The Leader of the Opposition Arvin Boolell is an anti-India fanatic. That is, if the Minister of Financial Services Mahen Seeruttun is to be believed. Referring to Boolell’s criticisms of the Hyperpharm scandal where the company is accused of illegally importing sub-standard drugs from India, Seeruttun on 14 July declared in parliament, “I don’t know what he (Boolell -ed.) has against India” Seeruttun said, lustily blowing the communal dog whistle, “he has been hammering on India for a few years now”. This is not the first time a government minister has draped himself in the Indian flag when under fire, but in the case of Seeruttun it takes on an irony that’s overwhelming. 

Remember the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2016 that wiped out nearly 10 per cent of the livestock in Mauritius and Rodrigues? In September that same year the government, then headed by Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth, commissioned a fact-finding committee under the Ministry of Agro-industry then headed by Seeruttun himself to look into what caused the outbreak. The report concluded in 2016 that the disease made its way through frozen buffalo meat imported from India to Rodrigues, from where it spread to livestock in Mauritius as well. How didit manage to come from India? This is where the report noted “disturbing elements”, most notably the fact that unlike all countries importing meat from Indian abattoirs, Seeruttun’s ministry refused to send inspectors to assess the quality of meat being sent to Mauritius. Why? The report noted it was because Seeruttun concluded that such inspections “could have been perceived as a lack of trust in the Indian Authorities by Mauritius”. And so as inevitably as night follows day, infected meat made its way to Mauritius and caused an outbreak. The inspections were necessary, the report concluded because although India had good abattoirs, it also has bad ones which is why quality inspections and control is necessary. Pretty much the same argument that Boolell is making about pharmaceutical products imported by Hyperpharm today. 

So what kind of abattoirs did Seeruttun import meat from that caused the outbreak? No one knows because the report went on to lament, “It is a matter of regret that the Committee was not authorized to investigate in India from where the Foot and Mouth Disease virus clearly originated before it reached Rodrigues”. In other words Seeruttun did not allow his own officials to find out where he was getting the meat from.

Did Seeruttun accuse his own ministry, the fact finding committee or indeed, Anerood Jugnauth whose cabinet commissioned the report in the first place, of anti-India animus? Obviously not. Seeruttun got away with the disastrous decision to halt inspections of Indian abattoirs supplying meat to Mauritius because little attention was paid to the report (still available on the website of the Ministry of Agro-Industry) and in any case, livestock does not figure high on the national radar. Nevertheless, Mauritius paid for that decision by losing 10 per cent of its livestock. 

The fact that today he is equating Boolell’s criticisms about Hyperpharm and the suppliers it is getting its medicines from with anti-India bias shows that Seeruttun seems to have learnt nothing from his own experience in 2016. And this is what makes his arguments in parliament so surreal. India bashing? No. Just petty politicians trying desperately to sidestep criticism by looking to, as usual, weaponize identity politics.