India – Mauritius bilateral relations

The relationship between Mauritius and India date back to the early 1730s, when artisans were brought from Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. Diplomatic relations between India and Mauritius were established in 1948. Mauritius maintained contacts with India through successive Dutch, French and British occupation.

From the 1820s, Indian workers started coming into Mauritius to work on sugar plantations. From 1834 when slavery was abolished by the British Parliament, large numbers of Indian workers began to be brought into Mauritius as indentured labourers.

On 2 November 1834 the ship named ‘Atlas’ docked in Mauritius carrying the first batch of Indian indentured labourers. This day is now observed in Mauritius as ‘Aapravasi Day’. In all, about half a million Indian indentured labourers are estimated to have been brought into Mauritius between 1834 and the early decades of the 20th century, out of whom about two-thirds settled permanently in Mauritius.

In Mauritius they were embarked at the Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis, the site effectively acted as Mauritius’ security guarantor, and occupies a role in Mauritian security which a US report has assessed as Mauritius’ “willing subordination to India.” A key turning point in the relationship came in 1983, when India came to the point of military intervention in Mauritius in Operation Lal Dora to ensure that it stayed in India’s strategic orbit. In 2015, Indian Prime Minister signed an agreement to set up eight Indian-controlled coastal surveillance radar stations.