He knew that the path of a missionary in Greater India was strewn with thorns. But that could not deter him. Hence, the launching of the Jan Andolan in the very first week of his arrival, which was to spark off a Hindu cultural revival.
When we speak of Hindu cultural revival an analogy readily comes in mind which goes far to explain the survival of Hindu culture in Mauritius unlike the residual Hindu Culture among overseas Indians in other parts of Greater India. This also gives us an opportunity to pay tribute to the ancestor of the Bissoondoyals in Mauritius. 
After the nationalist uprising of 1857 failed, those who had helped the revolutionaries had to flee the country. Some of them came to Mauritius. Among them was a Bissoondoyal who arrived here in 1864 on the ship the Fateh Salam. These new immigrants brought with them mainstream Hinduism and gave a boost to Hindu culture here.
In order to place the Jan Andolan in its proper historical perspectives, one has to take stock of the precursors of the movement which is at this moment at the centre of our attention, the petition movement of the coloured people led by F. Jacmin, Labonté and Tabardin, the press movement of Rémy Ollier, the protest movement of the Indian immigrants led by Adolphe de Plévitz, the Combat réformiste, the Action Libérale of Dr. Eugène Laurent and Manilal Doctor, the Retrocession movement and the Labour Party of Dr. Maurice Curé. None of these movements but the Jan Andolan can be called a “revitalisation movement.”
What is a revitalisation movement? The factors that lead to devitalization are linked to the stresses, deprivation and alienation which go with such rapid and imposed change as colonial rule. According to the American anthropologist, Anthony Wallace, revitalisation indicates a deliberate, organized effort to construct a more satisfying cultural system after many significant aspects of the original culture have been seriously threatened by a pervasive crisis.
The task was Herculean and the response was adequate. The revitalisation movement had to be multi-dimensional: religious, cultural and political as well as literary and educational. The approach was original. The movement gave back voice to those who were mute. It is true that the immediate target of the movement were the Indo-Mauritian masses, but the missionary was not exclusive.
He was for a rapprochement of the various components of the Mauritian community. The very little of one of his public lectures at the Municipal Theatre of Port Louis ‘intercourse between India and China in ancient times’ lends support to our assertion. The 60 000 persons present at the Maha Yaj at Pouce Street in Port Louis on the 12th of December 1943 were not all Hindus.
When the missionary decided to court imprisonment in order to obtain freedom of assembly for religious purposes, religion ceased to be limited to the practice of the cult. It became the theology of liberation. It was not simply a step but a stride in our march to independence. When the missionary called upon the mute and the downtrodden to shed their fear and raise their voice to claim their pedagogy of the oppressed. He was blazing new trails.
In the light of the discussions in the Consultative Committee in 1945 on the proposals for a new constitution, it was clear that there would be a literacy test to qualify as electors. When Pandit Bissoondoyal was freed after serving a third term of imprisonment, he launched an appeal in Camp Fouquereaux on the 14th January 1946 for the immediate opening of three hundred Hindi evening schools under trees and under the verandas of shops.
The appeal did not fall on death ears for the missionary was not an armchair preacher. He went round the country, with blackboard and chalk, teaching his countrymen the rudiments of their mother tongue. This was cultural action for freedom long before the Brazilian teacher and pedagogue, Paolo Freire, coined the expression.
Panditji’s Successful Missionary Work
To do justice to historical truth one has to admit that Mauritius had known ‘satyagraha’ before the letter; Félix Jacmin was the first ‘satyagraha’ in the 1820s. The missionary Pandit Bissoondoyal had recourse to ‘satyagraha’ when he had to save thousands of his countrymen from humiliation at the last horse races insolently dubbed “les courses malbar”. The call to boycott was a resounding success. Gandhi’s teaching stood us in good stead.
The new constitution was to a great extent the result of the activities of the Jan Andolan. It is not surprising that the procession that left the Champ-de-Mars after the proclamation of the election results in Port Louis in August 1948, stopped at 14, Vallonville street to express the gratitude of the Labour Party to the Missionary and his younger brother, Sookdeo. Political emancipation of the masses came through a Gandhite and his gandhian movement, the Jan Andolan.
When Sookdeo Bissoondoyal founded the independent Forward Bloc in 1958, he was not giving up a new political party; he was simply giving an appellation to the political arm of the Jan Andolan. The IFB’s contribution to our struggle for freedom was also the Jan Andolan’s. It spared Mauritius the sad fate of British Guyana.
