The Indian diaspora in Mauritius is unique and dynamic, and it constitutes an overwhelming majority, nearly 70 per cent of the total population. French and British colonialists transported many Indians to Mauritius as indentured labourers to work on sugar plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Indian diaspora in Mauritius is not a monolithic homogenous community and there are many divisions based on religion, caste, place of origin and ancestral language.
There are associations and organizations associated with their respective cultures and languages. Cultural identity among the Indian diaspora is based on ancestral language and religion. Religious performance is also experienced by the Indian diaspora through establishing a connection with their migrant ancestors.
Urdu and Arabic are the two official languages of the Mauritius Muslims and the tradition of Na’t, an Urdu genre of praise poetry in honour of the Prophet, plays an important part in bridging the diasporic gap with their ancestors. For Hindus, the Hindi language and the famous pilgrimage to Grand Bassin play an important role in the formation of their cultural identity.
Each year in February on the festival of Shivaratri, out of a total population of 1.2 million, around 400,000 pilgrims make the journey to Grand Bassin, a small mountain lake that is also known among Hindus as Ganga Talao. Since the independence of Mauritius, Hindu organizations with support from the Mauritian and Indian governments have turned this relatively remote lake into a major centre of pilgrimage.
Building temples, access roads, parking terrains and surrounding the lake with steps (ghat) have been major projects of such organizations. As such, Grand Bassin with its spatial layout and temple architecture significantly differs and looks more “Indian” compared to the plainer concrete architecture of most Hindu temples found in Mauritian towns and villages are intended to resemble Hindu sacred landscapes in India.
Pilgrimage to Grand Bassin started on a very small scale more than a century ago and according to legends, the small mountain lake features a spiritual connection to the River Ganges in India. There is an annual movement of pilgrims from all over Mauritius as well as from elsewhere in the Indian Ocean region, such as South Africa and the neighbouring French island of La Réunion, to Grand Bassin. The construction of sacred geography with its spatial, infrastructural and architectural layout provides a powerful means of bridging the very substantial diasporic gap between the worlds of the immigrant ancestors and present-day Hindu Mauritians.