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Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue
canadienne d'études du développement
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcjd20
The colour of wealth concentration: the defence of
economic privilege and multicultural ideology in
postcolonial Mauritius
Tijo Salverda
To cite this article: Tijo Salverda (19 Jan 2024): The colour of wealth concentration: the
defence of economic privilege and multicultural ideology in postcolonial Mauritius, Canadian
Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'études du développement, DOI:
10.1080/02255189.2023.2298791
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2023.2298791
Published online: 19 Jan 2024.
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The colour of wealth concentration: the defence of economic
privilege and multicultural ideology in postcolonial Mauritius
Tijo Salverda
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
ABSTRACT
Ideologies play a key role in the maintenance of inequality. Yet, as
the case of the Franco-Mauritians, the white elite of Mauritius,
shows, ideologies are also often challenged. Following struggles
between elites and other social groups, ‘new’ideologies may
even emerge. A closer look at the transition from the colonial to
postcolonial period in Mauritius provides relevant insights into
the dynamics of such struggles, including how, in ambiguous
ways, outcomes may foster the maintenance of inequality. It
shows that the emergence of multiculturalism as an ideology
enhanced (political) equality, yet also allowed Franco-Mauritians
to maintain their wealth base
RÉSUMÉ
Les idéologies jouent un rôle crucial dans le maintien des inégalités.
Cependant, comme le démontre le cas des Franco-Mauriciens, les
élites blanches de l’Île Maurice, ces idéologies sont aussi souvent
remises en question. De « nouvelles » idéologies peuvent même
émerger à la suite de conflits entre les élites et d’autres groupes
sociaux. Une étude plus approfondie de la transition de la
période coloniale à la période post-coloniale sur l’Île Maurice offre
des perspectives intéressantes sur les dynamiques de tels conflits,
telles que la manière dont, de façon souvent ambigüe, leurs
conséquences peuvent faciliter le maintien des inégalités. Cet
article démontre que l’émergence du multiculturalisme comme
idéologie a permis une amélioration de l’égalité (politique);
cependant, elle a également permis aux Franco-Mauriciens de
consolider leur niveau de richesse.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 26 August 2022
Accepted 6 December 2023
KEYWORDS
Wealth inequality; Mauritius;
ideology; multiculturalism;
elite
Introduction
Towards the end of the colonial period, the Franco-Mauritians, the wealthy white com-
munity of Mauritius, faced substantial opposition to their position and the (colonial)
ideology that sustained their wealth base. Eventually, in the transition to the postcolonial
period (with Mauritian Independence in 1968), they had to accept a decline of their
power. Paradoxically, however, the dynamics of the transition have simultaneously
allowed the Franco-Mauritian elite to maintain much of their wealth more than 50
years after the island’s independence. This conundrum, this contribution argues, requires
© 2024 Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID)
CONTACT Tijo Salverda tijo@tijosalverda.nl
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
REVUE CANADIENNE D’ÉTUDES DU DÉVELOPPEMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2023.2298791
a closer look at how power struggles over independence shaped the directions of chan-
ging ideological frames, with a ‘new’, broadly shared ideology about multiculturalism as
an outcome.
Building upon existing scholarly work on Mauritius and my earlier research on the
Franco-Mauritians, the particular aim of this paper is to offer additional insights into
the operations of ideology in the maintenance of inequality. By closely examining the
transition from the colonial to postcolonial period, the contribution will especially
argue that elites do not necessarily depend on ruling-class ideologies to maintain their
wealth and privileges. A closer analysis of the Mauritian case, accordingly, provides
new insights into interactions between ideology and inequality. It shows that we must
not only be open to the possibility that (ruling-class) ideologies only imperfectly
prevent societal objections to inequality, but also that out of power struggles a
common ideology may emerge that in paradoxical ways sustains the position of the
wealthy. Conceptually, this builds upon Thomas Piketty’s book Capital and Ideology
(2020), in which he offers relevant insights into the functioning of ideology in the main-
tenance of inequality by demonstrating that the wealthy have to deflect attention away
from the unfairness of their privileges: ‘[i]nequalities need to be justified; they must
rest on a plausible, coherent vision of an ideal political and social organization’(2020,
719). He argues that ideologies have more impact than ubiquitous statistical data
about inequality, captured in numbers such as the Gini coefficient; they also shape
whether inequality is considered a societal problem. The Franco-Mauritian case,
however, highlights that ideology as an instrument of the ruling classes (similar to
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’interpretation of ideology, Freeden, Sargent, and
Stears 2013) appears less compelling than Piketty suggests. As the article demonstrates,
the trajectory towards Mauritian independence illustrates that colonial ideologies did not
sufficiently help Franco-Mauritians to decide the island’s future. Nonetheless, they have
maintained much of their economic power. This can be partly attributed to the ways in
which they applied their power to defend the status quo and the resulting ideological turn
the power struggle over independence took.
To better understand an ‘ideological outcome’that simultaneously fosters both a
decrease in and a continuation of inequality, this contribution closely examines the
effects of a common ideology, in this case multiculturalism. In Mauritius, the belief
that various ‘ethnic’groups collaborate on an equal footing and enter into dialogue
without having to sacrifice their particular identities emerged from the struggle as the
new –less ruling-class-centric –ideology (e.g. Eriksen 1998; Ng Tseung-Wong and Ver-
kuyten 2015). In addition to relevant debates on multiculturalism (e.g. Coulthard 2014;
Fraser 2000; Taylor 1994), this article shows that in their aim to prevent change the
Franco-Mauritian elite contributed significantly to the emergence of multiculturalism,
even if to a large extent unintentionally. They have not come to fully embrace multicul-
turalism as an ideology per se, compared to how they defended the colonial ideology. Yet
neither do they openly oppose it, and indeed sometimes even apply it to defend them-
selves. The reason is that next to the fact that the emphasis of multiculturalism
benefits large parts of postcolonial society, the dominance of multiculturalism also
favours Franco-Mauritians, not unlike the situation with whites in South Africa (see
also Salverda 2015a;2015b). The paradox, as I discuss, is that even if multiculturalism
as an ideology limits Franco-Mauritian chances to publicly justify their wealth, it at
2T. SALVERDA
the same time ‘protects’them, as the ideological weight of ethnicity in Mauritius compli-
cates the addressing of underlying (private) mechanisms of wealth concentration. Not-
withstanding occasional ethnic tensions, there is a strong belief in Mauritian society
that the acceptance of ethnic differences fosters a level of peace, with the island nowadays
celebrated as one of the soundest democracies and economies in Africa (Ramtohul and
Kasenally 2021, 219). Analysing these complexities and contradictions in more detail
may offer additional insights into the theoretical understanding of ideologies in the inter-
play between maintaining and reversing inequalities.
