I must begin by pointing out that I am an interested party. I have been brought up in a Bissoondoyalist family since my earliest childhood, and my family and the Bissoondoyals are long-standing relatives and this relationship has become closer since my brother Jagadish married Sookdeo Bissoondoyal's daughter Sanyogita a few decades ago.

The forties, fifties and to some extent the sixties were a period of a great rift within the Hindu community in Mauritius. LEX of Mauritius Times was recently speaking about such a rift in Trinidad that is ongoing, but we in Mauritius have had more than our fair share of that. That rift was based on the differing ideologies pursued by the leaders of each side, Pandit Basdeo Bissoondoyal on one side and Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam on the other, and it can be aptly called a clash of civilizations – between the austere Gandhians that the Bissoondoyals were and the anglophile that SSR was.

From the seventies onwards that rift has lost its bitterness; people from both sides have come together again. When Sookdeo Bissoondoyal died, SSR offered to organize a State Funeral for him, but the family, in classical Bissoondoyalist style, declined the offer, preferring a simple ceremony. Dr Navin Ramgoolam often mentions the contribution of Jan Andolan, the Bissoondoyalist movement, to the social uplift in the Hindu community without the least rancour. Mr Rajesh Jeetah, son of Mr Ramnath Jeetah, a pillar of the Bissoondoyalist movement, is a minister in the Ramgoolam government. Sir Satcam Boolell, who started his political life and won his first election as a Bissoondoyalist (after having been a pupil of Sookdeo) later shifted to the Labour Party. But in spite of that I felt that he showed a great consideration for me – precisely because, as he said, he remembered my father as a staunch Bissoondoyalist who had helped him towards his victory in that first election. He looked me up when he was High Commissioner in London in the nineties, and urged me to return to the country. He insisted that I write in to put myself at the disposal of the Government – which I did to please him, but I neither expected nor received a reply.

The Ramgoolam/Bissoondoyal story is an epic tale which has yet to be told in all its glory, by stressing more on the contrasting positive aspects of each side rather than dwelling on negative side of one to bring out the positive side of the other as some do in a bid that can only be described as muck-raking. Because of the austere discipline they practised in their own lives and the very harsh language they used against whoever was, according to them, "betraying the Hindu way of life", the Bissoondoyals drove many "intellectuals" into arch-rival Dr Ramgoolam's camp; these included the Indian High Commissioner His Excellency Dharam Yash Dev, eminent indologist and educator Professor Ram Prakash and countless others. Some of even their closest friends left them – as is so dispassionately related by Mrs Geeanmatee Ghoorah in her excellently-written little book about her late father Mr Teeluckparsad Callychurn. The drift of people with 'certificates' of any sort towards Dr Ramgoolam was so pronounced that Bissoondoyalists began to be referred to as the "illiterates".

To people unfamiliar with Indian ethos, this might even have rung true, for the Bissoondoyals always insisted on living very simply – they never bought a woollen or other heavy material suit, sticking rigidly to their cotton clothing (but which always immaculately starched and pressed), and never owned a car. The house they lived in was very basic and they lived very simply. Financially they were very hard up too, for elder brother Basdeo had no income but was bound by a promise to continue serving the Hindu community. In appearance they were just like any other villager, but a 'genuine' Indian does not associate a person's worth with his appearance. The hostility between the two camps was so bitter that smaller minds on either side would make the most preposterous allegations against the other side. Some said that the Bissoondoyals had sold themselves and the interests of the Hindus to the 'Whites' and that they had in return bought 17 properties in Port Louis – all utter fabrications of over-enthusiastic followers of the opposite camp. The charge is even belatedly hinted at by Ramsurrun in the second volume of his trilogy about SSR's constitutional struggles¹ as a "secret marriage of convenience with the Conservative and sectarian forces". (They left absolutely nothing to their sons and next to nothing to their daughters.)

They did have some sort of connection with the papers Le Cernéen and Le Mauricien which were the organs of the 'white' and 'coloured' communities. That was so because the only other "mainstream" paper Advance was managed by Dr Ramgoolam and therefore not favourable to their positions. I myself, as a young teenager, copied one of their articles in my own hand – under dictation from my uncle Mr Hansraj Servansingh, a staunch Bissoondoyalist, and signed it with my name, and it appeared in Le Cernéen a couple of days later. From there to argue that they had sold the interests of the Hindu community stretches the imagination beyond breaking point. The irony of it all is that while these things were being said and hotly debated, those against whom these allegations were being made were not sure of being able to put food on the table food for their children on the following day.

In the imperial days an Englishman in England was a gentleman but once he landed in India or any other colony, he became a member of superior race and very contemptuous of people of other races. Read or watch E. M. Forster's A passage to India or Paul Scott's quadrilogy The Jewel in the Crown. While Dr Ramgoolam knew the English of England, the Bissoondoyals knew the English of India; this was the source of much of their subsequent mutual antagonisms.

