BY ANAND MOHEEPUTH
The Governor of Mauritius, Sir Arthur Purvus Phayre (1874-1878) vented his indignation at the “arbitrary” manner the police dealt with the Indian immigrants when enforcing the 1867 Labour Law. In a letter dated 11 May 1875 to Lord Carnavon, Secretary of state for the Colonies, the Governor wrote the police force was showing more than “an excess of zeal” by making “illegal arrest” of as many Indians as possible for “I may almost say, no fault at all”.
Leaning on the Police Inquiry Commission report and on his own observations as soon as he assumed office in Mauritius, Sir Arthur Phayre squarely laid the blame for the display of the police high-handedness and overzealousness on the Inspector General (Commissary) of Police, Lieutenant Colonel O’Brien who deployed much of his time in systematically harassing Indians, mostly those categorized as “Old immigrants” in a manner that characterized the police action as “vexatious ” and “ill-judged”.
The sentiment looming large at that time was that Colonel O’Brien harboured a “total contempt” for the Indian immigrants. That sentiment was reinforced by the fact that as Head of the Police Department and under the cover of the Labour Law (1867), he more often than not personally led what was famously called the “Vagrant Hunt” operations in the course of which large numbers of “illegal arrests” were made. According to the Procureur-Général, Gustave Colin, people were arrested for such trivial things as kite-flying.
In his despatch to Lord Carnavon, Sir Arthur Phayre wrote, “there has been a regrettable activity displayed since my arrival in the colony to arrest as many Indians as possible …. and take them to the police stations. As an example, he wrote, “a man going to see a friend without his papers was carefully laid hold of….”
Introducing the Labour Law (1867) which contained all the bitter ingredients for making the life of the Indians all the more miserable and traumatising as pointed out by the Royal Commission (1875), Governor Henry Barkly (1863-1870) proudly announced in the Legislative Council that it was going to be “universally looked as the commencement of a new era of social improvement” for the Indian population. Rather, the plight of the immigrants worsened aided by the complicity of the police enthusiastically abusing the power granted by the Labour law. Not only were free movements of Indians curtailed, forcing upon them the necessity of being in possession of a “ticket” issued by the police to go from one district to another, but the new legislation also badly affected their working conditions. Their wages were subjected to cuts through a system known as the “Double Cut”, which meant one day’s absence from work for whatever reason resulted in two days wages’ and two days’ rations suppressed. The Labour law did everything to inflict, as the Royal Commission noted, “untold sufferings” to the Indians.
At the time the Labour Law was being passed in the Legislative Council, the only dissenting voice came from the Colonial Treasurer, W.R Kerr. The Royal Commission wrote in its report: “Mr. Kerr expressed his fear that the Ordinance would injuriously affect the whole Indian population and his belief in the existence of a feeling of general hostility in the colony against the Indian – who was more or less robbed by everybody…”
But the police crackdown had another underlying motivation. That was the fear of an “uprising” as divulged by Colonel O’Brien himself when he was trying to dissuade the Governor from going ahead with his manpower reduction of the police force. The Governor said whenever he was passing by a police station, he saw “policemen having plenty of leisure”, while he noted, there was “much crime of which the perpetrators remain undiscovered”.
The fear of an uprising in Mauritius most probably sprang from the persistent hangover of the 1857 Indian Mutiny a decade ago. Colonel O’Brien was an army officer in India and had witnessed the horrors of the Sepoy Revolt which Indian historians nowadays claim was the First War of Indian Independence. Even during Governor James Higginson’s tenure (1851-1857), the fear of an outbreak by Indian immigrants inspired by the horrific events in India gripped the local population though Higginson dismissed the “fear” as “imaginary”.
Phayre allayed Colonel O’Brien’s fear stating that “if the Indians were not a very long suffering people, the way they have been treated….would long ago have caused serious general disturbances”.
Colonel O’Brien, appointed Inspector General of police in Mauritius in 1867, carved out a reputation for his display of ruthlessness. He pressed upon his subordinates to make indiscriminate arrests so that the numbers were kept high. According to the Police Inquiry Commission set up in 1872 by Governor Hamilton Gordon after the Labour Ordinance was passed, there were in one year 22,359 Indians arrested for vagrancy. In other words, the arrests were attributed to rogues and vagabonds. The Indian population in 1871 numbered 216,358 (Tinker).
Two reports published in London which Lord Carnavon despatched with his comments to Governor Phayre could not but alert the authorities about the state of things in the police in Mauritius. These were, first, the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Treatment of Indians (1875) and, second, the Penrose Julyan report on the Civil Establishments in Mauritius. The reports were critical of the police force. The Royal Commissioners observed that “the recklessness of the Police in making arrests was only to be equalled by that of magistrates in condemning those arrested”. The Julyan report, on the other hand, noted the “demoralisation” that took hold of European constables, “65 per cent of whom were charged with drunkenness presumably on duty” in one year.
Governor Phayre drew the Secretary of state’s attention that the police held the erroneous belief that arresting as many Indians as possible was a deterrent against rising crime. ”It was not only a grave abuse of power and useless vexation of innocent men but a waste of the working powers of the police”, wrote Sir Arthur.
Having received the backing of the Secretary of state for his reform agenda, the Governor ordered the “absolute prohibition” of the vagrant hunts. To tackle the problem of social disorder that kept growing in the Colony, he began recruiting local Indians in the police force brushing aside O’Brien’s suggestion that “smart Sikhs” be recruited from India.
Barkly’s Labour Law was scrapped in 1878. Sir Arthur Phayre was of the view that all the people including the Indians “should enjoy equal freedom”. One sector of which the Governor was so passionate about was “the education of the Indian immigrants, the future Lords and Masters of the land in Mauritius”.