The contribution starts with a brief discussion of the methodology and data, followed
by an overview of its conceptual framework. Next, the establishment of the Franco-
Mauritians as the island’s richest and most powerful community during the colonial
period is discussed, followed by a closer look at how the struggle between Franco-Mauri-
tians and other Mauritians sealed the decline of one ideology in favour of another. In the
final part, I discuss the ambivalent realities of this ideology of multiculturalism and offer
additional explanations of the ways in which multiculturalism affect inequality. The
paper concludes with suggestions for how insights from the Franco-Mauritian case
may be applied in other cases.
Method and data
The material discussed in this contribution is based on ethnographic and historical
research conducted on the island of Mauritius (and in South Africa and France)
during frequent visits since the year 2000. With data gathered with multiple methods
and sources, such as participant observation, archival research, network analyses, a ques-
tionnaire and written sources, the main aim has been to better understand how the
Franco-Mauritians have maintained their economic power and wealth more than half
a century into the post-colonial period (e.g. Salverda 2015a). To further understand inter-
actions between various actors on the island, I have interviewed heads and former heads
of the island’s largest Franco-Mauritian enterprises, other Franco-Mauritian business-
people, employees, retirees, and so on through snowball sampling, as well as Mauritians
with a variety of other (ethnic) backgrounds.
In this paper, I discuss previous analyses and data gathered over the years through a
new conceptual lens, that of the functioning of ideologies in ‘justifying’and/or ‘hiding’
inequalities. It differs from my previous publications through its aim to enhance the
understanding of the correlations between ideologies and inequalities. Particularly vis-
à-vis Piketty’s analysis of ideologies, this offers new input to inequality debates, even if
exact numerical data on Franco-Mauritian wealth in comparison to other ‘ethnic’
groups is difficult to obtain. However, I was able to obtain good estimates of Franco-
Mauritian control of the island’s (agricultural) land and private sector, including in com-
parison to other parts of society.
Today, Mauritius, a small island situated some 800 kilometres to the east of Madagas-
car and uninhabited until European settlement in 1638, has a highly diverse population
of about 1.3 million people, with ancestors coming from Europe, India, China, and the
African mainland. The Franco-Mauritians are of white European descent and are esti-
mated to constitute slightly less than 1 per cent of the population, while Creoles,
largely of slave descent, number about 28 per cent (including a small ‘elite’group of
CJDS / LA REVUE 3
so-called gens de couleur). The largest group are the Hindus (52 per cent), who, together
with a smaller minority of Muslims (16 per cent), originate from India and at times are
also referred to as Indo-Mauritians. Finally, there are the Sino-Mauritians, who make up
3 per cent of the population (Eriksen 1998, 15). Yet not only are these figures no longer a
fully realistic reflection of the island’s groups and their sizes, but there is also no longer
any (official) statistical data on the groups. The rigidity of the categories conflicted with
the multicultural reality and, accordingly, the 1972 census was the last that investigated
the island’s‘ethnic’composition. Thereafter, it was considered no longer opportune for
the government to collect data on Mauritians according to their ‘ethnic’background,
which in the last census was categorised into four groups: General Population, Sino-
Mauritians, Hindus, and Muslims (e.g. Christopher 1992; Eriksen 1998). As Franco-
Mauritians together with gens de couleur and the larger group of Creoles were part of
the so-called General Population, their numbers are accordingly even more of an esti-
mate. Exact, official data on the Franco-Mauritians has never been available, though it
is often argued that they number approximately 10,000, thus slightly less than 1 per
cent. Despite concerns, however, figures based on the four categories continue to be
used today, even officially (e.g. Wake Carroll and Carroll 2000). Yet updated statistical
data about the ‘ethnic’groups, and as such, official data about wealth differences
between them, is non-existent.
This contribution, accordingly, will not offer exact numerical data regarding inequal-
ity. Yet building upon, among other things, a network analysis of Franco-Mauritian
control of the island’s largest 100 companies based upon yearly publications on these
companies (see Salverda 2016), a good estimate of the continuation of the Franco-Mauri-
tian wealth base and privileges can be provided. Of particular relevance is that my
material offers additional insights into how ideological transitions on the island
affected this wealth base and privileges –and, as such, inequality.
Ruling-class ideologies: theoretical reflections
Following upon analyses of how structural dynamics shape socioeconomic disparities
(e.g. Milanović2016; Piketty 2014; Saez and Zucman 2019), Piketty’s2020 book takes
adifferent turn. Not only does his discussion on a broad range of ideologies in historical
societies cover cases outside Europe and the USA, but he also makes an evident argument
to deliberate inequality beyond blunt numbers. Piketty, who ‘use[s] “ideology”in a posi-
tive and constructive sense to refer to a set of a priori plausible ideas and discourses
describing how society should be structured’(Piketty 2020, 3), shows that for a better
understanding of inequality it is key to look at ideologies that ‘justify’the advantages
of the wealthy. This argument resonates with scholarship on elites, which shows that
elites always depend on a certain level of support from society. As Mattei Dogan and
John Higley (1998, 214) state, ‘[e]ven the most dogmatic elite theorists acknowledge
the political importance of mass publics, the need of elites for mass support, and the
difficulties elites have in gaining and maintaining that support’. Should elites convey
an image of exclusively thinking about themselves, they might jeopardise their position.