In addition to his great personal human qualities, his outstanding intelligence, his exceptional command of English and his acknowledged leadership qualities, Dr Ramgoolam had become an anglophile. How could it be otherwise when you are a lover of English rhythm and English literature, and have met the English and been with them socially at their best? This together with his familiarity with constitutional developments in the UK that took place around the time he was there (adult suffrage to all males in 1918 – still very much the talk of the town when he got there - and to all females in 1929), the political know-how he acquired by his close connections with the legendary Fabian Bureau and its personalities, and by his association with members of the Indian freedom movement in England, his dabbling with journalism in that country – his articles were published by the famous paper Times - all made him uniquely qualified to take on the British politically on their own ground and in their own terms.

The Bissoondoyals were the exact opposite; Basdeo gained first-hand experience of the British and of their treatment of and outlook towards Indians during his stay in India for his studies and like most Indians in India at the time became very anti-British; he brought that baggage and the freedom struggle methods and values he had learnt with him to Mauritius. The family became if anything more anti-British after brother Sookdeo's tussle with Director of Education Ward, during which he resigned his post in Education – not an easy thing to do when you knew no other employment would be forthcoming. Their attitude towards the British was not helped by the harsh and offensive language which Governor Mackenzie-Kennedy used towards Basdeo Bissoondoyal - "a man of straw" who "set up strings of hovels (baitkas)" to dispense so-called education and in support of whom strikes were organised leading to canes remaining uncut and his own patience "wearing thin".

To the Bissoondoyals it appeared that, by and large, there was a measure of cooperation between the successive Governors and Dr Ramgoolam in so far as action against them was concerned. Official events were organized, they thought, in a manner to suit the political requirements of Dr Ramgoolam and oppose theirs. They felt left alone with a relatively small number of faithful adherents but without any say in matters official. For instance, they were not invited to participate in the consultations on constitutional developments carried out in the forties. In some situations this state of affairs assumed particular importance for them, to the point of being even tragic – as happened for instance during the visit of Manilal Doctor in 1950. The Bissoondoyals were easily manoeuvred out of the official arrangements made to receive the famous and now aged activist. But this is a convenient point for us to return to Ramsurrun's comparisons of the behaviours of Manilal Doctor and Mahatma Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi, we are informed in the Ramsurrun interview, preferred, during his stay in Mauritius, to remain closeted with wealthy traders in Port Louis and took no interest in the welfare of the Indian immigrants. He participated in a 'banquet' organized by them in his honour – and then remained quiet on the subject in his autobiography because, deems Ramsurrun, public knowledge of that shameful act would have been damaging for his reputation. As opposed to this 'shameful' behaviour, Manilal Doctor, he highlights, went out to the countryside to meet the immigrants and enquire about their welfare and defend their interests. This is a totally new take on Mahatma Gandhi who we have been brought up to regard as a saintly person.

It is absolutely true that a "banquet" is not mentioned in "My Experiments with Truth". What concerns me in this matter is Ramsurrun's view that Mahatma Gandhi should have been ashamed of participating in this "banquet" given by the rich, he who lived with the not-so-poor Birlas practically all his active political life in India and who was not ashamed of sharing, half-naked, a meal with His Majesty King George V.

It is received knowledge in my family that, for Mahatma Gandhi's short visit, the foremost Indian-origin residents of Port-Louis, mainly Muslims but also some Tamils, organised a 'reception' in honour of the visiting dignitary, rather than a 'banquet' – but I suppose in accordance with the well-known traditions of Indian hospitality eatables would have been served. Even the Governor of the day had considered him important enough to invite him to stay for one night with him at Le Réduit. (That Governor, Sir Charles Bruce, was a Sanskrit scholar; he must have been terribly disappointed with the Mahatma's ignorance of the language.) Press reports of the reception indicate that introductory and welcoming speeches were made at the reception by Mr Rasool Hassen Elam and Mr Munshi Abdool Cadir – a graduate, a rare bird in the community at the time; in his response, Mahatma Gandhi took note of the fact that the success of the sugar industry in Mauritius rested upon the labour of Indians; he urged them to educate their children and to take an interest in politics. But he does not mention these details his "Experiments with Truth." Should we, because of this, infer that he did not do so because he was ashamed of having participated in the reception, and that he was keen to hide the fact? That book was not, as the Mahatma himself hints in the introduction, an encyclopaedic account of all his activities. He simply wanted to tell the story of his numerous experiments with truth. There are lots of things that he does not mention but which I am sure he did.

