The most elementary definition of a caste is the constant reproduction of an occupation through hereditary transmission. Now, there are no occupations in the country that fit in with this definition. Except for one: politics. Here, increasingly, the politics of the country is coming to resemble a caste in the classical sense of the word.

The MMM (‘most democratic party in the world’) just released a tentative list of candidates for the upcoming election. Two names stand out: one is Joanna Bérenger, the daughter of party Leader Paul Bérenger, who apparently the party is tentatively floating for No.16 (Vacoas/Floreal). But Joanna is not alone. She is joined by a son-in-law of Paul Bérenger (and another scion of a political family) Frédéric Curé, who the party is thinking of giving a ticket to in No.15 (La Caverne/Phoenix). Like most things MMM, the party seems to be engineering the rise of the family of Paul Bérenger while at the same time stubbornly denying that this is happening. This whittles down the one remaining distinction that sets the party apart from any other major party in the country. This influx of the Bérenger family within the party is happening as the question of who will succeed Paul Bérenger is looming and is creating a family nucleus within the MMM that is increasingly coming to resemble the role that the Duval family plays within the PMSD or that the Jugnauths play in the MSM. That family is becoming an increasingly important consideration within the MMM can be seen from the fact that when in 2017, the party fought a by-election in Quatre-Bornes, it sidelined a party veteran like Vijay Makhan in favour of Nita Juddoo, the daughter of Ramduth Juddoo, a former MMM heavyweight.  The basis of the choice was not political loyalty – Nita Juddoo has since kicked the MMM to the curb to join the MSM – but rather lineage.

Such meteoric rises of children while their fathers still run the party are present within every major party at the moment. Within the Labour Party, Arvin Boolell started his career in the party while his father, Satcam Boolell, still held the reins of the party. And since the beginning of this year, the Labour Party has invested quite a lot in kick-starting the political career of Fabrice David, the son of former Labour secretary general and minister, James Burty David.

The PMSD is another case in point: although Xavier Duval’s rise was not exactly engineered by his father Gaëtan Duval (the two famously crossed swords in 1995 and set up their own independent outfits), Xavier Duval has engineered the spectacular rise of his own son, Adrien Duval, who was given a party ticket in 2014 and still in his late 20s, was made the deputy speaker of parliament.

And need we mention the MSM? Pravind Jugnauth was given a ticket by his father, Anerood Jugnauth in 2000 and made an agriculture minister until 2003, when he was then made finance minister until 2005. The next time Anerood Jugnauth became prime minister in December 2014, he this time made his own son prime minister in 2017.

By reproducing itself in this way, with fathers bequeathing political power to their children and relatives, politics is fast becoming transformed into a caste in the classical sense. This has been going on for some time, the proportion of MPs related to earlier MPs started steadily rising in the 1980s and 1990s until 2010-2014, when nearly 35 per cent of all MPs were descendants and relatives of previous MPs. 2014 was an outlier since an underdog MSM-ML was doling out tickets left and right to whoever would take them, but if the elevation of Joanna Bérenger, Frédéric Curé and Fabrice David is any indication, the gradual transformation of politicians into a caste looks set to continue.

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