Rather, elites aim to justify their position through also conveying their commitment to
society, such as in the case of philanthropy and charity (e.g. Cunningham 2016), and
publicly associate themselves with virtues of sharing, reciprocity, and fairness, instead
4T. SALVERDA
of with vices associated with inequality, such as greed and egoism. Or, when they do, such
as in the case of the ‘greed is good’rhetoric in the financial sector, the ideological argu-
ment is that this benefits society at large, notwithstanding the fact that in reality it does
not (Collier and Kay 2020). This resonates, too, with the praise of self-interest made
famous by Smith (2012), and seen in concepts such as Homo economicus, which
equally function insofar as they presuppose that self-interest is to the eventual advantage
of society.
The strength of Piketty’s book is that he once more underlines how narratives justify
the position of the wealthy and/or distract attention away from their privileges. Yet, in
my opinion, he does not sufficiently address the fact that the wealthy and their ruling-
class ideologies are hardly ever without critique, despite that he at times alludes to the
fragility of ideologies. Ideologies certainly help a great deal to justify inequalities, yet
the wealthy still face an almost constant need to respond to societal concerns about
inequality. To mitigate these concerns, they may ‘redistribute’some of their material
means, repeat ideological arguments to distract from the concerns raised, or scare
society with predictions of catastrophe in the case of change (Piketty also mentions
this, though he does not explain it as an integral element of ideologies). The powerful
often seem to be aware that their position is ‘precarious’–and thus that ideologies
alone are often insufficient. They are, more than is often acknowledged, concerned
about potential opposition and the impact of change, and ‘are continually engaged in
repair and recuperation rather than just reproduction, and have to face the potentially
uncertain outcomes of their actions’(Morgan, Quack, and Hirsch 2015, 2). Franco-
Mauritians were frequently anxious about too much public attention and worriedly
asked me during an interview, ‘[it] won’t be published by Mauritian newspapers, will
it?’–similar to the case of the white Jamaican elite: ‘[p]eople in positions of power
may fear that information about them might be used against them by their critics’(Dou-
glass 1992, 37). Hence, conveying the message that wealth is justified and/or beneficial to
society only provides imperfect means for the rich to prevent societal objections to
inequality. In times of change this becomes even more prominent, as mechanisms for
maintaining power may be increasingly ineffective or problematic.
Ideologies in transition
Throughout history ideologies have emerged and vanished, which Piketty equally (albeit
mainly implicitly) highlights with his analysis of various historical and contemporary
cases. Yet exactly how transitions occur, especially as a result of struggles between ‘defen-
ders’and ‘challengers’of established ideologies, receives less attention. The end of colo-
nialism offers a relevant case in this respect. Opposition to colonial ideology, which
though not static over the full length of the period had favoured Franco-Mauritians
since the establishment of the French colony in 1721, represented a crucial threat to
their position. But why, then, have Franco-Mauritians been able to maintain much of
their wealth and privileges despite this major transition?
Partly, the answer lies in Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson’s (2008) argument
that behind patterns of change, particular economic systems can be persistent –which
the authors however do not discuss in reference to ideologies, even if, as I would
argue, these systems rest on ideological foundations. Notwithstanding some fears
CJDS / LA REVUE 5
about nationalisation around independence, (Franco-Mauritian) private property has
never been appropriated by the postcolonial state, as has occurred in Zimbabwe.
Market ideology and beliefs in private property have remained prevalent, even with
the new political powers. To better understand this, a closer look at the dynamics of
the struggles between these new powers and Franco-Mauritians is required, in particular
regarding the aim of the latter to block change, because they feared that this would affect
their position.
As I have discussed elsewhere with the concept of ‘defensive power’(Salverda 2010;
2015a), instead of assuming that by definition elites (or the wealthy) are all-powerful,
‘power is intrinsically tied to the possibility of resistance, and the power of the elite
must be seen as open to challenge from the resisting counteraction of its subalterns’
(Scott 2008, 38). Elites often apply their power in response to others in order to
defend the status quo, so to speak. That is, their use of power in these instances is the
opposite of Max Weber’s(1968, 152) definition of (proactive) power: ‘“[p]ower”
(Macht) as being the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a
position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which
this probability rests’. Rather than the Weberian argument that the powerful are the
main driving forces behind the exercise of power, the defensive use of power occurs in
many –not only colonial –settings. Nonetheless, this dimension of (elite) power has
not received the theoretical attention it is due, even if elites’responses to potential
threats to their position are frequently alluded to, or even explicitly discussed such as
in the case of Acemoglu and Robison. Nuancing widely shared assumptions about
power relations between the principal and the subaltern, however, is of importance to
conceptual understandings of ideological transitions, too.
Franco-Mauritian opposition to change has not been fully successful, though its oppo-
sition influenced the ideological directions of postcolonial Mauritius. At first sight, the
demise of the colonial ideology has complicated matters for the Franco-Mauritians, as
standing out as the white ‘racial’elite in a postcolonial setting limits the potential to
obtain political support from other social groups. When differences between the
wealthy and other social groups are marked by racial and/or ethnic boundaries, it is
difficult to justify (economic) privileges (e.g. Chua 2003). It becomes, for instance,
implausible to argue that it is a matter of merit. However, as the analysis below demon-
strates, a ‘new’ideology that is not necessarily ‘dropped from a great height on an unwill-
ing society’(Freeden 2003,1)–a broader conceptualisation of ideology than Piketty’s
ruling-class ideology, so to speak –does not per definition undermine the position of
established elites. Of relevance to better understanding ideology and inequality, this con-
tribution shows that the transformation of ideological beliefs about ethnicity has
favoured not only large parts of Mauritian society, including new political powers, but
also Franco-Mauritians –even if their opposition to change was never intentionally
geared towards ‘installing’this new, partly favourable ideology.
The colonial origins of inequality
To understand the status quo Franco-Mauritians aimed to protect in the transition, a
closer look at the heyday of colonialism is needed. The base of their wealth was estab-
lished during the colonial period, which started when European seafarers set foot on
6T. SALVERDA
the uninhabited island in the sixteenth century. The main foundation was laid during its
occupation by the French, who colonised and developed the island after an earlier, but
less successful attempt by the Dutch (Ly-Tio-Fane Pineo 1993). The settlers that
arrived over this period and took possession of most of the land are to a large extent
the ancestors of the present Franco-Mauritian community, although they were not a
cohesive group from the start, as the island attracted whites of various social ranks
(Vaughan 2005).
