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18 September 2010: Commemorating the Saint of Mauritius and the Father of the Nation
Written by Wednesday, 08 September 2010 13:16
Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam and Blessed Jacques Désiré Laval remembered
by Peter Chellen
“I do not believe I’ll see France again,” after a few years in Mauritius, wrote Father
Laval to his relatives. “I cannot leave my children …”
“There is now hope for this community of Indians,” wrote Dr Seewoosagur Ramgoolam
in an article in 1936.
On September 18, Mauritius will commemorate the birth of the Father of the Nation, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (SSR), who saw light of day at Belle Rive Village (Flacq) in Mauritius 110 years ago.
Also was born on September 18 Jacques Désiré Laval, in Normandy, France, but 97 years earlier.
Both men will fashion the destiny of Mauritius to be forever remembered by the nation as figures of special distinction.
Tribute to SSR has been paid on numerous occasions by the local press and Mauritian authors. Unesco has issued a set of medals to place on record the achievements of Ramgoolam as an eminent figure of African politics. The Bank of Mauritius has, on occasions, been issuing special legal tender coins in gold and silver to mark the birth anniversary of the first PM of the island and as the father figure of the nation.
On Page 4 of this issue eminent literary figure Dr Jean Georges Prosper, MBE, CSK, Ordre du Lion (Sénégal), pays another tribute to SSR. In 1968, Dr Prosper wrote the lyrics (words) for the National Anthem of Mauritius which he dedicated to SSR then. A few years ago, he wrote the ‘Chant Patriotique’ in memory of SSR. On Page 3 we also reproduce the anthem and the first stanza of the Chant Patriotique, with an English version in juxtaposition.
Blessed Jacques Désiré Laval
(Born in September, started his ministry in Mauritius in September, and he died in September. Not surprising that an author dedicated a book to him under the title ‘Le Missionaire de Septembre’).
The French Catholic priest Jacques Désiré Laval came to Mauritius on September 14, 1841 to work among the newly liberated slaves (mostly Africans but with some Indians as well). Their lot, following abolition of slavery in the country in 1835, was still pitiful though they had left the sugar plantation.
Father Laval spent the following 23 years among these poor rejects of society for their well-being and to instil in them the faith in the Almighty.
The holy priest was never to return to his native country and he died in Mauritius on September 9, 1864, at the Ste Croix (Holy Cross) locality where he had elected domicile during his ministry in the island. After several years in the country, he wrote to his relatives in France that he could never leave his ‘children’ to come back home.
As a result of his saintly existence on the island he had gained the prestige of a very holy man among the downtrodden and even among some of the Franco-Mauritian landowners. Since his death people have been praying at his tomb in Ste Croix, and once a year, on September 9 – anniversary of his death – thousands march from the four corners of the island to his shrine on pilgrimage. Pilgrims come even from the neighbouring island of La Réunion.
It is the fervent wish of Catholics of Mauritius and others that Father Laval be canonised (made a Saint) by the Vatican. But according to the ecclesiastic lore certain rigours have to be followed.
Beatification
On April 29, 1979, Father Laval was beatified at a Vatican ceremony officiated by Pope John Paul II. Beatification that confers the saintly honour of being called ‘Blessed’ is part of the process to canonisation. A third and final miracle thanks Father Laval’s intercession is absolutely necessary for the Vatican to embark on a canonisation procedure.
“Père Laval is a saint for Mauritians,” once His Eminence the late Cardinal Jean Margéot told us when he came to celebrate mass in London among the Mauritian community. (The Caridnal came in 1990 and in 2000 on the invitation of the Père Laval Benevolent Society UK). Mauritius’s UN Permanent Rep said on his beatification “Father Laval was a Mauritian”.
Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam,
kcmg, lrcp, mrcs
Another Mauritian of outstanding stature, born on September 18 but in Mauritius, was Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. The man who struggled to restore to the descendants of the indentured labourers from India the dignity they deserve as Mauritian citizens.
The conditions of the Indian labourers who came to replace the African forced labour on the sugar plantation, after slavery abolition in 1835, were not any better than those of the ancient slaves themselves. The Indian labourers were housed in ‘camps’ on the sugar estates and were poorly fed. Their meagre wages were retained by the Franco-Mauritian employers for their eventual home return to India.
Even as late as 1901 when Mohandas Gandhi (later Mahatma) stopped in Mauritius for a ten-day visit, he was appalled by the conditions of the Indian labourers in Mauritius. Once in India he encouraged Manilal Doctor, a young Indian Lawyer, to come and practise among the Indians in Mauritius for the improvement of their lot.
The Indian labourers who came to the country from 1835s onwards had no recognition and no rights at all, and so were their descendants born in the island. They had no right to vote, except the Whites could be elected to the Council of Government.
This was the situation from which the Indians would have to strive for a better future on the island. That was a task done practically au petit bonheur as the Indians had no leader to stand for them. Once back from his UK medical studies in 1935, Dr Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, for the next five decades, would set himself the task of labouring towards their ‘emancipation’ from drudgery and subservience to improve their conditions.
