All hail Pravind Jugnauth, man of the people and remover of obstacles! After nearly two weeks of the hunger strike dominating the news cycle, the prime minister came up with his usual solution to every issue presented to him, which is to get on his knees and beg for more money from India. He is expected to come back from his trip with the promise of reimbursement for investors in the Super Cash Back Gold (SCBG) scheme and that our country won’t be renamed Little India in the near future.

The prime minister has stuck rigidly to his script based on the basic narrative structure of a hero’s journey, which is a common template in various mythologies. The structure usually involves the main protagonist going on an adventure, where he faces significant difficulty. After a lot of twists and turns, the protagonist overcomes the difficulty, comes back home and is hailed a hero. Does this story ring any bells?

Well, in all honesty, one would be hard pressed to find someone hailing Jugnauth as a hero if he comes back with the money of the SCBG investors irrespective of the narrative structure he has chosen to adopt. The prime minister always had the option of heading to India to beg for money. He did it for Heritage City, which eventually turned into investment for the Metro Express. We also have money from India for school tablets, for a new hospital and even for a modern headquarters for the National Coast Guard. 

While feigning cynicism could be a national sport in Mauritius, there is no need to simulate anything here. Does anyone actually believe that Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, is giving us billions of rupees out of the goodness of his heart? However, Jugnauth does not seem to care and for now we have no way of doing anything about it (except for a hunger strike maybe?).  

There is an inherent tinge of disappointment with every major decision that our prime minister takes. We are currently stuck with a passive-aggressive leader who is unfathomably desperate to be in the good books of another oppressive head of government in Modi. Regardless of our historical ties with India, we have no lessons to take from their government. It is still a country where wealth inequality is the second worst in the world, where the inability of the government to deal with water shortages causes over 5,000 farmers’ suicides every year and where ethnic differences are still a measure of social hierarchy. 

International relations might be a tricky affair but if every hero’s journey that Jugnauth undertakes leads him to India, we are heading into dangerous waters. For every ‘gift’ we get from the magnanimous Modi, we lose a little bit of something. We just don’t know what it is we are losing yet.  

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