With large land possessions and control over trade, the Franco-Mauritians established
afirm wealth base. Both this wealth and the exploitation of large numbers of slaves were
justified with a (colonial) ideology (e.g. Allen 1999; North-Coombes 2000) that, as elites
often tend to do, ‘naturalised’inequalities (Piketty 2020, 7). And although the British,
who conquered the island in December 1810, abolished slavery in 1835, the ideology
of racial hierarchy remained –with white British and Franco-Mauritians considered to
be the ‘natural’leaders. To sustain and even expand sugar plantations, though,
Franco-Mauritian plantation owners and the British administration required a new
source of labour: indentured labourers from India. These labourers equally had little
say in the island’saffairs on the basis of the persistence of colonial ideology, yet their
arrival nonetheless laid the foundations of a new potential counter-force to white Mauri-
tian hegemony: within ten years of the arrival of the first indentured labourers one-third
of the population were Indians, while by 1861 they numbered two-thirds of the popu-
lation (Benedict 1965, 17).
Evidently, the absence of a native population and, subsequently, the structural
dynamics of colonialism favoured Franco-Mauritians for much of the island’s human
history. Sustained by the exploitation of a cheap workforce, they were able to proactively
become and remain the wealthiest community. It was not that the colonial ideology that
justified their position went unchallenged, but potential opposition to the island’s hier-
archy from other Mauritians was relatively easily suppressed. The British colonial gov-
ernment and the Franco-Mauritians formed a strong (white) alliance that was not shy
of using violence. It was only from the end of the nineteenth century onwards that the
deck of cards gradually became rearranged when the majority of Mauritians increasingly
challenged the existing order.
Defending wealth in the postcolonial transition
The first real signs of challenges to the ideological justification of the colonial hierarchy
came from demands for a fairer electoral system from the 1880s onwards. The aim was to
broaden who was eligible for suffrage, a right which until then could only be claimed by
Mauritians with significant property and education, which meant predominantly Franco-
Mauritian men (Jahangeer-Chojoo 2010). Despite this small change, it frightened the
Franco-Mauritians. They feared the day the Mauritians of Indian descent would
become politically dominant and that they, the whites, would become a minority (Sal-
verda 2015a, 55). Yet it was not until the first decades of the next century that a much
broader front challenged the Franco-Mauritian position, when a number of liberal
gens de couleur politicians started to campaign to improve the situation of the poorer
classes, who were still deprived of the right to vote (Smith–Simmons 1982). Notwith-
standing that Franco-Mauritians essentially aimed to protect their position, historical
CJDS / LA REVUE 7
analyses indicate that their ideological arguments refrained from highlighting their per-
sonal interests. Rather, they used the colonial trope that widening electoral represen-
tation was not to the benefit of the island’s wellbeing (e.g. Benedict 1965). With
such arguments and the British colonial government still strongly on their side,
Franco-Mauritians could initially stop further change and continue to dominate the
economic and the political sphere of the island, even though the mobilisation of
poorer classes was a clear sign of the concrete exercise of power used in resistance
to white hegemony.
Gradually, the strongest opposition was united in the Labour Party, the first party
completely devoted to the well-being and grievances of the labouring classes, regardless
of their ethnic background. This reflected the zeitgeist because at that time political div-
isions were marked by class differences rather than by ethnic ones –there was also a het-
erogeneous group of party leaders (Smith–Simmons 1982,52–70). Both the
representation and emancipation of the working classes were fuelled by dissatisfaction
over rampant inequalities. This accumulated in the dismantling of the colonial ideology
in the 1930s, particularly due to the fact that the Great Depression devastated the island’s
economy, and in 1937 the first riots in Mauritian history with fatalities occurred. In
responding, the British colonial government could no longer ignore the grievances of
the working classes, and as a result, changes were made. ‘[T]he Mauritian government
began to incorporate non-elite groups within the structures of the state, to guarantee
the peace’(Storey 1997, 149). Now that the British no longer automatically considered
the Franco-Mauritians the island’s natural leaders, their position was ‘open to the resist-
ing counteraction of its subalterns’(Scott 2008, 38). After a brief interlude due to the
Second World War, the British drafted a new constitution in 1947 under mounting
pressure from non-white Mauritians, especially Indo-Mauritians. Therefore, the 1948
elections, the first under the new constitution, marked the collapse of almost 150 years
of Franco-Mauritian hegemony (Salverda 2015a,59–60). The community ceased to
have the almost exclusive right to dominate the most important spheres of Mauritian
society.
Despite this, Franco-Mauritians did not easily give in, even if their opposition
appeared in the form of a rear-guard action as I have analysed elsewhere (Salverda
2010;2015a). After universal suffrage was granted in 1958, the new strategy was to eth-
nically divide the electorate through seeking alliances with other communities. They
refrained from emphasising the defence of their own wealth and elite position, but
instead spread fear that their opponents would squander the island’s future with their
wish for independence. Franco-Mauritians, most of whom opposed the idea of indepen-
dence, teamed up with the gens de couleur and the Creoles –that is, with groups cate-
gorised under the umbrella of General Population. This created an association
between the descendants of the slave-owners and the descendants of the enslaved,
largely solidified by a shared Catholic faith, on the one side, while on the other side,
the Hindus were perceived as the enemy, as reflected in the slogan pe
ril hindou
(Hindu danger) (Boudet 2005, 38).
New Franco-Mauritian alliances and their targeting of opponents partly based on their
ethnicity thus clearly indicate Franco-Mauritian involvement in shaping a ‘new’ideology.
