R.P.
The two works (Mauritian Hinduism and Globalisation and Hinduism and Popular Cults in Mauritius) by Suzanne Chazan-Gillig and Pavitranand Ramhota are an important contribution to the literature on Hinduism in the diaspora, and the intangible cultural heritage of Indian subaltern migrants. They are a valuable resource for scholars of post-indenture societies and comparative religious studies more generally. These books are based on an original research theme which consists of a first-of-its kind reflection on relationships that have been established in Mauritian society, inherited from the double colonial domination of the French and British. The methods of investigation and the problematic relations between the State, religion and societies were reciprocally determined by interviewing local informants – all reliable sources with social standing. Various comparisons are made with the use of primary data associated with the systematic archival work, in particular notarial deeds and the research on family liability companies known as “company and co” and limited liability companies known as ‘ltd”.
The book entitled “Mauritian Hinduism and Globalisation: Transformation and Reinvention” proposes an insight into contemporary Mauritian society through an abundant body of information and knowledge for the study of the interactions of the religious with the economy and with politics. The key focus of the topics under scrutiny revolves around the Hindu religion practised by several Mauritians. In this study the religious field is considered as a symbolic system of the relations that cut across families/ethnicities, caste, race, and class. The difficulty of the enterprise is due to the multi-religious/multi-cultural forms of Mauritian society and its multiple configurations in a close relationship with the economy and with the State that the authors have characterised as a historical role, namely that of orchestrator and arbitrator of constitutional categories, unlike the French colonial model of colonisation. This inherited British colonial model has generated the idea of “communalism” particularly through the mechanism of reservation of one or more seats in the legislative assembly for representative(s) of designated minorities who are elected as “best loser(s)”in the general election.
Suzanne Chazan and Pavitranand Ramhota have developed the hypothesis, which is confirmed in the field data, that religious changes are symbols of social transformations, both economic and political, and which play vital roles locally in view of the relationship to the globalised markets. This unique research, never before carried out in a formal manner in Mauritius, has been dealt with an authentic manner through the methodological use of historical analysis, demography, geo-economy, which complement the anthropological approach and the qualitative methods and that set up an overall sense of symbolic transformation observed in the context of field research. After having presented the landscape of the Indo-Mauritian society constructed in the context of development of capitalist Mauritian sugar industry-from the east India Company to the association of three Companies of India becoming the “Triple Hope”-the authors trace in parallel the transformation of the popular cults of Indians through integration with the sacred religion of the temples.
Ultimately, readers will notice the epistemological point of view adopted by the authors. The studies on Mauritian economic and social formation have been clearly emphasized, as with those on European migrations which have been considered as a process of externalisation of contemporary social inequalities (1990-2010), associating great poverty with the emergence of a local upper and lower middle class at the same time of national independence. The last part of the book “the New Deal” highlights the close links established between politics (electoral strategies) and economics (the central function of small planters) in Mauritius.
The second book entitled “Hinduism and Popular Cults—sacred Religion and Plantation Economy” is a reading of contemporary Mauritian society which is particularly rich for the study of interactions of the religious with political and the economics. In this study, the religious field is considered a symbolic system of relationships of all family/ethnic, caste, racial and class orders. The difficulty of understanding lies in the multi-religious/ cultural form of the Mauritian society and its multiple arrangements, in a close relationship with the economics and the State, which the authors have characterised as having had a particular historical role as an orchestrator and by establishing constitutional categories different from those inherited from the French model of colonisation.
This book presents a typology of the kalimais and the development of villages and temples. From there, we can see and understand an unequal contemporary society, differentiated between small and large Hindu planters, a duality between an external financial pressure and an ideology based on the educational values of the dharma on which the networks of market exchange relate trade and non-trade. The different modes of colonial exploitation-French and British-thus instituted on the dual valorisation of religion and the origins of migration have been at the heart of the questioning of the exact relationship between religious culture, economics and politics in the new system of government. The close relation of religious/ cultural phenomenon with contemporary political/economic changes have been discussed in this book which demonstrates different ritual practices dedicated to the Goddess Kali whose kalimai altars have multiplied through out the island, where most of the Indian population had been distributed on the sugar estates for the indentured labour under contract as the coolies (indentured labourers) in the plantations.
The popular cults of the Indo-Mauritians called ‘kalimais’ went beyond all expectations and transformations in Mauritius after the 1990s when the globalisation of markets- land, financial, labour-accelerated. Mauritius, through the establishment of a free zone, saw a forced diversification and anticipated the expected deadlines of a non- renewal of international agreements on the price of sugar, so as to also place the textile industry in the sphere of trade on US market by settling in Madagascar.
This book also presents the genesis of the birth of popular Hindu cults in the historic region of Flacq with the first road leading to Mahébourg. It does this in the context of the first sugar mills, and examines their rapid development in companies with family responsibility ‘Society and Co”. After the Second World War, the companies with “limited liability” went along the development of the shareholdings. This presents the emergence of the multi-cultural Mauritian society-from the first Indian company, the great trade of yesterday, to the heyday of the sugar plantation economy.
This book also explores the Indian popular cults and their transformation into a scriptural-based religion within the temples in Mauritius in the context of globalisation.