallonvilliste sect.

A necessary prerequisite for independence is the emergence of a true spirit of entité mauricienne, the emergence of what the editor called the other week ‘Mauritian hegemony’. This must be manifested in all spheres of life, throughout the whole country. As far as constitutional development towards independence is concerned, the spirit of entité mauricienne, of pan-Mauritian consciousness, must be realised through a multi-racial political party: and I mean a genuinely multi-racial political party.

Although I support the Labour Party, and although I believe that the only hope for the political salvation of Mauritius lies with, and in, the Labour Party, I am nonetheless not convinced that the Labour Party… or at least its leadership… has done all it could to form a real party in contact with the masses (my articles of April 14 and 21 are relevant in this context), to inspire confidence and rouse the people to enthusiasm, to educate the youth in socialist principles, and to show that they at least are immune from the disease which afflicts so many Mauritian politicians… the disease of jockeying for position. The massive abstentions at the municipal elections were in part due to the intrigues of irresponsible demagogues but could be attributable in part also to a widespread feeling of disillusionment, hopelessness, and lack of faith in the Labour Party. This disillusionment can be redressed, this hopelessness can be overcome, this lack of faith can be abolished by the rehabilitation of the Labour Party.

Such a rehabilitation is necessary. If independence is achieved, then a party capable of governing is necessary. The party which forms the independent government must be a party composed of people of goodwill and led by people of political integrity who can be trusted with the responsibility of governing an independent Mauritius, genuinely devoted to the good of their country, and ready to ignore the ever-present considerations of special advancement of, and special pleadings for the benefit of, their own racial or credal group. There is in the Labour Party already the nucleus of such party leaders, but there are also those so-called socialists who have joined the Labour Party merely for expediency, and probably only temporarily anyway, in order to pursue some private or sectional ends. Opportunists outside the Labour Party thrive on exploiting uneducated emotional masses; alas, there are also opportunists inside the party who are thriving by exploiting the party and the name and programme of the party.

The Labour Party seeks independence. It is sure that it can govern an independent Mauritius successfully and well. Its opponents do not want independence; but they hope to win the next general election. In other words, its opponents are saying, “We don’t feel able to accept the responsibility of governing an independent Mauritius; but we want you nevertheless to give us a majority at the general election so that we shall have to do what we, all the same, don’t feel fit to do.” That is what the PMSD and IFB attitudes amount to. The Labour Party must, therefore, win the mass support of the people and get the people to see that the party is not only willing to accept the responsibility of governing an independent Mauritius, but fit to be entrusted with that responsibility. Only a popularly-based organisation can do that.

8th Year – No 349
Friday 12th May, 1961

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 30 October 2026