It was not that they suddenly favoured multiculturalism (with all groups collaborating on
equal footing), but rather that emphasising the ethnic backgrounds of opponents
8T. SALVERDA
contributed to the increasing importance of ethnic boundaries. The increasing ‘ethnic’
hostilities, however, were by no means completely the result of Franco-Mauritian
actions. Many gens de couleur and Creoles believed independence would negatively
affect them, while the Hindu elite’s increasing domination of the Labour Party also con-
tributed to the reinforcing of ethnic differences. Initially, the newly emerged Hindu elite
had joined the ranks of the Labour Party together with a variety of other Mauritians. Yet
gradually Hindus became a dominant factor in the party that realised it could use the
party as a political vehicle to connect with the Hindu masses. What had begun as a
party promoting the interests of all labourers was increasingly considered a party favour-
ing the interests of these Hindu masses (Smith–Simmons 1982, 103–119). Ethnic and
racial differences had certainly been a reality for much of the colonial period, yet due
to the transition ethnicity now became essential to Mauritian politics, the ambiguous
(ideological) legacy of which will be discussed below.
The question of independence finally culminated in the decisive 1967 elections, which
were a close call between supporters and opponents of independence. Similarly to the
multicultural society of Suriname (Hoefte and Veenendaal 2019, 181) the division over
independence was largely along ethnic lines. Many Mauritians from smaller ethnic
groups did not have much trust in an independent nation, as they feared Hindu domina-
tion and the deterioration of the economy without the help of Britain. However, in 1968,
Mauritius was granted independence under the leadership of its first (Hindu) prime min-
ister, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam.
Compromise of political power –Mauritian independence
The transition of the island from a colonial to a postcolonial society offers interesting
insights into how the struggle over independence and the use of power by established
elites reshaped ideological frameworks. Directly after independence, many Franco-
Mauritians remained sceptical towards Ramgoolam and his associates, even if it had
become evidently clear that a postcolonial society was the new reality. Yet at the same
time the alliances with the gens de couleur and the Creoles became defunct, now that
the issue of independence had become irrelevant. My archival research and analysis of
the newspaper Le Cerne
en (Salverda 2015a, 20, 70-72), which was considered the mouth-
piece of the Franco-Mauritian elite, shows that it instead traded its scaremongering about
a Mauritius dominated by Hindus for accusing its opponents of communism, an (ideo-
logical) habit not uncommon with other whites in Africa (Gluckman 1958). The apart-
heid regime in South Africa also tried to unite the entire white community under the
pretext of a ‘total onslaught’by communist forces (Handley 2008, 50). Ian Smith, the
last prime minister of Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), argued that his opposition to
the Black Nationalist movement, which emerged in the early 1960s, was related to the
movement’s communist ideology and not its members’skin colour (Smith 2001). Like
these white elites, Franco-Mauritians’strongest concern was most likely that commu-
nist/socialist tendencies would deprive them of their wealth. Yet publicly they argued
that these tendencies were to be opposed as they were harmful to society in general
(Lenoir 2000). This confirms that to hide personal interests, the wealthy often publicly
voice ideological arguments that give the impression that they act in favour of the
common good.
CJDS / LA REVUE 9
It is not that Franco-Mauritians and politicians did not cooperate at all, and I agree
with Deborah Brautigam (1999) that the present-day Mauritian success story should
partly be attributed to their cooperation. However, and of relevance to understanding
how the wealthy respond to challenges to their position, this was a gradual learning
process, with the Franco-Mauritians opposing change, then at the ‘right’time giving
in so as to de-escalate conflicts and maintain their economic privileges. As the closing
of Le Cerne
en illustrates, this resulted, eventually, in the realisation that in a multicul-
tural, postcolonial setting Franco-Mauritians had better refrain from publicly defending
their ethnic interests if they wanted to maintain their economic privileges.
Around 1980, Le Cerne
en’s combination of defending the whites and the sugar indus-
try came to be perceived by many Mauritians as ‘not opportune’anymore –it was too
much a relic of the ‘old’ideology, so to speak. As Franco-Mauritian businesspeople
required good working relationships with the postcolonial government, they considered
Le Cerne
en’s rhetoric to be problematic for these relationships. Moreover, they were
thought to have the power ‘to do something’about the newspaper. Le Cerne
en had
always existed by the grace of Franco-Mauritian businesspeople because they partly
financed it. Consequently, it had to care about their opinions. Yet Le Cerne
en had its
own traditions and convictions, which sometimes clashed with what Franco-Mauritian
businesspeople were striving for.
When, in 1982, the Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM) came to power, the fate
of the newspaper was sealed –interestingly, the political party was co-founded by the
white politician Paul Be
renger, who was an anomaly in the community as he openly con-
demned control of the island’s economic resources by his fellow Franco-Mauritians.
Twenty-five years later, the last editor-in-chief told me, ‘someone wrote how I was
fighting the MMM and its communist connotations, while under the table the
[Franco-Mauritian] sugar barons and the politicians were discussing important
matters’. His suspicion was that the MMM had made it clear to Franco-Mauritian busi-
nesspeople that it would be appropriate to cease financing Le Cerne
en in order to stop the
newspaper from interfering in political debate. After 150 years of existence, the newspa-
per had to close its doors on 15 May 1982.
In short then, in the prelude to independence and its aftermath the Franco-Mauritians
applied their power to defy pressure of the majority of Mauritians in the hope of main-
taining the status quo. Like colonial elites elsewhere, they failed to secure their hegemony
–due, in a Weberian analysis of power, to the exercise of power by others. Yet they did
not directly accept their (political) defeat, which allowed them to protect their economic
privileges. This is a pattern more often seen in the case of changes elites perceive as
unfavourable, such as in the case of French elites resisting a tax hike of 1.5 per cent
instead of 1 per cent in the 1870s (Piketty 2020, 141). My interpretation is that this is
not necessarily the result of clearly thought-out strategies, but a defence mechanism
informed by elite concerns that acceptance would increase demands for redistribution.
Only gradually did the Franco-Mauritians come to realise that their (in)direct political
role was played out in postcolonial Mauritius, and that they were no longer the desig-
nated political power. They could no longer obtain sufficient political support because
in a setting shaped by multicultural ideology the Hindus had the advantage of a large
degree of support based on ethnic affiliation. Franco-Mauritians have not, as a result,
10 T. SALVERDA
come to embrace multiculturalism as the new ideology per se. It is rather that they tend to
remain silent on ‘ethnic’matters.
