Most revolts are short-lived, though their inspiration could last much longer. At the basis of rebellions, the under­lying factor remains ‘‘money’’ or the reduction in real dispo­sable income. The peasants’ revolt in England (1381) can be regarded as the first major uprising by ordinary people against their ruler. Rebellions or simply protests were left to aristocratic rebels like the ba­rons and knights. In 1215, the feisty barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta in which 12 clauses were related to money, taxation and limiting the King’s power. The pea­santry could no longer endure the burden of miseries. They were being impoverished day by day having to fill in the royal coffer – their contributions in money and goats were at par with the rich – and that was to finance the useless and unne­cessary military expeditions of the King. The angry peasants marched in London, burning and plundering as they went, invading the Tower of London and beheading the Chancellor who had taken refuge there.

In France, public outburst ended up not in a revolt but in a revolution when food became so scarce that when the French people complained and took to the streets, they were told by Queen Marie Antoinette to eat ‘‘cake’’. People’s patience wore out thin as the King remained indifferent to their plight as he was busy himself coping with his own personal problems. This helped ignite the uprising leading to the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789 and the execution of King Louis XVI and the Queen in 1793.

The lesson to be derived from these historical uphea­vals is that at times rulers tend to forget that the power of the people is greater than the people in power. As exempli­fied by the recent Arab Spring which has already toppled some dictators.

For almost 127 years since the British occupation in 1810, Mauritius enjoyed a long spell of tranquility. Rebelliousness has never been a tradition in Mauritius. The slave popu­lation was all through docile and submissive in contrast to the Caribbean colonies where insurrection became a crucial undercurrent in the quest for freedom. A classic case is that of the revolt in Saint Domingue (1791) where even the great Napoleon had to beat in retreat leaving the rebel slave, Tous­saint Louverture, in control of the colony.

Indian workers on su­gar estates though faced with hardships could hardly voice out their grievances until De Plevitz pleaded their cause. He sent off a petition to Governor Gordon who found enough justifications for the setting up of a Royal Commission in 1872 to inquire into the op­pressive treatment meted out to Indians.

Again, another Royal com­mission was set up in 1909. But its recommendations intended to ameliorate the working conditions of estates’ wor­kers were simply ignored to the point that with conditions worsening, the Indian govern­ment could not but stop the supply of indentured labou­rers to Mauritius following the report of Sir Kunwar Maha-rajsingh in 1924.

 Mauritiushas witnessed no revolt as such but rather some social eruptions like the ones in 1937 and 1943

That the Indians found themselves helpless was due to the fact that no one strong enough emerged as a leader to champion their causes. It was not until 1936, when the Labour party was founded, that Dr Maurice Curé led an island-wide agitation claiming better pay and improved wor­king conditions for workers. That was the first time that plantation workers were gal­vanized and set in what can be described as in a rebellious mode. So much convulsed was the island by unrests that it ended up with deadly shots fired at demonstrators at Flacq in 1937. That tragic event, ne­vertheless, ushered in a new era of social and political develop­ment. The setting up of a La­bour department to regulate working conditions of estate labourers and the formation of trade unions through the Industrial Associations Ordi­nance of 1938 so that disputes and grievances could be settled by negotiations were two key elements which the colonial government favoured although the nomination of two Indians in the Council of Government was an exercise in futility, if not, a façade as not much they could do to defend the cause of Indian workers.

But things still did not im­prove much. Otherwise, how could one explain the ‘‘dis­turbances’’ that occurred in the North in 1943? The grie­vances ventilated by the estate workers through the newly formed Labourers’ Industrial Association went unnoticed in the Council. But even worse was the glaring inefficiency of the Labour department, as Lord Farringdon stated in the House of Lords, in resolving such grievances despite these were brought to the attention of the Director of Labour as early as January 1943 “but no­thing has been done”. Gloomy economic conditions prevailing during the war time made life more distressful. Shortage of food, poor quality of rice, poor quality of shirts, poor housing conditions, low wages and ri­sing cost of living made up for most of the complaints. The in­difference of estate managers in looking after the welfare of their employees and their insensibi­lity towards workers heightened tension between estate owners and workers. That century old mindset was still alive despite social and economic changes and was deplored by the Moo­dy Commission.

The disturbances of 1943 would have received scant attention had it not been for the police firing in the labou­rers’ camp at Belle-Vue-Harel resulting in death. 1943 is re­membered, 70 years on, not so much for the protests of estate labourers as it is for the remem­brance of Anjalay Coopen, the woman-labourer shot dead, rescued from oblivion only in the 80s and turned into a sym­bol of workers’ struggles.

Yet, a distinct line needs to be drawn here. The confron­tation between angry camp dwellers and the police was something that had another immediate cause. That was the ignorance of the human factor element as mentio­ned in the Moody Commis­sion’s report in dealing with people. It was police blunder compounded with supply of incorrect information and improper situational assess­ment along with its inability to control riotous mobs ef­fectively that led to the tragic event. First, when the National Intelligence arrested with the complicity of estate managers some recalcitrant young men and forcibly enrolled them as a punishment to work in the military service overseas, a decision which generated an emotional impact and infuria­ted the people even more at a time when their demands for improved working conditions were being frustrated. Second, police in search of a man who was identified as a ring leader organizing resistance entered a ‘‘baitka’’ where prayers were being held wearing his shoes. This was seen as disrespect­ful and a provocation when he refused to remove his shoes. The police agent was beaten up to the point that he started bleeding and ran for his life to the estate’s office from where he wired for reinforcement.

Third, the police came back with a baton party to arrest the constable’s assailant. As camp dwellers gathered to watch the police deployment in fran­tic search of the assailant, the crowd became aggressive. On seeing the assailant being ar­rested, the crowd tried to free him from the grip of the po­lice and started hurling sticks and stones. Panic-stricken, the police retaliated by firing shots leaving three dead on the spot.

That manner of pro­ceeding of the police was, according to the Moody Com­mission, ‘‘wrong’’ and it goes further to state that “we are not impressed by the manner in which a relatively small labour dispute at Belle-Vue-Harel was handled by the Police”.

The end result was that the shooting masked the true objec­tive of the labourers’ agitations and brought nothing by way of improvement to their life except that a martyr was made out by the sheer incompetence of the Labour department and the Police which were identified as needing a thorough overhau­ling by the Moody Commis­sion. Anjalay is today revered by trade unions and leftist po­liticians in as much the same way as Wat Tyler, the peasants’ leader, was raised in 1381 to the level of a martyr and revered by British radicals after he was stabbed to death by the mayor of London in the course of a heated discussion.