There are two myths surrounding the idea of independence in Mauritius. Firstly, there was a hard struggle to liberate this country from the clutches of the British, as if the latter was resistant to the call for independence. Secondly, the outcome of the fiercely contested 1967 general election bore a decisive influence on the award of independence in 1968.
These myths need to be debunked. Though independence and association generated tremendous passions and were the main planks used by the two major political contenders, the Independence Party and the PMSD, to steer their electoral campaigns in 1967, these never featured as conditional elements on the British decolonization agenda for deciding upon the ultimate status for Mauritius. Nonetheless in 1967, the themes of independence and association were floated to whip up passions for political gains and sharpen communal polarization. The 1967 general election contested on these themes as well as those contested prior to 1965 had no relevance, according to the Constitutional Conference Report (1965), to the award of independence to Mauritius. Independence was a fait accompli in 1965 and was being stage-managed by the Colonial Office.
But the general election of 1967 was significant for history in one aspect: the government emerging from that general election “should lead the country into independence” as pointed out by the Secretary of state for the Colonies, Anthony Greenwood, at Lancaster House in September 1965. The electoral contest was about who would become independent Mauritius first Prime Minister. Whatever would have been the election results, the British would not hear about any claim for association or integration with Britain having earlier turned down a similar request from Dom Mintoff of the Malta Labour party.
In fact, the principle of independence was acquired in 1965 when at the Constitutional Conference, Anthony Greenwood, responding to a demand for referendum by the PMSD to determine the choice between independence and association stated that “it was not in the best interest of Mauritius” and that in his view “it was right that Mauritius should be independent and take her place among the sovereign nations of the world”. The holding of a referendum was therefore ruled as the claim for a continuing association with Britain. Even though association was accepted, it would have been for a shorter duration, for Greenwood said, Mauritius would have to move towards independence.
Mauritius owed its independence solely to the British decolonisation policy and practice. “Independence was a goal which Britain herself should encourage her dependent territories to attain”, was stated at the Conference in 1965.
The decolonization process was set on gear shortly after India was granted independence in 1947. It was the Second World War that was key, it is argued, to India’s freedom. The war effort was disastrous to Britain on several fronts. In the aftermath of the war, as Nigel Fisher, Harold Macmillan’s biographer puts it, “Britain no longer had the military or economic strength to hold down to its colonies by force, even if that had been her intention”. The spread of communism and Japanese threats of invasions of British possessions in the Far East as much as the move by Subhas Chandra Bose to seek Japanese intervention to free India were most desperate circumstances that Britain had to cope with and these drained out Britain’s resources. The war consequently brought about a change of mindset amongst Britain’s political leaders, though Churchill, according to the historian Simon Schama, “bulldoggedly” barked at anyone talking about giving India its independence.
A depressed Britain in the dying days of British imperialism had no choice but to activate rapidly its decolonization machinery. In 1951, the Secretary of state for the Colonies, Oliver Lyttelton, announced in the House of Commons that Britain was committed to “help Colonial territories along the road to self-government within the Commonwealth”.
These sentiments were frequently echoed at the Colonial office but it was not until a Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, came to power (1957-1963) that there was, as Fisher wrote, a “deliberate speeding up of the movement towards independence”. Macmillan was more realistic in his approach to decolonization. When on another occasion, the Secretary of state for the colonies, Alan Lennox-Boyd, came up with a grim picture of a Colonial Balance sheet showing “the Colonial empire was an albatross and a fiscal burden”, Macmillan’s immediate reaction was, “Give them independence, now!”.
The British Prime Minister, therefore embarked on a tour of the African continent in January 1960 to let off the sound of drum beat that decolonization of British Africa was in the pipeline.
Macmillan’s “Wind of Change” speech, delivered on 3 February 1960 in Cape Town, was a defining moment in the history of Africa.
“The wind of change”, said the Prime Minister, “is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact and our national policies must take account of it”.
That “landmark” speech triggered a flurry of enthusiasm and national consciousness among the black populations of Africa. But at the same time, it got a frosty reception from the White community across Africa. While the White political leaders were intransigent in their opposition to independence for fear of losing the lever of political and economic control, leaders of the black populations began lining up in London to fix their countries’ time-tables for independence.
But the rapidity with which things were moving brought in April 1960 Macmillan’s new Secretary of state, Iain Macleod, to Mauritius. Amidst the scenes of desolation left behind by two destructive cyclones, Macleod announced the holding in 1961of the first Constitutional Conference that would position Mauritius for the take-off to a new era with independence.
Of course, the processes for decolonization and domestic issues and safeguards for minorities were discussed with local political leaders. At Lancaster House in 1965, discussions veered around the administrative formalities for the transfer of power, the drafting of a new Constitution for Mauritius with inputs from local leaders guided by Professor de Smith.
Independence for Mauritius was not a big deal. It was plain sailing so much so that Sookdeo Bissoondoyal described it as a “gift” to the people of Mauritius.