The maintenance of economic power
Through the combination of their opposition to change and the eventual shedding of
their (colonial) ideological feathers in favour of ‘accepting’the postcolonial reality,
Franco-Mauritians have managed to maintain large parts of their economic resources
(e.g. Business 2020). This was also facilitated because the lives of many Mauritians gradu-
ally improved as a result of the transition. Not only have they obtained a political voice,
but some years prior to Independence a universal-pension scheme was introduced (Will-
more 2003), while income inequality has seriously decreased; in the last decades it has
increased again, yet still remains at much lower levels than during the 1930s (Atkinson
2011). These (political) gains, it appears, have mitigated a further push towards a rethink-
ing of private property/wealth, as with the case of post-apartheid South Africa and the
first period of Zimbabwean independence. Accordingly, successfully fighting for political
representation, which understandably has often been the main aim in struggles over the
end of repressive (colonial) systems, may come at the ‘cost’of the continuation of econ-
omic systems, in line with what Acemoglu and Robinson (2008) argue. That this impacts
the maintenance of inequality, however, does not receive the same attention, at least
initially.
As mentioned, the exact wealth of the Franco-Mauritians –in comparison to other
communities –is difficult to assess. Owing to their historical role in the sugar industry,
they still possess a significant amount of land (Salverda 2015a,81–82). A closer look at
the island’s top hundred companies equally underlines the continuous Franco-Mauritian
economic power and legacy of their colonial wealth base. Franco-Mauritians control
most of the island’s largest ten companies based on turnover (Business 2020), which
in their case tend to be conglomerates with a range of interests and links to the sugar
industry either with direct stakes in the sugar industry, or with the main shareholders’
wealth originating from the sugar industry. Similarly, among all the top hundred com-
panies, Franco-Mauritians remain an important force, controlling about one-third of
the companies (Business 2020). On the one hand, this shows that many companies are
owned and controlled by businesspeople from other backgrounds. Notwithstanding
that there is no comparative data set for 1968, it is safe to assume that this is a significant
change, with a substantial increase in non-Franco-Mauritian input into the private sector
since the end of the colonial period. On the other hand, control over many of the largest
companies and the impact of tied Franco-Mauritian business networks (Salverda 2016)
are indicative of the fact that Franco-Mauritians have been able to successfully maintain
their wealth and privileges –not only as owners of the respective companies, but also as
employees.
Many Franco-Mauritians, as my interviews and ethnographic engagement with them
indicate (e.g. Salverda 2015a, 145), have traditionally found well-paid employment within
Franco-Mauritian-controlled companies, even if an increase of Mauritians with other
backgrounds in management functions can be witnessed in Franco-Mauritian businesses.
Franco-Mauritians are not unique in employing their kin, as other Mauritians do the
same. But their economic power and the small size of the community make a difference.
CJDS / LA REVUE 11
Unemployment, many (Franco-)Mauritians told me (Salverda 2015a, 145–147), is vir-
tually absent from the Franco-Mauritian community. The fact that so many Franco-
Mauritians find good employment and are not unemployed or to be found among
working-class employees (Eriksen 1998, 62) is related to Franco-Mauritian networks.
A Franco-Mauritian businessman said, ‘as a Franco-Mauritian you can always contact
a relative or other Franco-Mauritian to inquire after a job for your child’. Hence, the
Franco-Mauritian community as a whole has not suffered a lot economically from the
transition to postcolonial society, even if they find themselves in an ambiguous position
in a society that strongly emphasises ethnic difference.
The ambivalences of multiculturalism as an ideology in postcolonial
Mauritius
Although it emerged a couple decades prior to debates on multiculturalism in much of
the Global North, Mauritian multiculturalism is an evident example of the ‘recognition of
difference’, such as discussed in the work of Charles Taylor (1994) and Nancy Fraser
(2000). Following from the struggle over independence, though, Mauritian multicultur-
alism is by no means a reproduction of existing (colonial) configurations that –with a
moral aura of recognising differences –confirms rather than challenges inequalities,
such as in the case of Canada (Coulthard 2014). There is certainly a degree of distraction
from egalitarian redistribution in Mauritius (see Fraser 2000, 110), which would have
been less the case with a stronger focus on class. However, as among others the
example of the ‘democratisation of the economy’discussed below shows, the subject of
inequalities is not completely shunned in public debates. Rather, the case here is that
even if inequalities are recognised there are limits the extent to which these can be
addressed due the ideology of multiculturalism, which has been less debated in the scho-
larly literature.
It is evident, on the one hand, that after the demise of colonial and apartheid ideol-
ogies, the recognition of (ethnic) difference has complicated the situation for white
elites in postcolonial settings attempting to justify their privileges. Unlike elites nowadays
using meritocracy as an ideological argument to ‘justify’their position in other parts of
the world (e.g. Atria et al. 2020), this is understandably a more difficult direction to take
for ‘racial’elites. Following a reshuffle of political power in the transition to postcolonial
society, this consequently put wealthy white minorities in a complicated position. Zim-
babwe may be the prime example of physically expropriating white landowners (e.g.
Hartnack 2015), but also in South Africa and Mauritius many have come to realise
that whites continue to benefit economically despite a change of regime.
In the case of Mauritius, the Franco-Mauritians have learned from their limited poten-
tial to obtain (political) support and gradually a consensus has developed among Franco-
Mauritians that it is best not to attract too much attention and rather to remain politically
neutral. This is not to say that the majority of Hindus have been operating as one block
throughout the postcolonial period, given that they also compete with each other through
their involvement in various political parties. In their aims to gain the support of the
majority of Indo-Mauritians, however, politicians across various parties often use
(un)veiled ‘ethnic’messages, especially around elections (Salverda 2015a, 184–189).
