‘Indo-Mauritians’ and the Indian Ocean: literacy accounts and anthropological readings

Teachers’ experiences of teaching an ancestral language in a multilingual context : the case of Telugu in Mauritius.

“…The Indian diaspora has evolved and constitutes an important element in the current globalised world. Considered the "mini-India", Mauritius has always benefited from the measures proposed by India to promote the Indian diaspora (Srilata, 2010;Eisenlohr, 2012;Claveyrolas, 2017). In recent times, India, positioning itself as an economic and cultural superpower, has taken several measures to economically help diasporic countries, to such an extent that the relationship between India and Mauritius has been seen as "over-romanticised" as noted by Lexpress (2017, April 18).…”

“…On the one hand, there has been a homogenisation process among Hindus for political ends so that the Hindus maintain their majority status of more than 50% of the population. On the other hand, the minority groups have maintained their differences for power distribution and affirming their identity (Hollup, 2000;Claveyrolas, 2017;Ramsoondar, 2018).…”

“…However, language behaviour is also influenced by political situations if the active agents have a positive attitude towards promotion of the language or even if the speakers have a positive attitude towards their languages. For example, culture politics in the Mauritian context have always been in favour of maintenance of Indian languages (Bissoonauth, 2010;Srilata, 2010;Claveyrolas, 2017). On the other hand, some Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka feared using their language because of the prevalent conflict between the state and the rebels (Fernandez & Clyne, 2007;Canagarajah, 2008).…”

“…It is only recently after much struggle by proponents of the language that it has been included in the curriculum, as an optional language. Conversely, while one would think that languages which are on the decline and barely spoken in the same context would be totally marginalised, they have, surprisingly, been preserved, maintained, and promoted (Eisenlohr, 2007;Tirvassen, 2014;Srilata, 2010;Claveyrolas, 2017).…”

“…Reconnection to a diasporic land, re-enactment of diasporic traditions, and allegiances to diverse lands of origin (or reinventing Indianness as Claveyrolas [2017] puts it) are issues that cannot be neglected while studying the Mauritian linguistic landscape (Mehta, 1995;Hollup, 2000;Eisenlohr, 2007). An anecdote that creates much controversy among the Mauritian population, according to the newspaper Lexpress (2018, May 2), is the appellation or term 'Mini-India', used to refer to Mauritius, mainly in the socio-political or diasporic field.…”