Neither Nationalist nor Communist, but Independent: The Origins and Consolidation of Mauritian Trade-Unionism, 1935–1950

Abstract

The Republic of Mauritius is situated in the Indian Ocean. A former colony of both France and the UK, it is a member of the African Union and has a population of 1.37 million, with an exceptionally high degree of ethnic and linguistic diversity. Its treatment as an African country is customary although the majority of its population are Hindus of Indian origin. This article explores how Creoles (that is, Mauritians of African origin) led the movement that created the island’s trade unions in the 1930s. These unions, currently one of Africa’s more effective and influential union movements, were formed amid a widespread, if uneven, international upturn in organized labour’s fortunes from the late 1930s to the immediate post-war years. If their inception was, in global terms, unremarkable, then what emerged was distinctive in the African colonial context. Mauritian unions were class-based, social-democratic, combative, internationally well-linked and, crucially, relatively independent of both nationalists and communists who played an important role in many African union movements of the era.