By producing such major works as “Hindu Scriptures”. “The message of the Vedas”, “Les Hindous et leurs Écritures Sacrées” the missionary has on his own laid down the foundations of Hindu in Mauritius. It is unanimously admitted by impartial critics that he has added a philosophical dimension to Mauritian literature.
The missionary and his mission which we have tried to present in a nutshell, are the most convincing proof that religion can play a revolutionary role in contemporary society.
Bibliography:
Basdeo Bissoondoyal, Struggles of a Missionary in Mauritius (Bombay, 1961)
Basdeo Bissoondoyal, Bissoondoyal’s Speeches and Writings (Mauritius, 1967)
Basdeo Bissoondoyal, The Truth About Mauritius (Bombay, 1967)
Basdeo Bissoondoyal, Life in Greater India : An Autobiography (EOI, Mauritius, 1992)
Select articles by Basdeo and Sookdeo Bissoondoyal from Zamana newspaper (1948-1965)
Sookdeo Bissoondoyal, A Concise History of Mauritius (Mauritius, 1961)
Uttam Bissoondoyal, Promises to Keep (EOI-Wiley Eastern Ltd, New Delhi, 1990)
Uttam Bissoondoyal, The Selected Works of Basdeo Bissoondoyal: Volume 5 (MGI Press, Moka, 1991)
Articles in the context of the 80th birth anniversary of Pandit Basdeo Bissoondyal in Le Mauricien, April 1986
Dr. Satteeanund Peerthum, Interviews with Pandit Bissoondoyal at his residence in Vallonville Street, Port Louis in April 1986.
Dr. Satteeanund Peerthum & Satyendra Peerthum, 27th September 1943: A Landmark in the Early History of Modern Mauritius and the Early Mauritian Working Class Movement, 1934-1945, 2nd Edition (AGTF, Mauritius, 2014)
Abhimanyu Unnuth, Pandit Basdeo Bissoondoyal: A Biography (Mauritius, 1991)
Vijaya Teelock, Mauritian History: From its Beginnings to Modern Times, 2nd Edition (MGI Press, Moka, 2009)
Anthony Wallace, ‘Revitalization Movements’, American Anthropologist, LIX (1958)
Dr Jimmy Harmon
Dans la première partie (Forum du jeudi 27 avril 2023) de notre rubrique « Penseurs du Sud » No.10 consacrée à Basdeo Bissoondoyal, nous avons vu la figure historique de l’homme, comment il a été un homme du peuple ; et aussi il y avait chez ce peuple la recherche profonde d’un missionnaire. Nous avons démontré comment cette réévaluation de l’histoire des Indiens – entreprise par Basdeo Bissoondoyal dans ses écrits – s’inscrit dans la démarche de raconter l’histoire dans la perspective des dominés.
Dans le chapitre 5 de la publication « Promises to Keep » (1990) par Uttam Bissoondoyal, nous apprenons que Basdeo se rendit à Lahore le 12 avril 1933. La cité est merveilleuse et grandiloquente de par son histoire. Autrefois capitale des empereurs moghols et celle de la province du Punjab, la cité de Lahore « was the Hellenised India » et étroitement associée au mouvement Arya Samaj. Le culte du beau est fondamental dans la civilisation grecque. Basdeo aimait visiter le Musée du Lahore. La publication nous dit « what attracted Basdeo in the 17 galleries of the Museum and what was the fame of the Museum was its Buddhist heritage and the collection of objects from Mohenjodaro and Harrapa. » (p.51). Ceci nous dit le raffinement de l’homme et son amour pour la littérature ; il a écrit sur Victor Hugo, La Fontaine, Bernardin de St-Pierre et d’autres grands auteurs sans compter des publications sur l’hindouisme telles que The Essence of the Vedas and Allied Scriptures, Jaico (1966), La littérature Hindoue, Pondicherry (1974).
Pour cette deuxième partie, mon collègue historien Satyendra Peerthum, que j’avais sollicité pour la première, nous décrit le mouvement Jan Andolan et ses sources d’inspiration. Il introduit ici un concept intéressant, notamment le « revitalisation movement » pour qualifier le travail de Basdeo Bissoondoyal. Qui dit « revitalisation » dit l’acte de faire revivre ce qui a été mis sous silence ou éliminé. L’historien nous montre aussi le rôle crucial que la religion peut jouer dans la société.