BY SHAKIR HUSAIN
Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth announced in India’s Varanasi city that his country would organise a “Bhojpuri Mahotsav” (Bhojpuri language festival) next year.
Bhojpuri is spoken in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two most populous Indian states in the Hindi-speaking region.
From these regions many indentured Indian labourers, known as “girmitiyas”, were taken by the British to places like Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname to work on sugarcane plantations.
Now their descendants are eager to reconnect with their roots as well as develop religious, business and cultural links with the country of their ancestors through a global initiative of the Indian government.
Thousands of foreign citizens with Indian origins, including around 250 Malaysians and 400 delegates from Mauritius, as well as non-resident Indians (NRIs) gathered in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi city from January 21 to 23 for the diaspora event known as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD).
The Indian diaspora overseas is estimated to be more than 31 million, with large concentrations in the Arab Gulf states, North America and Southeast Asia.
The Mauritius prime minister, accompanied by his wife Kobita Jugnauth and a high-level delegation, was the chief guest at the 15th PBD.
Launched in 2003 as an annual affair, PBD is now held once in two years, traditionally on January 9 to mark the day Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915.
Neeta Dooken, a South African delegate at PBD, said she enjoyed the experience and praised New Delhi’s diaspora diplomacy.
“There were 7,000 people and I must have mingled with 1,000. It was packed with high-profile people representing their different domains. When you attend a function like PBD, you are stamped as a global Indian and I want to enjoy this consciousness,” she said.
This year’s PBD dates were changed to enable the participants to join the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage in Prayagraj city (formerly known as Allahabad) and attend the Republic Day celebrations on January 26.
Jugnauth took a holy dip at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati river in Prayagraj, worshipped at the Hanuman temple, and was the guest of honour at the official Republic Day celebrations in India’s financial capital Mumbai.
The Mauritius prime minister had a hectic schedule during his January 20-28 official visit as he held meetings with top government and business leaders and inaugurated the wholly-owned subsidiary of the State Bank of Mauritius in Mumbai.
When he spoke in Varanasi in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Haryana state’s Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Jugnauth directly addressed this year’s PBD Convention theme: “Role of Indian Diaspora in Building New India”.
“An educated and self-reliant diaspora can be a great asset in bringing new perspectives, investments and the ability to connect their home countries with India. Information networks, bridges to markets and societies, sources to investment and expertise are amongst the roles that diaspora networks could play,” the Mauritius leader said.
The diaspora can help grow India and India can help grow the countries where its diaspora is located by developing opportunities for the diaspora to work with each other.
Jugnauth talked about various projects that would help in growing the historical link between his country and the land of his ancestors.
He said Mauritius is building an AYUSH (the initials stand for ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, Siddha and homeopathy) hospital based on traditional systems of medicine practised in India and will organise an international Bhagavad Gita (Hindu holy book) festival next month.
This mahotsav is a joint initiative of the Haryana government and the government of Mauritius. The purpose is to strengthen the cultural ties with all countries where the Bhagavad Gita remains an essential part of worship and cultural practice.
When it comes to preserving a culture, language is considered most important.
The Bhojpuri language festival is part of those efforts.
“Although our ancestors had endured a lot, they preciously preserved the Bhojpuri language. It is my earnest wish that the Bhojpuri mahotsav raises awareness of the Bhojpuri language and promotes intercultural exchanges,” Jugnauth said.
To drive home his point, he made a reference to the Hindi Pracharini Sabha, an association in Mauritius involved in promoting the Hindi language and culture.
The Sabha’s motto is “Bhasha Gayi to Sanskriti Gayi” (if language is lost, culture too is lost). – Bernama
