Religion and Pride

Hindus in Search of Recognition in La Réunion

Natalie Lang

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781800730281
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Intolérance religieuse, persécution et conflits

Seeking recognition presents an important driving force in the making of religious minorities, as is shown in this study that examines current debates on religion, globalization, diaspora, and secularism through the lens of Hindus living in the French overseas department of La Réunion. Through the examination of religious practices and public performance, the author offers a compelling study of how the Hindus of the island assert pride in their religion as a means of gaining recognition, self-esteem, and social status.

CHAPTER 1

(Im)mobile in the Indian Ocean

Reunionese history is important to many of its people, and sharing knowledge about one’s ancestral backgrounds can be a particularly sensitive issue. In discussing their history, Reunionese may sound apologetic about the stories of their ancestors, many of whom were slaves or indentured laborers, or they speak proudly about their achievements in difficult conditions. While some Reunionese today do not discuss their ancestors—or at least those considered undesirable—others dedicate remembrance and worship rituals to them. Some undertake genealogical research to trace their names and geographical backgrounds and claim ancestral relations with different places in the world. Some of those Reunionese who emphasize their ancestral relations to India search for documents that prove their Indian descent to apply for a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) or Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status, which would allow Reunionese Hindus to visit or work in India without a visa and to make certain investments there, and some even to claim to be of “pure” Indian descent. Given the importance of La Réunion’s past to contemporary ways of identification, I sketch some key historical developments with respect to the situation of Reunionese Hindus in this chapter.

Mobility and immobility have played a significant role in shaping these developments. The island’s geographical distance from but structural connection to Metropolitan France, as well as Reunionese Hindus’ ancestral connections to India have facilitated somewhat ambiguous relations with these places at various stages in history. I will describe these in three parts. I first situate La Réunion in the colonial migratory movements of the southwestern Indian Ocean with a focus on Indian indenture. In the second part, I show how the multiple possibilities for identification that Reunionese Hindus have today, including “double” or “multiple” religiosity, emerged in the context of métissage (ethnic mixing or mixed ethnic origins) and interactions between religious traditions, and therein the powerful position of the Catholic Church. In the third part, I trace the emergence of a new orientation toward India in the second half of the twentieth century, and show how inclinations toward India do not exclude the appreciation of locally created traditions. In the fourth section, I provide an overview of Hindu temples, deities, and festivals in La Réunion. I conclude the chapter by linking the theme of (im)mobility to a widespread perception of a historical development of Hindu religion on the island, from the stigma of accusations of sorcery to a source of pride.

Immigration and Indenture

Migration has shaped relations of all kinds in the Indian Ocean region and is a key characteristic of La Réunion’s history. The island’s changing names, including “Ile Bourbon,” “Ile Bonaparte,” and today’s official name of “Ile de La Réunion” reflect different discoverers and rulers. Uninhabited until visitors arrived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the island featured the first historically recorded settlements in 1663. The group of settlers, which consisted of two French and seven Madagascans, was followed by 220 French colonists in the following two years (Ève 2001: 13; Gerbeau 1997), who mostly came from the northern and western coasts of France (Barat 1989b: 16).

According to the records, the first migrants from India arrived soon after. Fifteen prisoners of war arrived in 1672 and at least thirteen Indo-Portuguese women were brought to La Réunion in 1678 to marry European settlers. From early on, colonizers used slave labor, with slaves coming from Madagascar, Mozambique, and Zanzibar in East Africa, as well as from some other places, including India. In 1687, an Indian slave became the first documented slave to be sold; and in 1703, the slave trade with India was made official. Slaves worked as artisans, cooks, shoemakers, or domestic workers. In addition, laborers from India entered into contracts to work as carpenters, masons, bakers, and so on (Gerbeau 1997: 37–38; Marimoutou-Oberlé 2008: 131–32). The majority of laborers, however, would be engaged in the cultivation and processing of sugar cane.

Having produced coffee since the early eighteenth century, and having tried to cultivate tobacco, indigo, cotton, clove, nutmeg, and cocoa with little success (Ève 2001: 29–32), La Réunion entered the sugar industry in 1815. Sugar production quickly came to dominate economic, political, and social life on the island (see Fuma 1989). In creating demand for a massive labor force, which was recruited through the systems of slavery and indenture, the sugar industry led to huge waves of migration. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1817, the clandestine slave trade to La Réunion continued until 1830, and slavery continued until 1848. After the abolition of slavery in 1848, East Africa, Madagascar, China, and primarily India, served as sources for indentured laborers. Colonists had already started to import indentured laborers from India in 1829. After the abolition of slavery, the number of Indian indentured laborers increased dramatically. Between 1674 and 1830, and between 1829 and 1881, nearly ten thousand Indian slaves and over 110,000 Indian indentured laborers were brought to La Réunion respectively (Fuma 1999: 8–37).