Ramgoolam in Council of Government
When the young Ramgoolam returned to Mauritius, most islanders of any ethnic origin still had no right to vote, a right based on property ownership. No Indian was represented in the management of the country. In their book ‘A New History of Mauritius’, the authors John Addison and Kissoonsingh Hazareesingh impart to us that in 1936, British Governor Sir Bede Hugh Clifford appointed the first two Indians to sit in the Council of Government, namely Mr A.L. Osman and Mr S. Seerbookun.
On the death of Seerbookun, the Governor appointed Dr Seewoosagur Ramgoolam to the Council who thus became one of the spokesmen for the Indian community. In an article published at the time Ramgoolam wrote “His Excellency’s thoughts for the labouring masses bring us to think that at long last there rises a new hope for this community of Indians …”
This news hope Ramgoolam, for the rest of his life, will keep alive as a torch lighting the way of the nation to freedom and political emancipation––seeing Mauritius evolving through every stage of constitutional development. The Council of Government became the Mauritius Legislative Council, then the Mauritius Legislative Assembly, and now the National Assembly (also referred to as Parliament); the island moving to self-government with the introduction of the ministerial system and Chief Minister, and subsequently to full sovereignty with a Prime Minister.
Thus Dr Ramgoolam was to totally immerse himself in the struggle of the Indians, and in the political, economic and social development of the island as a whole. He survived all political opponents, and even any faction within the Labour party itself.
As a leading figure of the Mauritius Labour Party, and subsequently as PM, his task inevitably became one of national dedication. He strove to introduce legislation in the National Assembly for the welfare of all the people irrespective of their community or religious background. He became a father figure for the whole nation.
He had the vision to move Mauritius from an island depending on a monocrop economy, namely sugar, to the attain the status of a newly-industrialised country (NIC), a country that occupies a place of honour among the major nations of the world, a country considered as a shining example of the observance of democratic values, and of economic achievements in our part of the Indian Ocean and particularly among other African countries.
Unity in Diversity
Mauritians are and will always be grateful to SSR for the benefits they enjoy to this day thanks to his visions. The introduction of free education at secondary level is perhaps one of the most important of his achievements for the uplift of the nation. Today, students obtain a secondary education that prepares them for a better life without their parents having to worry about the payment of fees which can be a burden on families, especially where there are more than one child attending college.
SSR had the understanding to warn his party members and those serving under him that such issues as religions and languages should not be politicised. His greatest heritage is the spirit of freedom he instilled in the people of Mauritius which many Heads of State recognise as a great achievement on the part of SSR, and as an example to many independent countries where people are in shackles and where economies have been destroyed.
SSR gave true meaning to the concept of unity in diversity in ‘the most cosmopolitan island under the sun’ where live in peaceful coexistence people whose origin are from Europe, Africa, Asia, and in the mix of them all. Everyone’s right is respected in a mixed economy of labour and capital.
In this paper, we once stated that the nation may bear the government no grudge if the memory of both Blessed Jacques Désiré Laval and Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam were to be remembered in any special manner on September 18 of every year, though Sep 9 is already dedicated to the death anniversary of Père Laval.
Peter Chellen
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Tribute from Dr Jean Georges Prosper, MBE CSK
Commemoration of 100th birth anniversary of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, First PM of Mauritius
First stanza from the Patriotic song
Father of the nation
Father of Independence
Your struggle, your vision
Your torch of hope
Gave freedom
To people of this country
Father of the nation
Father of Independence
Your lights, your rays
Ideals of excellence
Changed the destiny
Of the old colony
The Star and Key
Light up in your hands
The bright future,
The songs of the tomorrows
Towards you the rise
Of our intense thoughts
To you the exaltation
Of our gratitude!
Father of the Nation
Father of independence
Special significance of the year 2010
2010 marks the one hundred and tenth anniversary of SSR’s birthday, Twenty-fifth anniversary of his demise.
2010 marks also the bicentenary of the historical ‘Combat de Grand Port’ (Grand Port encounter) when the French and the English were at ‘cannons drawn’ at the Mauritian ‘Ile de la Passe. The French fought to retain possession of Mauritius and the English fought to take possession of the island.
The French naval success in August 1810 was closely followed by the English victory in December that made of Mauritius a British colony. 1810 brought an end to the enmity between France and England in that part of the Indian Ocean with both the French Captain Duperré and the English Captain Willoughby befriending each other on their close hospital beds.
SSR’s finest national linguistic achievement is that both English and French are still taught at school from primary classes, and are both used in the country as mediums of communication and instruction, as underlined recently by present Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam. And so, apart from one’s mother tongue, practically all Mauritians are happily bilingual practising two international languages, most fitting to a post-independence Mauritius – with global outlooks and sustainable development.
It may therefore be said of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, Father of Independence and of the Nation, that one of his great national achievements is to have brought together England ‘la Blonde Albion’ and France ‘la Belle France’ more than ever in a blessed ‘Entente Cordiale’ in Mauritius glorious sunshine.
My brotherly friend, Marc Grégoire – a contributor to this paper – points out how our bilingual abilities have been so helpful to us in our writers’ career and functions abroad. How we have been so lucky and proud to have our articles readily published in the two languages in our compatriot’s Mauritius News here in London.
A big hand to Chacha Ramgoolam in paying him a heartfelt tribute on the 110th anniversary of his birth!
J.G.P.