For Franco-Mauritians these can be tense times, as in order to gain votes politicians
12 T. SALVERDA
may (indirectly) criticise Franco-Mauritian economic power in their campaigns –partly
because they know Franco-Mauritians tend to refrain from publicly responding. Once
the elections are over, most politicians tend to tone down their criticism again,
because in the end the private sector and the government need each other. The CEO
of one of the island’s most powerful family holdings told me, ‘when I’m having a
drink with politicians, they tell me that [the white-bashing, i.e. criticising the white
Franco-Mauritians] was just talking politics’. Yet to the surprise of many, after the elec-
tions of 2005 the critique continued with the government’s proposal to democratise the
economy. Although this appeared as a threat to the position of the Franco-Mauritians,
the episode equally highlights how, on the other hand, Franco-Mauritians benefit from
multiculturalism as an ideology.
Initially, the government proposal addressed the concentration of wealth and the need
to reverse the unequal distribution of land without any explicit reference to ethnicity. Yet
the government’s intentions and plans quickly became muddled and ‘ethnicised’.Asa
result, the government’s urge to restructure the economy was seen, especially also by
many non-Franco-Mauritians, as problematic. Hence, at the same time as the govern-
ment’s aim to reverse the concentration of wealth constituted a challenge to the
Franco-Mauritians, the emphasis on ethnicity distracted the attention away from
issues of inequality. In response to the government plans, various Mauritians raised con-
cerns in the media about the government’s intentions, to the extent that the government
was accused of resorting to ‘white-bashing’. Politicians, conversely, stressed that their
intentions were not ethnically motivated (Salverda 2015a,93–94, 186). Yet not only is
it difficult to avoid associations with ethnicity, since Franco-Mauritians still have an
unequal share of the island’s wealth, but it also appeared that the government’s intentions
were not only about the ‘pure’concentration of wealth. For example, the then Prime
Minister Navin Ramgoolam (the son of the island’sfirst Prime Minister) took the oppor-
tunity to associate Franco-Mauritian wealth with colonial injustices when he gave a
speech at Britain’s bicentennial celebrations of the abolition of slave trade in Hull in
the UK in 2007:
In my own country, it has left us with a distribution of wealth that is still skewed in favour of
those who benefited from slavery. One of the legacies of slavery, that continues to hamper
development, is the concentration of ownership of assets. This concentration is unfair in a
way but also gives rise to misallocation and inefficiency in the utilisation of resources and
impedes growth. My government is aiming to reform the national economic structure
and open doors of opportunity to the population at large. We will achieve this by enlarging
participation in mainstream activities and opening access to land ownership. As we see it,
the key to economic democratisation is empowerment.
The Prime Minister’s comments indicate that one of the underlying ideas was to offset
the perceived unfairness of a situation inherited from the colonial period. Yet as this
also clearly stressed the association between wealth and ethnicity, the ‘real issues’of mon-
opolies and unequal economic power, disregarding ethnic background, became silenced.
It was in response to this increasing pressure that several Franco-Mauritians felt the
rare urge to openly defend themselves. As kind of a public-relations exercise that stressed
their commitment to postcolonial multiculturalism they featured in a national radio
broadcast in 2007. Most of the Franco-Mauritians that participated not only explicitly
spoke the lingua Franca Kreol Morisien (even if their first language is mostly French),
CJDS / LA REVUE 13
but several also highlighted that they eat farrata, carry (national Mauritian dishes) and
piments (chillies). With these examples and use of Kreol Morisien they wanted, accord-
ingly, to make clear that they were as much part of Mauritian multiculturalism as other
Mauritians (Salverda 2015a, 187–188). At the same time, to reduce tensions, Franco-
Mauritian landowners reverted to a form of ‘defensive power’. The sugar industry,
despite its resistance to government plans to redistribute part of its land, eventually
gave in to some government demands. This was clearly a challenge to Franco-Mauri-
tian economic power; though the area of land ‘offered’to the government was relatively
small, it nevertheless helped to ease the tension (Salverda 2013). Partly as a result of
giving in to government demands, further intentions to democratise the economy
gradually faded without actually reversing the island’s unequal distribution of
wealth. Of particular importance to understanding inequality in postcolonial Mauritius,
though, is that there were also limits to what the government could do to further
reverse Franco-Mauritian privileges, due to the widely-shared ideological belief in mul-
ticulturalism as the foundation of postcolonial society (Ng Tseung-Wong and Verkuy-
ten 2015).
Inequalities of private expressions of ethnicity
Despite Franco-Mauritians not being a homogeneous group, with its members having a
variety of interests, habits and practices, many move around in closely connected infor-
mal networks. Interviews and ethnographic engagement with them, as I have extensively
analysed in Salverda 2015a, revealed that they meet each other at the same exclusive sport
clubs and attend the same private schools. They spend their weekends and holidays at the
seaside with their cousins and other Franco-Mauritians. Accordingly, from early child-
hood onwards most Franco-Mauritians grow up in an environment enclosed by their
community. Many do have friends from other communities, but these tend to number
just a few among large groups of Franco-Mauritians, and almost all their closest
friends are Franco-Mauritians, whom they have known for years. As a result of these
informal networks and social patterns, many Franco-Mauritians eventually marry
other Franco-Mauritians, or overseas white partners.
These Franco-Mauritian customs are hardly frowned upon, as respecting a level of
separateness, particularly in the private sphere, confirms the logics of multicultural
society according to most Mauritians (Eriksen 1998). In the words of Patrick Eisenlohr
(2011, 262), peaceful coexistence through accepting and promoting ethnic and religious
pluralism is considered a ‘supreme common good’in Mauritius. Following from this,
there is widespread consensus among different ethnic groups about the role and func-
tioning of ethnicity in daily life. As a Franco-Mauritian said, ‘every community tends
to stay in its own community.’Hence, the practice of ethnic endogamy and ‘in-group
closure in the intimate sphere’(Ng Tseung-Wong and Verkuyten 2015, 691) are
hardly challenged, since these practices and patterns are part and parcel of all Mauritian
communities. Central to this analysis is that these ideological beliefs about ethnic differ-
ences and homogeneity also influence mutual acceptance of other communities’claims to
ethnic homogeneity. Criticising Franco-Mauritian marriage and social patterns, then,
would potentially jeopardise the overall cohesion of Mauritian society and even one’s
own political position.
