INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY IN MAURITIUS
The Indian Diaspora Council International (IDC) recognizes November 2 as Indian Arrival Day in Mauritius. On November 2, 1834, 36 Indian Indentured labourers arrived in Mauritius aboard the Atlas which departed from the port of Kolkata in India. Mauritius was the first British colony to import free labor from another part of the British Empire on a large scale.
Indian Arrival Day in Mauritius is a holiday commemorating the anniversary of that first arrival in 1834 celebrates the rich cultural heritage of the Indian population and their contribution to Mauritian society.
The island of Mauritius officially became a British colony in 1814. At that time, slaves constituted the majority of the island’s population. Slavery in the British Empire was abolished by the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act that came into force on Mauritius two years later.
However, the British still needed people to work in the extensive sugar plantations, so they began to bring indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent. Many Indians volunteered to go abroad for work, hoping to have a better life. They were often deceived by recruiting agents, overworked and underpaid. The first laborers from India arrived in November 1834.
Between 1834 and 1839, there were 25,458 Indians introduced into Mauritius. Between 1834 and 1920, half-a-million Indian indentured immigrants (labourers and their families) arrived in Mauritius.
In 1849 an immigration depot was built at Trou Fanfaron, Port Louis, where the coolies lived for two days before heading out to the sugar estates. It was listed as a national monument and renamed to Apravasi Ghat in 1989. In 2006, the depot, seen as a symbol of human endurance, was included in UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites.
Mauritius has preserved its Indian Arrival records which promote the inherent bonds and close ties to India, historically, culturally and economically.
Mauritius as a population (2019): 1,265,475. Its Official Language is English
Capital: Ethnic groups: 67% Indians; 28% Creole; 3% Chinese; 2% French (Source: Wikipedia)