By Professor Dr. Panch Ramalingum of Pondicherry University,
Senior Scholar and Writer.
On Friday, 25th November 2022, the book entitled ‘In Search of our Ancestors’: A Historical and Pictorial Presentation and Tribute to the Tamil Indian Migration and Settlement in Mauritius and their descendants (1728 to Present Times) and in other parts of the World’ was launched by Professor Gurmeet Singh, Vice-Chancellor of Pondicherry University at the Sai Auditorium of the Sri Venkateshwaraa Group of 
Institutions in Ariyur Pondicherry, India. The book launch was carried out through the joint collaboration of the Indian School Psychology Association, the Armoogum Parsuramen Foundation of Mauritius, the Sri Venkateshwaraa College of Engineering and Technology, and Pondicherry University. It was a memorable and historic event which was attended by several VIPs, scholars, more than 500 students from the different institutions of the Sri Venkateshwaraa Group.
On the same Friday afternoon, the book was presented by the co-authors, Dr.Parsuramen and Mr. Peerthum, in the company of Professor Ramalingum and several scholars, to Shri N. Rangasamy, Chief Minister of Puducherry, at his office. Several other publications from Mauritius were presented to the CM by the authors. The Chief Minister was clearly moved with such gifts and honored the two co-authors with a shawl each.
Immediately after, Professor Parsuramen, in the company of Mr. Peerthum, and several senior scholars, then addressed the local Puducherry press. He informed that he had requested Chief Minister Rangasamy for the assistance of the Puducherry Government for the erection of a stel in Puducherry and in Mauritius to mark the arrival of the first Tamil Indian Immigrants which was in 1728. It should be noted that the Tamil Indo-Mauritian community does not have a heritage site or national monument to mark the arrival of their ancestors to Mauritian shores which is long overdue. 
‘In Search of our Ancestors’ is written by Professor Dr.Armoogum Parsuramen (GOSK), former Minister of Education, UNESCO Director, and Founder-Chairman of the Global Rainbow Foundation in Mauritius, and Mr. Satyendra Peerthum (AOYP), Historian and former Head of the Technical Unit at the Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund, Writer, and Lecturer. It took both scholars more than 8 years of research and more than 6 months to write and assemble the materials and text for this landmark publication. It is the first time in more than 45 years, or almost half a century, since the publication of Ramoo Sooriamoorthy’s Les Tamouls à l’Ile Maurice that such a major contribution has been made to Mauritian historiography and academic studies.
This scholarly work also looks at the history of the Tamil Diaspora in La Reunion, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Guadeloupe, and Guyana through contributions from well-known international scholars and also contain several annexes and a massive bibliography. The idea of this book originated back in early 2014 when work was undertaken for a multi-panel exhibit on the history of the Tamil Indians and their descendants in Mauritius in the context of the World Tamil Conference which was held in July of the same year at the MGI.
‘In Search of our Ancestors’ was generously funded by the Armoogum Parsuramen Foundation and was also launched to mark the 294th anniversary of the arrival of the Tamil artisans and slaves from India to Mauritian shores in 1728 and the 188th anniversary of the arrival of the Indian indentured workers in Port Louis in 1834. It is dedicated to all those Tamil free immigrants, slaves, artisans, settlers, traders, merchants, indentured labourers, and Indo-Mauritian Tamil men, women, and children. After all, over a period of almost three centuries, it was through their sacrifices, toils, tears, blood, resilience, and by the sweat of their brows, that they have contributed in transforming Mauritius from being a barren and rocky no-man’s land into a garden of sugar and then into a modern and developed democratic country which serves as a reference point and also as a shining beacon to the rest of the modern world.
It is estimated that between 1728 and 1930, more than 150,000 Tamil Indian artisans, free passengers including merchants and traders, slaves, and indentured men, women, and children reached the shores of our small Indian ocean island paradise. Out of which the majority were the estimated more than 107,000 Tamil Indian indentured workers who arrived in British Mauritius between 1826 and 1910. This scholarly work is essentially the long, complex, and epic social history of their migration, settlement, and their descendants in the making of the Mauritian state and nation over a period of almost three centuries.
“In Search of our Ancestors”: A Historical and Pictorial Presentation and Tribute to the Tamil Indian Migration and Settlement in Mauritius and their Descendants (1728 To Present Times) and in other Parts of the World’ through its more than 415 pages, 21 chapters, with a detailed introduction, annexes, a lengthy bibliography and more than 300 pictures, lithographs, charts, tables, and maps, it provides a unique, colorful, detailed, and epic narrative and insights into the social history of the migration, settlement, and the Tamils and their descendants in Mauritius and in different parts of the world.