Although over half the laborers who arrived in 1829–30 returned to India after two years (Fuma 1999: 22–23), Jean-Régis Ramsamy-Nadarassin estimates that only 10 to 25 percent of indentured Indians were repatriated (2012: 195). In a contract issued in 1828, indenture was set for three years (this became five years in later contracts) and, should the laborer wish to return to India before the contract ended, the government of Bourbon would pay for the journey (Lacpatia 2009: 39). While planters readily allowed old and weak workers to return to India, landlords often gave healthy laborers advances to marry or to spend in the plantation’s shop, for example. With outstanding debts to the landlord, laborers could be tied into extending their contracts (Fuma 1999: 55, Marimoutou-Oberlé 1999: 89). Indentured laborers were also discouraged from returning to India by long waiting times for boats (often several months) and by moral pressure. These pressures and delays led many to renew their contracts, despite their wishes to return home (Fuma 1999: 145). Michèle Marimoutou-Oberlé suggests that even this low percentage of documented repatriations may be much higher than the reality, as there is a remarkable correspondence between rates of return and death in the period from 1860 to 1876. The difficult working conditions and the maltreatment by planters, as well as the difficulty of leaving the island once they had arrived, led to a high suicide rate. Suicide, it seems, may have been perceived as a way to return to India, as the saying Malbar mouri Bourbon, lèvé Madras suggests (The Malbar dies in Bourbon and is reborn in Madras, my translation, Fuma 2010: 77).

In contrast to colonies with high numbers of North Indian immigrants like Mauritius or Trinidad, most Indian indentured laborers in La Réunion came from South India. While the neighboring island Mauritius received migrant workers from many parts of British India, the majority of the Indian population in La Réunion—no less than 93.5 percent between 1860 and 1882—came from South India (Marimoutou-Oberlé 1999: 28). Even though some laborers were also brought from Calcutta, Yanaon, Karikal, Mahé, Cochin, Goa, and Bombay (Lacpatia 2009: 8), the majority came from Pondicherry and Madras (Barat 1989a: 163).

In contrast to African indentured laborers, who were contracted to work on the plantations for ten years, Indian laborers, protected by their British citizenship, mostly had five-year contracts. Furthermore, Indian laborers were more familiar with Western colonial administration and were therefore more likely than their African counterparts to address legal issues through “syndics.” Indeed, records show that Indian indentured laborers lodged a number of complaints about unpaid salaries, an insecure food supply, repatriation, and physical abuse, among other things (Fuma 1999: 36–37, 93–141). However, the British administration repeatedly interfered in French recruitment and indenture, criticizing the treatment of Indian indentured laborers in La Réunion (Prudhomme 1984: 311–12), and eventually ended the transportation of Indian indentured laborers to La Réunion in 1882 (Fuma 1999). The last arrival of indentured laborers from French India took place in 1885 (Fuma 2010: 76). With Indian immigration coming to a standstill, planters tried even harder to prevent their workers from repatriating—with labor contracts still being issued as late as 1918.

A number of historians have looked at the conditions of the indenture system with regard to the question of free versus forced decisions, especially in comparison with slavery. Recruiters, called Mestrys in South India, often used fraudulent methods to convince Indians to sign a contract (Lacpatia 2009: 66–67), while the living and working conditions of indentured laborers were little better than those of former slaves, which prompted historian Hugh Tinker to call the system of indenture “a new system of slavery” (1974). Other historians, by contrast, argue for a more balanced account ascribing more agency to the laborers (Bates 2000; Carter 1997). Crispin Bates and Marina Carter also warn historians about the potential to overlook the fact that colonialist accounts usually pursued motives to either justify or criticize existing policies. Especially after the opening of migration to La Réunion, Natal, and other colonies from the 1860s, one should read criticisms in historical sources in the context of increased competition between interested parties, such as between Mauritian and French colonialists (Bates and Carter 1993).

Rather than continuing the discussion about whether indenture presents a new system of slavery or not, it is interesting to consider the perspectives on indenture of recruiters and the recruited. For example, as the recruitment and embarkation procedures for convict transportation throughout the Indian Ocean were used for indentured laborers, the two kinds of migration became blurred, both institutionally and in the imaginations of colonial administrators and Indian migrants. Rumors reflected fears of permanent separation, religious restrictions, and forced conversion to Christianity (Anderson 2009).