We know that Mahatma Gandhi's ship stopped at Port-Louis for less than three weeks. When Ramsurrun makes the unfavourable comparison between the behaviours of Mahatma Gandhi and Manilal Doctor, he omits mentioning that the Mahatma's stay only lasted three weeks whilst Manilal's lasted over four years. Is it not possible to live with the rich and still acquire information about the poor? In his four-line, four-sentence paragraph about his return trip to India from South Africa he mentions that his boat made a halt in Mauritius, and that he came ashore and acquainted himself "fairly well with the local conditions." Who are we to believe? On the balance of probabilities, I opt for the Mahatma.

The writings of the Bissoondoyal brothers are littered with references to Mahatma Gandhi, and much of my information on the saintly man comes from those writings, to which I devoted a good deal of time in my childhood. I am therefore emboldened to submit the following contradictory 'facts': Mahatma Gandhi did brief himself about the living conditions of Indian immigrants in Mauritius; he also briefed himself about the position of Chinese immigrants in the country. We know that he spoke at a place called Camp Franqui, Forest Side and at Schoenfeld, Rivière du Rempart. We also know that he was taken by a Mr A. I. Atchia to visit the Tamarin waterfalls. Therefore he did not remain closeted in Port-Louis all the time. We also know that he met Manilal Doctor in London in 1906 where he actually charged him with the mission to come to Mauritius and take up the fight for the rights of the immigrants – even though he mentions neither his hastily arranged trip from South Africa to London to lobby against an unjust law being proposed locally for Indian immigrants nor his meeting with Manilal Doctor in his autobiography. Was he ashamed of these activities and so kept quiet about them? Pandit B. Bissoondoyal quotes the text of a note dated 30 October 1906 exchanged between the two. We learn from the note that all the time that the Mahatma could spare to the aspiring young rights activist was during a walk from the place he was staying at (Hotel Cecil) to Highbury on his way to Mr Polak's. Would Mahatma Gandhi have refrained from mentioning the matter of the meeting with Manilal Doctor for sinister motives? On the balance of probabilities, I will again stick with Mahatma Gandhi.

Ramsurrun says very emphatically that the Bissoondoyals deliberately refused to popularize the work of Manilal Doctor. I grew up in a joint family in Palma, with my parents and uncles. I used to call my uncles 'Papa' exactly as I called my own father. One of these uncles, Raghoonanun, used to be a "Toli Nayak" (team leader) in the Sewa Samiti organisation founded by the late Shri Beekrumsingh Ramlallah (who also founded Mauritius Times) and later operated by Pandit Basdeo Bissoondoyal, and he also like many others took tuition in Hindi and Indian culture from Pandit Basdeo. In his study, there were three pictures on the wall – Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Basdeo Bissoondoyal and Manilal Doctor. Our family had in fact been brainwashed about Manilal Doctor – in addition to Mahatma Gandhi - by none other than Pandit Bissoondoyal. I know in how high regard they held the activist, and how sad and upset they were when they could not get through the steel ring that had been arranged by the Government and the High Commission around Manilal when he visited Mauritius in 1950. This is not hearsay – I actually lived through this episode as a 15-yr old, because in those days I used to be a frequent visitor at the Bissoondoyals' in connection, inter alia, with my Hindi, English and Maths tuitions from the two brothers. Any hint of their being opposed in any way to Manilal Doctor can only be the invention of a twisted mind.

Some people contend that the Bissoondoyals never mentioned Dr Ramgoolam in their writings, but this cannot be true for they wrote many articles against him. I also recall that Sookdeo Bissoondoyal wrote a very flattering article in favour of Dr Ramgoolam for the way he spoke English. For the benefit of those youngsters who may have heard just one side of the story, I would like to add that when it really came to a crunch for our future in this country, Dr Ramgoolam and the Bissoondoyals threw their lot together and fought shoulder to shoulder for Independence.

This story may have wasted your time. Mine it certainly has, but it had to be told.

¹"Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Battles for a Democratic Constitution of Mauritius" by Pahlad Ramsurrun, New Dawn Press Group, Vols I and II, 2006, Vol III under preparation. The two volumes already issued are priced at MUR 3,000!

Mr Ramsurrun's volumes consist essentially of articles and reports from the local press and, regrettably, not of the official documents; the proportion of the author's own writing in them is quite small; practically all of it is summed up in the foreword by Prof. Indur Fagoonee over the space of two pages or so. The margins are far too narrow to permit any note-taking, which is a pity.

These volumes compare most unfavourably with, for instance, the excellently written book "Jaagran" by Professor Soodursun Jugessur, all 286 pages of which were written by him, in language and about subject matter that are both on an infinitely higher plane, priced only at MUR 250.

It is to be hoped that, in the national interest, the Government to put all the original official documents dealing with constitutional developments on the Internet, following the shining example of our big neighbour South Africa, where all the documents relating to the freedom struggle are on a website (http://www.anc.org.za). It is true that this website is maintained by the African National Congress (ANC), but in Mauritius it is only the government that can match the capabilities of the ANC. Anybody visiting that website should go to "Documents" in the index: they will repay study.