14 T. SALVERDA
In postcolonial politics, many politicians equally benefit from the image of ethnic
homogeneity, as they still often draw political support from their ‘ethnic’communities.
Accordingly, they have little interest in challenging the social dynamics of ethnicity to
their full extent, even if these dynamics unmistakably determine political, economic,
and wealth outcomes. In the case of the Franco-Mauritians, for example, private
expressions of ethnicity are inextricably linked with business practices. Socio-cultural
exclusivity of marriage and social patterns tends to perpetuate Franco-Mauritian
business networks in the private sector as well, so that Franco-Mauritian employees rela-
tively easily find employment. Yet even when politicians openly criticise exclusive
business advantages, such as in the case of the democratisation of the economy, they
tend to be reluctant to discuss how these advantages are embedded in social dynamics
of (Franco-)Mauritian life on the island. Following from newspaper analyses and inter-
views with various journalists and politicians, I noticed that numerous social (sports)
clubs known for being almost exclusively white are hardly publicly critiqued, as other
communities equally favour their exclusive spaces (Salverda 2015a, 126–131). Criticising
these and other informal Franco-Mauritian spaces (of separateness) would be perceived
as a challenge to the widespread acceptance of the role of ethnicity in daily life and jeo-
pardise the postcolonial ideology of multiculturalism –and, conversely, also potentially
undermine politicians’own electoral benefits. As much as the emphasis on ethnicity
limits Franco-Mauritian potential to argue that they act in the common interest, then,
it also facilitates the acceptance of the maintenance of exclusivity. Though they may
have to revert to redistributing part of their wealth and privileges from time to time,
the ideology of multiculturalism has in ambiguous ways also come to favour them.
They may constitute only 1 per cent of the population, but they continue to have a domi-
nant position in the island’s present-day economy due to the fact that the organisation of
their private and social life is not –and by virtue of defending the cohesion of Mauritian
society cannot be –criticised.
Conclusion
The transition from the colonial to the postcolonial period in Mauritius offers a good
lens to analyse how ideological patterns may transform in the process, and the extent to
which they sustain and/or challenge the position of the wealthy. Building upon, among
others, Piketty’s analysis of ideologies, this contribution highlights that the wealthy
cannot take for granted that their ruling-class ideologies sufficiently distract from
inequalities. Ideologies, as discussed by Piketty, are undoubtedly key to constructing
an image conveying that elites care about others and/or that their wealth is beneficial
to society at large. Yet alone they do not appear sufficient to ‘convince’society. Ideol-
ogies only imperfectly prevent societal objections to inequality, and in addition, the
powerful are required to continually engage in repair and recuperation (Morgan,
Quack, and Hirsch 2015, 2).
The ways in which the wealthy engage with society in the face of challenges further
matters regarding the development of ideological directions, as this case shows. Struggles
between elite and non-elite parts of society may lead to fairer and more democratic out-
comes, yet may simultaneously hardly reverse the foundations of the elite’s wealth and
privileges. The Franco-Mauritian example shows, however, that this is often not a
CJDS / LA REVUE 15
straightforward process, with the established elite manoeuvring between resistance and
giving in to (some) opponents’demands. Key lessons that can be drawn from this regard-
ing the maintenance of wealth are, firstly, that even when the wealthy may face a (slight)
reduction of their wealth and power as a result, the process of defending and giving in
often allows them to continue the control over sufficient amounts of resources, too. Sec-
ondly, the demise of ruling-class ideologies does not necessarily spark the end of elites –
or related inequalities.
Central to understanding the Franco-Mauritian case is that they have benefited from
the continuation of a particular economic system, not the least because postcolonial pol-
itical leaders have continued to ideologically support global capitalism. As a result, the
(colonial legacy of) ownership of land on the island has never been seriously reconsid-
ered. To fully understand this, however, it is important to consider the fact that out of
struggle over independence a ‘new’ideology emerged that further limits the potential
for redistribution. A particularly interesting conclusion from the Mauritian case is
that, at the same time as the ideology of multiculturalism is widely approved of and ‘pro-
tects’the social cohesion in postcolonial Mauritius, it is, in ambiguous ways, beneficial to
the Franco-Mauritians. Minor attempts to redistribute the land, such as in the case of the
democratisation of the economy in the aftermath of the 2005 elections, accordingly tend
to remain just that: minor attempts.
Hence, of relevance to understanding the working of ideologies in multi-ethnic, post-
colonial societies in the Global South, and potentially also to societies elsewhere, is that a
struggle over (colonial) inequalities may at the same time shape an ideological setting in
which many more reap the benefits and sustain the maintenance of the wealth and pri-
vileges of elites –not necessarily because the wealth and privileges of the latter are
justified, but because reversing them may mainly be possible only at the cost of
harming the ideological foundation of postcolonial society. In the case of Mauritius,
control over the private sector and employment opportunities without doubt continue
to change in favour of other Mauritians. Yet this happens slowly and without open ideo-
logical challenges. What the Mauritian case shows, then, is that in a context of amplified
ethnic, but probably also religious and cultural differences, wealth can be maintained
even without much (direct) societal support. The wealthy do not really need a ruling-
class ideology and/or fully embrace a (new) more common ideology when the phenom-
enon itself (ethnicity in this case) is widely accepted, because it reflects the organisation of
social life more generally. The intimate connections between informal spaces of social
and private life and formal spaces of business and politics that determine the perpetu-
ation of wealth are, then, largely left out of the equation in exchange for the maintenance
of peace.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Tijo Salverda is an applied anthropologist (see www.tijosalverda.nl) and guest professor at the
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2023-2024). His ethnographic research
16 T. SALVERDA
focuses on elites, inequality, and corporate actors, including how they interact with counterpower.
Salverda’s publications include The Franco-Mauritian Elite: Power and Anxiety in the Face of
Change (Berghahn Books, 2015), The Anthropology of Elites (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and
‘Facing Criticism: An Analysis of (Land-Based) Corporate Responses to the Large-Scale Land
Acquisition Countermovement’(Journal of Peasant Studies, 2019).
ORCID
Tijo Salverda http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4668-9838
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