Blog: The Culture Divide in rural Mauritius

The changing face of Mauritius rural world often shows landscape that challenges our understanding. We are the older generation that has joined the ranks of senior citizens after having spent our adolescence in villages that were unsophisticated to the extent that a young person might not have held a telephone piece before finishing school at eighteen, artless to the point of utter simplicity because of a certain naiveté that could not be tutored by forces outside the home.

Different mindset

The home`s influence with a paternalistic hierarchy including the `bara` father who was the uncle, the father as pivotal centre of the family while the mother who was the emotional, moral and cultural centre of the family - was strong enough to keep at bay whatever goes by the name of `peer-pressure`, especially when this pressure is centered outside the home.

It was the era of Bhojpuri speakers. We who used this mother-tongue most of the time had difficulty to express ourselves fluently in Kreol. Hailing from one of the deepest hearths of rural Mauritius, I had difficulties to translate `maja` into Kreol and my urban classmates at Royal College Port-Louis would further stick the label of a rustic with me.

The Bhojpuri speaker had a mindset that differed from that of the Kreol speaker. Even when the rustic switched from Bhojpuri to Kreol there was a transfer of personality, of value-base, and of sophistication.

The Bhojpuri speaker would not respect the `elegance` or `politeness`, or the manners associated with a European language speaker, for the simple reason that relationships were not treated in the same way.  Gratitude exists among Bhojpuri speakers, but there is no word to express it.

The imperative mood was a common characteristic of requests made to another.

The rural youth of the fifties carried in his consciousness a permanent presence of India. In my village Professor Basdeo Bissondoyal led a procession on 15th August with young men and women wearing white  and brandishing small Indian flags chanting the national anthem of India, and singing `yaha Aum ka jhanda ata hein, soné walo jaga chalo`. When the Indian flag waved on a mast in a Bollywood film, the cinema hall would burst into a proud applause.

Poverty allied with simplicity fostered important values of perseverance and patience because when you had no money to buy something, you would repress your desire and learn to live without it. Fatherhood as a responsibility covered the entire life of children from womb to tomb. Because the school provided Western education the baitka was the place where we learnt our language.

Unfair comparison

Independence has ushered an indispensable era to nationalisation. The need to give national recognition to Kreol came from intellectuals who had led their whole life in towns.

They gave a critical and political support to Bhojpuri. Every inch advanced by Kreol led to a recession of Bhojpuri, which was no match for Hindi or other Asian languages.

It has always been unfair to compare Kreol with French. But is has been more unjust to place Mauritian Bhojpuri in contrast to Hindi. It is unfortunate today to find the unashamed humiliation that Bhojpuri is undergoing simply because it was unfair for political mileage to provide the same space to Bhojpuri and Hindi. The regression of Bhojpuri killed a character that was rural.

The post independence generation of rural Mauritius also lost India in its consciousness. India has today become for us a friendly country with longstanding cultural, historical and economic ties. In fact you should read the foregoing words with all irony intended. This diplomatic status of India has been left to politicians.

The difference

The loss of India from the Mauritian heart has led to another personality different from that of elders who maybe the parents of the post independence generation. You should not underestimate the value of this loss in terms of character, personality, vision of the future and moral responsibility. What has post independence youth identified themselves with? India was not just a land of origin for Indian immigrants, but mostly an object of reference and reverence.

A great part of Hinduism is linked with India`s geography. The fact that this philosophy of life draws its name from the name given to a territory and not from a prophet makes a big difference. Sacred places in India are sought after in Mauritius and Grand Bassin lake becomes an extension of the River Ganges.

The loss of India meant the need to transfer one`s faith to another space. The older citizen of rural Mauritius converted himself to a new faith. When he voted for independence in 1968 he made a promise to owe his allegiance to a new country which is more than a spatial geography - for this country was his country of birth.

Did this country evoke the same spiritual edification as India? This country has not succeeded in gaining the dimensions of a soul anchor, an emotional centre-of-gravity, a mother`s womb to which we are tied with a strong, inalienable umbilical cord.

Schools have failed to impress our youth with pride of belonging to our country. The younger generation is country-less because globalisation makes patriotism became jingoistic.

The march of culture is fed by a thousand influences. Women`s movements, the onslaught of the market economy, the obtrusive role of media and modern technology that gives great power of choice to the layman and the authority of decision-making - all these and more have caused a crack in the onward transmission of authority from parent to child.

Today the child`s world is open to external influence because the rural parent cannot situate himself in the new family context.

Western education has been left as the only source of character or no-character formation. The youth is happy with having been aborted of parental control which is at pains to establish itself in an individualistic society.

Nothing abnormal

There is no difference between town and village. The city-state concept has brought material progress but not the morality that can sustain the progress. Who is right? Who is wrong? These very criteria have lost their demarcation lines. The senior citizen sees most of the things that were taboos become….legitimate.

 From haircut to virginity the senior citizen is unable to assert his authority. He has preferred to surrender to the authority of the streets.

Generations are separated by what they call sacred. That is how the Draupadi-like undraping of Bhojpuri hurts because it has been dragged into the market when it did not deserve that treatment.

There is nothing abnormal. The collapse follows the course of nature - of a society that has not used the periscope to look beyond the present. There is a generation of adolescents growing up as though life was a quest for effortless pleasure which should be sucked from life with no fear for control.