The ‘Land of the Vaish’? Caste Structure and Ideology in Mauritius

Mauritius has been an independent nation since 1968. It was founded on the history and structures of a plantation society and is mainly inhabited by descendants of Indian (and Hindu) indentured labourers. The question of the caste system’s ‘transfer’ or disappearance among Hindu Mauritians is both locally taboo and crucial to our understanding of Mauritian realities, taking us deep inside the local interactions between Creoleness and Indianness. A survey conducted among older generations of Indian labourers having lived (and still living) in plantation camps overturns the common perception that the caste system among Hindu Mauritians has disappeared, or lost its ideological relevance.