 | |
 Durga in Ganga Talao | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 605,000 (2022) (47.9% of total population) | |
| Religions | |
| Hinduism Majority Sanātana Dharma Minority Arya Samaj and Others | |
| Languages | |
Hinduism came toMauritius whenIndians were brought as indentured labourers toFrench Mauritius and later, in much larger numbers, toBritish Mauritius' plantation fields and neighbouring islands in theIndian Ocean.[1][2] These immigrants primarily came from what are now theNepali Province ofMadhesh, theIndian States ofBihar,Uttar Pradesh,Jharkhand,West Bengal,Odisha,Maharashtra,Tamil Nadu,Telangana andAndhra Pradesh. Later on, there was another influx of free immigrants from the Indian States ofGujarat,Rajasthan,Punjab and lastly from thePakistani Province ofSindh, following thePartition of India.[3]
Hinduism is the largest religion inMauritius, with Hindus representing approximately 47.9% of the current population according to the 2022 census.[4][5] Mauritius is the only country inAfrica where Hinduism is the most commonly practiced religion. Mauritius is ranked third in the world afterNepal in first place andIndia in second place in percentage of Hindus.
| Year | Percent | Increase | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1871 | 51.97% | ||
| 1881 | 55.99% | +4.02% | |
| 1891 | 56.10% | +0.11% | |
| 1901 | 55.62% | -0.48% | |
| 1911 | 54.26% | -1.36% | |
| 1921 | 52.70% | -1.56% | |
| 1931 | 50.37% | -2.33% | |
| 1941 | 47.26% | -3.11% | |
| 1951 | 46.97% | -0.29% | |
| 1961 | 47.55% | +0.58% | |
| 1971 | 49.56% | +2.01% | |
| 1981 | 50.65% | +1.09% | |
| 1991 | 50.63% | -0.02% | |
| 2001 | 49.64% | -0.99% | |
| 2011 | 48.54% | -1.10% | |
| 2022 | 47.90% | -0.64% |
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
|---|---|---|
| 1871 | 132,652 | — |
| 1881 | 202,281 | +52.5% |
| 1891 | 209,079 | +3.4% |
| 1901 | 206,131 | −1.4% |
| 1911 | 202,716 | −1.7% |
| 1921 | 201,895 | −0.4% |
| 1931 | 202,192 | +0.1% |
| 1944 | 203,709 | +0.8% |
| 1952 | 241,660 | +18.6% |
| 1962 | 332,851 | +37.7% |
| 1972 | 421,707 | +26.7% |
| 1983 | 506,486 | +20.1% |
| 1990 | 535,028 | +5.6% |
| 2000 | 585,210 | +9.4% |
| 2011 | 600,327 | +2.6% |
| 2022 | 605,000 | +0.8% |
The European colonial powers banned slave capture and trading in the first half of the 19th century. TheBritish Empire banned them in the early decades of the 19th century. However, demand kept rising for low cost, high intensity labor in colonial plantations of sugarcane, cotton, tobacco and other cash crops. The British Empire substituted the slave labour supplies fromAfrica with indentured labour supplies fromIndia.[6][7]
Indentured people brought from India were primarily Hindus, but also Muslims and Christians. They were subject toindenture, a long-established form of contract which bound them to forced labour for a fixed term; apart from the fixed term of servitude, this resembled slavery.[8] The first ships carrying indentured labourers from India left in 1836.[9]Sugarcane, a crop that is native to India, does not grow in the cold latitudes such as those found in Europe, but grows in tropical latitudes. It was grown in large colonial tropical plantations to meet the growing European and American demand. It is these sugarcane and other tropical cash crop plantations that brought the indentured Hindus and other migrants from India toMauritius, and other tropical colonies such asFiji,Jamaica,Trinidad,Martinique,Suriname among others.[9]
The Hindus and non-Hindus who accepted indentured labour contracts and were brought to Mauritius faced difficult conditions in India.Poverty in colonial India,starvation,epidemics and severe periodicfamines inBritish Raj were rampant during colonial rule.[10][11] Millions of Indians died from mass starvation during the 19th-century British India.[12] The extreme circumstances broke families, villages and triggered migrations. By 1839, Mauritius already had 25,000 Indians working in slave-like conditions in its colonial plantations, but these were predominantly men since colonial labour laws prevented women and children from accompanying them. In the 1840s, a severe shortage of cheap labour in British plantation colonies led to the systematic shipment of a large number of Indian indentured labourers to Mauritius, both men and women, particularly from the ports ofCalcutta,Bombay andMadras. The Hindus and non-Hindus of India who arrived in Mauritius were a small percentage of the over 30 million indentured Indian workers shipped around the colonial world between the 18th and early 20th century (many of whom returned after serving for years on plantations).[13]
By the time Mauritius gained independence from the British Empire, a majority of its population were of Indian heritage. About 70% of Mauritius' total population is of Indian origin. Those who identify as Hindu constitute about 48% of the total population, and make up about 69% of those of Indian origin.[14]
The majority language spoken by Hindus, like with any other ethnic group on the island, isMauritian Creole.Mauritian Bhojpuri,Marathi,Tamil andTelugu are still spoken but have been in sharp decline.[15] Politically active Hindus have attempted to preserveHindi by calling it theirmother tongue andancestral language, erasing differences between Bhojpuri and Hindi, despite the fact that the latter language was never spoken natively in Mauritius. Most Hindus mainly use Mauritian Creole in their daily lives – aFrench-based creole language that developed on the island in the colonial era, through contact between various groups, including Indians and Africans.[16]
Mauritius produces manyBhojpuri language television programs on theMauritius Broadcasting Corporation, the state-owned TV channel.[17] Hindus in Mauritius that widely use Bhojpuri reside in the rural south and the north-central region nearLa Nicolière. They primarily hail from theGangetic plain regions of westernBihar State and easternUttar Pradesh State ofIndia, and their mother tongue is a modified form – akoiné – of the original Bhojpuri language that is spoken in India by theBhojpuri people.[18]
The firstHindus that settled in Mauritius did not observe thecaste system andinter-caste restrictions have been unimportant in Mauritius.[19] Most scholars observe that this may be because "the economic and political conditions in the host societies where Indian indentured labourers were introduced had conditions that were not conducive to the maintenance of caste", and that caste was not a principle of social organisation as all Indian labourers (Coolies) were "doing the same kind of work and sharing the same living conditions".[20]
However,casteism has become an integral part of Mauritian politics. The major political parties which are involved in general elections propose Hindu candidates on the basis of their castes in order to match the caste demographics of voters in each constituency and district.[21] Casteism is a major consideration by politicians who strictly respect this system although they tend to publicly deny its existence in Mauritius.[22] What is now known as theVaish caste in Mauritius is a relatively recent innovation which did not exist when Coolies arrived on the island in and after 1836. In Mauritius, the termVaish nowadays collectively refers to the sub castes Ahir, Koyri, Kurmi and Nonya.
Another relatively modern form of stratification emerged in 1983 when theMMM attempted to isolate the Hindi-speaking Hindus by inventing the new groupTTM (Tamil, Telegu, Marathi). The MMM also attempted to separate theRavived andRajput castes from theVaish group for political gains during the 1983 elections, but these methods failed as the MMM lost these elections after being in power for less than a year.[23]
The Hindus in Mauritius observe major festivals, such as Divali in Port Louis above.
Other important Hindu festivals in Mauritius include:[24]
TheInternational Society for Krishna Consciousness maintains several temples inMauritius.
Media related toHinduism in Mauritius at Wikimedia Commons