Nevertheless, there were important reasons to migrate, especially with poverty, oppression, and agrarian distress in India. Droughts led to frequent famines that affected all social classes. Furthermore, rapid agrarian transition increased stratification. For instance, British efforts to ensure steady agrarian revenue concentrated control over land and other resources in the hands of local dominant groups, making survival in the agrarian economy for all but large landowners all the more difficult (Washbrook 1994).

The various reasons for migration also explain the range of caste backgrounds of those arriving in La Réunion, which include many who had not previously carried out agricultural work (Marimoutou-Oberlé 1999: 18–19). Although historical documents are sparse, Ramsamy-Nadarassin has shown that the names of Reunionese of Indian descent reveal diverse caste backgrounds, also including artisans and merchants. While he only found one example of a Brahmin immigrant, he did find evidence of a considerable number of Indian immigrants with name suffixes like -poullé, -pillai, -reddy, and -atchy, which he associates with land-related castes (Ramsamy-Nadarassin 2006: 78–81). However, historical sources suggest that socially mobile peasants of low caste background adopted the title Pillai in India in the early twentieth century (see Ramaswamy 2017: 268). It is probable that several immigrants to La Réunion changed their names during the registration processes to avoid revealing their low caste status.

In addition to Indian immigrants who arrived within the systems of slavery and indenture, three other forms of Indian immigration should be mentioned, although they produced fewer immigrants. First, Gujarati Muslims (predominantly Sunni) from Mauritius and originally from the region of Surat came to La Réunion to set up the textile trade between approximately the 1850s and 1870s (Issop-Banian 2010: 106–7). It has been estimated that their descendants make up 5 to 7 percent of the Reunionese population today.¹ Second, when French Indian Pondicherry became part of India, and Pondicherrians could choose between Indian and French citizenship in 1962, some Pondicherrians who chose French citizenship—many of them officials—came to live in La Réunion. Third, some Madagascans of Indian descent immigrated to La Réunion in the 1970s (Ramsamy-Nadarassin 2012: 12).

In addition to French, African, Madagascan, and Indian immigrants, two other major migrant groups have contributed to the makeup of Reunionese society today: Chinese and Comorian immigrants. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the development of the tertiary sector attracted Chinese immigrants from Canton and the Hong Kong area who established themselves in retail trade (Barat 1989b: 24). Migrants from the Comoros, in particular since the 1970s, present one the most recent waves of migration.

Even without considering these diverse migration experiences in more detail, it is evident that mobility is a key characteristic of La Réunion’s history. But immobility is also an important theme, particularly in relation to Indian indentured laborers once they had arrived in La Réunion. In contrast to the focus on a long period of sparse contact between La Réunion and India in most literature on Reunionese Hindus, Carter (1997) and Bates (2000) point out that previous historical research often overlooked the important role of returning migrants and recruiting networks. While Bates and Carter reveal Indian migrants’ continued contact with India evident through letters and other documents, there is little historical evidence to suggest that Indian immigrants in La Réunion attempted to maintain contact with India. One exception is Indian immigrant Ramsamy Moutoussamy Naiken’s 1879 attempt to establish a mutual aid company that would send deceased people’s possessions and support back to their families in India (Ramsamy-Nadarassin 2006: 99). Although there might have been more contact than historical sources suggest, the discourse about having been cut off from India is widespread in La Réunion today. In the following section, I describe how the Indian immigrants’ beliefs and practices developed under these circumstances.

Assimilation and New Creations Far from India

Several important factors impacted the development of Hindu practices in La Réunion, including French assimilationist politics, a powerful Catholic Church, the distance from India, métissage, and contact with different religious traditions. The French colonial model in La Réunion, which aimed at social integration and assimilation, is often contrasted with the British colonial model (in Mauritius, for example), which is typically understood as more liberal and tolerant toward cultural diversity. Those who stayed in La Réunion after indenture had to undergo formal assimilation, with French naturalization of immigrants’ children born on the island established by law in 1889. This law disregarded the French-British convention of 1860, which should have protected the immigrants’ nationality and provided them the right to return to India (Fuma 1999: 72–73).

However, French assimilationist policies did not stop Indian indentured laborers’ religious practices. Slaves did not have the right to practice religion. As instructed by the king of France in 1664, Catholicism was the only religion to be practiced in territories administered by the Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales (Ève 2001: 49). In contrast to slaves, indentured laborers had less severe conditions. According to the regulations of the first arrival of indentured laborers from India in 1829, planters had to provide workers with a site to celebrate religious festivals. Funeral rites and inheritance customs were also to be respected (Fuma 1999: 15). Laborers were released for four days in January to celebrate Pongal, a Tamil harvest festival, even if they were actually only free after 9 o’clock in the morning, having completed dai...