By Rakhee Roy, IANS
Port Louis : With the first of its kind Bihar Week celebrations set to roll here from July 27 this beautiful island nation is readying to trace and strengthen its ancestral connections. But the Gen-X of Bihari diaspora in Mauritius is quite blasé about its Indian origin.
Indo-Mauritians, mainly Biharis from India, comprise about 68 percent of the 1.2 million population, but the popcorn generation is far from fluent in Bhojpuri or Hindi and shy away from speaking in the language.
Only 12 percent speak Bhojpuri while a staggering 80.5 percent prefer Creole.
Almost all youths speak French and Creole fluently, clearly marking their preference for their European colonisers.
Most of the youths this visiting IANS correspondent spoke to emphasised their Mauritian backgrounds and hesitatingly revealed their Bihar connections, though the Indian names give their roots away.
A large number of Biharis, known as Girmitiya labourers, had travelled to Mauritius in the 19th century to work on sugarcane and rubber plantations and thereafter settled there.
Vijay, 19, who works in a shop, says: "India is far ahead of us in every field but I will not be able to stay there ever as most of its cities and towns especially in Bihar are filthy."
Proud of his sparkling and spotless country, Vijay adds: "Indian tourists are the worst. They come and litter our tourist sites no end."
Many others of his peer group voice the same thoughts and can never think of returning to India or settling there.
Says Sunil, 22: "Our forefathers may have come from India and many of our elders are eager to trace their roots in Bihar. But our generation believes we are true-blue Mauritians. Even our earlier generations have been born and brought up here. Maurice, as we call it, is our native land and we belong to it. "
Many of the original Indians married Mauritian girls and thus their families turned Indo-Mauritian, imbibing and inculcating the Mauritian culture into their families. With such marriages on the rise, the present generation seems not very keen on reviving its Indian ties.
Since independence in 1968, Mauritius has developed from a low-income, agriculture based economy to a middle-income diversified economy with growing industrial, financial, and tourist sectors. For most of the period, annual growth has been in the order of 5-6 percent and Indo-Mauritians have been largely responsible for it.
Mauritius has attracted considerable foreign investment and is one of the highest per capita income countries in Africa.
Elaborating on the Bihar and Mauritius governments' joint proposal to prepare a database of all Biharis who had migrated to this Indian Ocean island, Vincent, a college student, says: "I am not sure whether this database will be of any use to us. Yes, may be my grandfather would be interested. I think this Bihar Week is all to attract investments from affluent Mauritians."